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dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2rUHop7
Yes, and no.
Psyops, especially professionally managed and government backed psyops, are very, very tricky business.
We have few existing examples of their orders, but one order we do have is the order to destroy queer solidarity by pitting us against ourselves, so that we would not participate in elections and political processes.
For that order to have been made, and then this political sinkhole to open up within months, is simply too obvious a connection to ignore. Some major social media pages focuses on queer rights have since been confirmed as Russian plants{1,2}.
The distaste for {subgroup} pride has always been prevalent in queer spaces. We try to fight it, but everyone in a queer group has issues. There is no way to avoid it. And sometimes, the attempts to keep things calm end up looking like favoring some groups in particular. In 2013, it was bis. 2014, nonbinaries. 2015, aces. 2016, nonbinaries and intersex. 2017, kink and polyamory. In 2018 it seems to be queers and pans.
All of these tensions and targets are always at risk, but until summer of 2015, when Russian operations launched, they had always been fairly subdued.
However, if you know what you’re doing (and farmed operatives do know what they’re doing) it only takes the lightest touch to set mild tensions into abject wildfire. {3}
Much like racial tensions were stoked to achieve the alt-right not by creating the movement whole cloth, but just slightly heating things until the movement coalesced on its own, I believe a similar slow boil took place in this context.
Remember, the goal of the psyop was to destabilize the US political process by electing Trump.
That means that people on the fence needed to be frightened into conservatism, and people who could not be frightened into it needed to be discouraged from voting or outright suppressed.
Empowering radical feminists gives more Trump votes- albeit not many more- and encouraging everyone else to be at each other’s throats takes away any counter votes against Trump.
Given that Russian operatives are known to have targeted queer groups, known to have targeted radical feminist groups, and known to have shifted as many people rightward as possible while setting the rest to in fighting, it is a completely reasonable conclusion that, although Russian operatives didn’t invent ace exclusion, they helped to popularize it very quickly.
This does not mean all ace hate is from Russia or all aphobe blogs are Russian plants. They don’t need to be. With two dozen blogs and six months of salary, even I could completely reshape the tumblr political environment. All you have to do is use your multiple identities to post positive content the implicitly supports the aggressive content from your other blogs, and have one blog in your network Get Big- have a fight with a popular blogger for example. Eventually, through the blog that got exposure, your other blogs, which are all incestuously interacting with themselves, will be found by and appeal to various different groups.
Within 2 months, you’ve now got 4 or 5 different groups of people saying either (x) is bad, or (x) doesn’t matter leave me alone. At that point actual people in the (x) group will start defending themselves, and you’re basically done.
You disappear, delete all those blogs, and don’t have to worry because the change was already made, and yeah, it will probably settle down in a few years, but that’s a few years my opponent isn’t operating at full capacity.
Or, if you’re lucky, you’ve artificially created a controversy on a long scale, the kind of thing you used to only be able to do if you owned one of the 3 major news companies and had a couple of friendly looking government agents on your show spouting your lines.
In any case, two months going 60-80 hours a week, anyone can at least start a fan war. 6 months with an entire trained team and a government budget? That’s enough to start a real war, maybe two.
3 years and multiple government agencies working multiple separate ops? Well, at that point, it’s a miracle there’s even a ghost of the US left at all.
So, the resurgence of radfems and the dissolution of queer coalition could, certainly, have been a coincidence that was always going to occur. But, in the full context of what was happening at the time?
There probably wasn’t an op targeting ace people or anything that dramatic. Just targeting lesbians and encouraging them to “return to their roots” and become radical separatists was more than enough to achieve the shitshow we see today.
It’s a master class in propaganda.
Its also terrifying.
{1} https://medium.com/@ushadrons/this-space-is-a-repository-for-content-from-the-russian-social-media-group-rainbow-nation-us-cc30ba458951
{2}https://ift.tt/2k733ae
{3} https://www.salon.com/2018/04/05/russian-trolls-used-my-tumblr-to-spread-election-propaganda-heres-my-story_partner/
(Your picture was not posted)
Yes, and no.
Psyops, especially professionally managed and government backed psyops, are very, very tricky business.
We have few existing examples of their orders, but one order we do have is the order to destroy queer solidarity by pitting us against ourselves, so that we would not participate in elections and political processes.
For that order to have been made, and then this political sinkhole to open up within months, is simply too obvious a connection to ignore. Some major social media pages focuses on queer rights have since been confirmed as Russian plants{1,2}.
The distaste for {subgroup} pride has always been prevalent in queer spaces. We try to fight it, but everyone in a queer group has issues. There is no way to avoid it. And sometimes, the attempts to keep things calm end up looking like favoring some groups in particular. In 2013, it was bis. 2014, nonbinaries. 2015, aces. 2016, nonbinaries and intersex. 2017, kink and polyamory. In 2018 it seems to be queers and pans.
All of these tensions and targets are always at risk, but until summer of 2015, when Russian operations launched, they had always been fairly subdued.
However, if you know what you’re doing (and farmed operatives do know what they’re doing) it only takes the lightest touch to set mild tensions into abject wildfire. {3}
Much like racial tensions were stoked to achieve the alt-right not by creating the movement whole cloth, but just slightly heating things until the movement coalesced on its own, I believe a similar slow boil took place in this context.
Remember, the goal of the psyop was to destabilize the US political process by electing Trump.
That means that people on the fence needed to be frightened into conservatism, and people who could not be frightened into it needed to be discouraged from voting or outright suppressed.
Empowering radical feminists gives more Trump votes- albeit not many more- and encouraging everyone else to be at each other’s throats takes away any counter votes against Trump.
Given that Russian operatives are known to have targeted queer groups, known to have targeted radical feminist groups, and known to have shifted as many people rightward as possible while setting the rest to in fighting, it is a completely reasonable conclusion that, although Russian operatives didn’t invent ace exclusion, they helped to popularize it very quickly.
This does not mean all ace hate is from Russia or all aphobe blogs are Russian plants. They don’t need to be. With two dozen blogs and six months of salary, even I could completely reshape the tumblr political environment. All you have to do is use your multiple identities to post positive content the implicitly supports the aggressive content from your other blogs, and have one blog in your network Get Big- have a fight with a popular blogger for example. Eventually, through the blog that got exposure, your other blogs, which are all incestuously interacting with themselves, will be found by and appeal to various different groups.
Within 2 months, you’ve now got 4 or 5 different groups of people saying either (x) is bad, or (x) doesn’t matter leave me alone. At that point actual people in the (x) group will start defending themselves, and you’re basically done.
You disappear, delete all those blogs, and don’t have to worry because the change was already made, and yeah, it will probably settle down in a few years, but that’s a few years my opponent isn’t operating at full capacity.
Or, if you’re lucky, you’ve artificially created a controversy on a long scale, the kind of thing you used to only be able to do if you owned one of the 3 major news companies and had a couple of friendly looking government agents on your show spouting your lines.
In any case, two months going 60-80 hours a week, anyone can at least start a fan war. 6 months with an entire trained team and a government budget? That’s enough to start a real war, maybe two.
3 years and multiple government agencies working multiple separate ops? Well, at that point, it’s a miracle there’s even a ghost of the US left at all.
So, the resurgence of radfems and the dissolution of queer coalition could, certainly, have been a coincidence that was always going to occur. But, in the full context of what was happening at the time?
There probably wasn’t an op targeting ace people or anything that dramatic. Just targeting lesbians and encouraging them to “return to their roots” and become radical separatists was more than enough to achieve the shitshow we see today.
It’s a master class in propaganda.
Its also terrifying.
{1} https://medium.com/@ushadrons/this-space-is-a-repository-for-content-from-the-russian-social-media-group-rainbow-nation-us-cc30ba458951
{2}https://ift.tt/2k733ae
{3} https://www.salon.com/2018/04/05/russian-trolls-used-my-tumblr-to-spread-election-propaganda-heres-my-story_partner/
(Your picture was not posted)
