niall78

The art of destabilization through 'alternative news' and useful idiots (including (subtle) kompromat) is one which Russia did master quite aptly (on this subject they did successfully pull of concentrated/coordinated multi domain operations, unlike in their military 'special' operation), but like Steve and others mentioned the invasion in Ukraine undid a lot of their achievements. 
In the UK Nigel Farage is a good example. The man had quite some vocabulary gifts and at times I liked to listen to him trashing other politicians for a good laugh, but in my court he'd been tried for treason / given a public speaking ban for being a liability to national security. 
The difficulty on this subject is the fact we (West) are democracies and unfortunately in most of our democracies there are no hard laws or countermeasures against lobbying for funding from non-disclosed (or consciously vague) sources. Be they an industrial consortium/kartel or another nation state. The same goes for misinformation through 'news' websites/media.
Russia isn't alone in that regard. China is very active as well, as is Israel; although each with their own interests in mind, not necessarily destabilization. At the same time 'we' are also lobbying inside other countries for our interests (or what we think is good for others), through NGO's and other mediums. 

Nation states with less democratic tendencies tend to have more strict controls to do something about those efforts, while in our democracies it's usually protected free speech / freedom of mind unless it can be proven with a smoking gun that someone is being paid by an external source to provide misinformation to the public. 
In our country we had an example of this problem during the covid pandemic. Some samba dance teacher turned into a 'virus expert' and his misinformed ideas (or cognitive dissonance) gained massive traction because he said what some people wanted to hear. I was all for locking the man up until after the pandemic, but our own checks and balances made that difficult. Probably for the better, when looked at what happened in the '30s of the previous century not that far from here.

This (our 'freedom' being used against us by less free nation states) is a weakness of all democratic countries and probably needs to be addressed in this century if we hold democracy dear.

When the margins are that close a malicious actor can actually change the outcome. The thing is even if they fail to "get the result" they still win because they have sewn division that doesn't go away. Spending time managing those divisions takes time away from paying attention to said malicious actor.

There is a lot I could say on this matter and maybe I will if it is tolerated. To develop one of your themes, the orchestrators of misinformation have recognised the basic fallibility of a democracy in that we count all the votes.  The "enemy" targets segments of voters who may just be enough to swing a few percent and make a majority.
In the Brexit case the Brexit campaign targeted, among others, the anti-immigrant voters.  A future candidate for Prime Minister even looked the electorate straight in the eye and asserted that 80 million Turks were on their way.  In such segments people have a strong pre-existing bias and can be persuaded to elevate the issue to the top of their list and vote according to their instincts. Predisposed to bias, people do not want to deal with the facts because everybody brings their own facts to the fight in a democracy and so facts are relatively less important than their feelings.
Sovereignty was another segment -- English Exceptionalism.  Spending money on the Health Service another.
At the back of this is the money and effort spent over decades to compromise key influencers such that they can be pressured to broadcast the party line at the appropriate moment.  I think we all have our suspicions about these individuals and I have seen the compromise tactic being operated most systematically in China, but Russia is notorious too.  In China and Russia in the 90s they tried to compromise everybody who went there - you never know when it might come in handy.  Of course the best influencer is someone who may actually, plausibly, believe what he or she says but let us not underestimate the amount of blackmail going on.  In London we also have hard evidence of money changing hands.
In the Ukraine situation the game changer for me was when Poland opened the borders for the Ukrainian children with their mothers and grandmothers.  The EU followed and suddenly the russians were on the back foot both militarily and morally.  They never expected to lose the lightening attack on Kiev and never expected Europe to take ALL the refugees.  The fact that the children and families are safe must be a decisive morale booster for those who stayed to fight.  But the narrative changed too: Ukraine was seen by the majority to be fighting a just war, and while russian propaganda still seeks to engage swing voters they have lost the information war with the majority.

And even if it didn't push enough people to get over 50% they would have been close and the divisions would have remained a raw point in UK politics: Whatever Russia spent would still have been well invested.
As a Canadian I hate to think what a separation referendum would be like if it were held today instead of 1995. <shudder>

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

The EU didn't even figure in polls in the UK about things bothering the public. Came in after the top ten concerns in the years before the Brexit vote.
Once the troll farms went to work that changed dramatically. This worked by specifically targeting lower education voters and voters that leaned towards conspiracy theories. With the results seen.
The UK's own reports showed there was no loss of sovereignty in the EU - it was all just bullsh1t.
You get the same "loss" of sovereignty joining any international organisation - the UN, NATO, etc.
 
 
 

So I really do not have a dog in this whole EU fight but what I am seeing on both sides of the discussion are classic symptoms of information operations.  Russia has not simply been “troll farming”, evidence points to a re-emergence of subversive warfare doctrines re-tooled for the 21st century.  This is basically a lot of effort aimed at finding and exploiting the fractures and divisions in a society, leveraging that to either create negative decision (undeciding things, like EU membership), null decision (paralysis by rendering something undecidable) or positive decision (reflexive control type stuff where decisions are made that are in the interest of the sponsor, not the targeted state).
The things to watch out for just unfolded in these last two pages.  Polarized information spheres - Cpl S is clearly in one where the narrative is the EU is ruling the UK like a monarch to the detriment of the “working man”.  While others are being given evidence the EU was beneficial etc.  in reality there is enough truth in both to sustain the spheres and keep them accelerating away from each other - we saw the exact same thing with NAFTA here in NA.  The actual truth is almost immaterial, and is usually pretty mundane - something which some have glanced off of.
And then there is the agency reflex - “well I was not influenced”. Well you probably were, how much and how far it influenced your decisions is variable and likely linked to how much you cared (although there is plenty of evidence of apathy reinforcement).  The reality is that if you were involved in a decisive issue you likely have been influenced to a degree.
Now how successful Russia has been is a major problem.  If they have not been the reflex will be to ignore and continue, which is good for the sponsor of the campaign.  Or if it is over subscribed it hijacks heathy discourse and makes a boogeyman where none exists, also good for the sponsor.
We have seen the results right here - sides yell at each other pretty much abandoning any and all facts.  Someone leaves in a huff, which is pretty much what subversive sponsors want because meaningful discourse and compromise do nothing for their effort.  Agency reflex/active denial and actual facts getting lost in the noise.
Finally, the other place to watch for these sorts of things is on issues that are not only highly divisive but hang in a fine balance.  Subversion rarely works in creating massive landslides, they are not designed to and the costs are too high.  On tight races where a few thousand votes can swing things (or conversely in an autocratic society, a few key decision making nodes) this is where subversive warfare really kicks in.
Now as to how well Russia influenced Brexit?  Who really knows.  We do know they were involved and put some effort as it is in their interests to split up the EU.  How successfully they pulled that off would take a lot of effort to figure out.  But in reality the fact that people are still divided and yelling past each other is a pretty good sign they are still getting something out of the whole affair.

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

The EU didn't even figure in polls in the UK about things bothering the public. Came in after the top ten concerns in the years before the Brexit vote.
Once the troll farms went to work that changed dramatically. This worked by specifically targeting lower education voters and voters that leaned towards conspiracy theories. With the results seen.
The UK's own reports showed there was no loss of sovereignty in the EU - it was all just bullsh1t.
You get the same "loss" of sovereignty joining any international organisation - the UN, NATO, etc.
 
 
 

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

they don't have to care, especially   when they don't know that the 'news' and 'information' being fed to them are bought and paid for by putin and his shills.
 

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

This. This is how Poland and Hungary goverments are selling bull**** to the less informed part of society. Evil EU is a reason for expensive energy from coal due to CO2 allowances. The same allowances goverment sells and can use this money as they wish, for example investing in decarbonizing industry. But this would be such a waste, wouldn't it?
 
Honestly, after more than 2000 years and hundreds of smaller and larger wars, I think we are really at the point, where doing things together is an option. Wasting it would be the most shameful thing in European history. As everything, EU has major flaws but none of them justify throwing it into the ditch instead of fixing it.

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

Um, maybe try to actually read how making laws in the EU works? While I'm certain some people in Brussels would not be entirely against having the power to impose something on members that's not how it works. Each and every member has veto powers. So if, e.g. fishing quota were reduced, your government agreed to it. Probably in exchange for a better deal in some other regard. And the UK did have a much better deal than many others. But that's the usual strategy of populist politicians: The good things were all their doing, the compromises they themselves agreed to was evil EU.

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

UK fishing fleet sold its quotas to EU fleets over a twenty year period - it wasn't taken from them. It made a small percentage of them rich while hobbling the industry.
 
Better to blame the 'bad' EU though. Like most Putin talking points it takes two minutes of research to disprove.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

All far right taking points amplified by Putin's social media hit squad in the UK.
 
Funny how they went after the most easily swayed in the population with their propaganda so the rest of the country couldn't see the crazy stuff they were posting and react to it.
 
Anyway you are out of the "anti-democratic" EU and straight into the anti-democratic pacific partnership. You didn't even get a vote on that.

came across this video today, a right Gem of a project to do. love seeing the game and historical context like this as a source of study... just thought this was worth the share! 
Regards comrades.
Bubba