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Comment by eiaoa | Hacker News Reader

> how on earth does it benefit Russia to pay people to perform the actions that 4chan people do? I can't imagine posting edgy memes and attempting to "trigger the libs" is a national marketing/propaganda/outreach strategy.

Modern day Russia propaganda isn't about trying to convince Americans to take a Russia's POV or have a favorable view of it. It's about sowing generalized discord, mistrust, and internal conflict to weaken the US as a whole. Anything that inflames divisions is useful to that goal, even "trigger the libs" memeing.

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if that's the case then surely Russia has agents masquerading as the far left too? After all if you're just pretending to be far right to enrage the left you're leaving half your strategy at the door.

> if that's the case then surely Russia has agents masquerading as the far left too? After all if you're just pretending to be far right to enrage the left you're leaving half your strategy at the door.

If you weren't aware, Russia did have its agents masquerading as the far left too:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-you-found-in-3-mil...

https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/russian-trolls-are-obse...

I wasn't aware, I've only really seen the usual narrative that Russian bots are acting as the right wing. Thanks for the links, I'll check that out.

> if that's the case then surely Russia has agents masquerading as the far left too?

Yes; that's well established (while it's less talked about, the 2016 operation included promotion of Stein and Sanders as well as the more intense promotion of Trump, and also included false-flag promotion of in-person left-wing and right-wing demonstrations at the same time and place with the intent of fomenting political violence.)

Russia’s government also had connections to groups pushing “Calexit” after the election, including those pushing it as a defense against Trump.

Russia’s government also has connections, and has overtly funded, groups seeking restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy.

see, this is more interesting. I'm British so while I followed the election itself fairly closely I'd only really heard the mainstream narrative on the Russian bots, that they were there to get Trump elected because Trump was buddies with Putin. The idea of them fomenting chaos on both sides makes a lot more sense.

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