this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 153 points 1 year ago (29 children)

I always wonder if Russia would collapse, if suddenly a lot of the disinfo & hate on various online media would become noticeably quieter.

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 90 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That partially already happened at the start of the war. There was a massive "brain drain" among the higher educated part of society, which did include a bunch of hackers. Why live inside russia these days when you can move elsewhere and get paid better?

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[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago

As I recall there was a period a couple years back where Russia was cut off from the greater internet and a lot of interesting things got quieter, including r/conservative on Reddit.

[–] IntrepidIceIgloo@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

there's also iran, I wouldn't be surprised if north korea and china also have bot farms, and then even in america evangelical christians fund shady hate operations around the world too

[–] jcit878@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

its well known china has an enormous online presence set around spreading misinformation, and of course the worlds best 'whataboutisms' you are ever likely to see

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[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

We actually did see this at the start of the war. When Russia was dealing with the new sanction and shifting focus from the west to Ukraine.

Probably. They've managed use throughput using bots, but if the government collapsed the bit farms would stop receiving funding, and the entire project would either wither away or be wiped away by a new state trying to replace the instruments of the old.

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[–] SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social 145 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Russia has the last laugh since they confiscated 3 copies of The Sims 3.

[–] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 32 points 1 year ago

Lemmygrad just lost half of its users.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still can’t believe that happened

[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Localhorst86@lemmy.world 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

recollecting from memory: Early in the war, russian news reported they busted a nazi hideout in the occupied donbass region. The report was accompanied by a picture of swastika flags, nazi tshirts, 3 copies of the "Sims 3" game and a document signed with "Illegible". All layed out neatly on a bed.

Apparently, the instructions for staging the photo was to include Nazi paraphenalia, 3 SIM Cards and a document with an illegible signature. And someone didn't read the instructions properly (or took them too literal), and instead used 3 copies of Sims 3, as well as a document signed with the name "illegible"

[–] Interesting_Test_814@jlai.lu 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Iirc the illegible signature part was debunked as it was a reference to some nazi group whose signature was "illegible" (don't quote me on that, i'm recollecting from memory). But the Sims 3 cards was at some NotTheOnion levels of ridiculousness.

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[–] SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (6 children)

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gpmg/russia-sims-3

It almost makes less sense WITH context.

Before anyone asks, yes, russia really is that dumb.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“We’re lucky they’re so stupid”

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Ukraine will never recover from that crushing blow. Without The Sims 3, those 3 soldiers will surely turn against Zelensky.

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[–] harbo@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Daily comment to say fuck Russia

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[–] HeavenAndHell@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Musk just lost 150K sycophants.

[–] shalva97@lemmy.sdfeu.org 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] d4rknusw1ld@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Hopefully the conservative channels get quite a bit.

[–] Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How does this have negative three comments??

[–] DannyMac@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Looks like a bug! For me, from lemmy.world's web interface, it is -1 as of this posting.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As the saying goes, there are two fundamentally difficult things about programming:

  1. cache coherence
  2. coming up with good names for things
  3. off-by-one errors

Negative comment counts are likely caused by the latter.

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[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 year ago (4 children)

why are these are being set up in Ukraine and not Russia? What do they gain from having them within reach of the Ukrainian police?

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 53 points 1 year ago (8 children)

My guess is that it'd make it look like it were actual ukrainians spreading the disinfo, as the IP wouldn't show russian addresses. Could also be that Ukraine is blocking internet traffic from Russia, so being there is a way to bypass the block.

I fully expect the assholes behind said farms to be safely within russian territory, so they're just sighing and shrugging as having to set up a new base.

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[–] deliux@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago

Better infrastructure and access to tech would be my guess

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[–] Thann@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

be interesting to see how much the usership of lemmygrad drops lol

(and the rest of lemmy)

[–] maiskanzler@feddit.de 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Nah, lemmy is too small of a circlejerk to really be a target for these people. I don't think instances require working phone numbers for account creation anyway.

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[–] InternetTubes@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's a million in SIM cards. And then people still go and mock anyone who dares suggest that troll factories are present in discussions.

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[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I'd be interested in seeing exactly what messages this farm was putting out. Lists of accounts and what networks they primarily operated on would also be very interesting.

[–] nostalgicgamerz@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I saw on yahoo about pringles being in Belarus a comment about how Pringles was killing “Nazzis” in Ukraine. Makes we wonder if that shit was from Russia

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