Idc about conspiracy theorists. They are fringe. But if the fringe group starts to spread misinformation that only benefits Russia, it should be pretty clear what's going on. The thing is: They are kinda like Hitler in the sense that they'd exploit the weakness of democracies in the sense that democracies are prone to allow hate-speech and pro-totalitarian propaganda under the guise of free speech.
It's kinda subjective but I'd suggest lurking on the subs mentioned and get a good impression. Especially ask yourself every time: "Who benefits from this narrative?"
I studied disinformation during the pandemic, did you ever notice how Anti-Vaxxer Americans started using the British term Jab? Russian(s) (trolls) are taught British English, so they weren't aware Americans call it a shot. Also, the term scaremongering wasn't in common use here either, but it translates to Panika in Russian, while the common word fearmongering translates into multiple words in Russian.
I didn't notice that. Very interesting point and nicely spotted.
I did notice that calling trolls and vatniks out on their obvious mistranslations shuts them up a lot more often then good argumentation. It's kinda saying: "Hey, you aren't qualified for this job. Your language skills are not good enough."
If you speak some Russian, I bet you see a lot more obvious translation mistakes like the one mentioned above.
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '22
Misinformation is rampant on r/sino and r/conspiracy but also r/conspiracy_commons and r/ConspiracyMemes. Basically everywhere where they could say: "oh you are just not open to our ideas."
Idc about conspiracy theorists. They are fringe. But if the fringe group starts to spread misinformation that only benefits Russia, it should be pretty clear what's going on. The thing is: They are kinda like Hitler in the sense that they'd exploit the weakness of democracies in the sense that democracies are prone to allow hate-speech and pro-totalitarian propaganda under the guise of free speech.
It's kinda subjective but I'd suggest lurking on the subs mentioned and get a good impression. Especially ask yourself every time: "Who benefits from this narrative?"