They are much more sophisticated now. It there are tells.

the new ones who build up post count in innocuous topics and then drop tells on political matters....

without the administration knowing? The server would come up .ru

I can make it look like my posts are coming from anywhere if I want to.

All fluff/no content...
m

Just sayin'.....


Maybe we need verified accounts.

Interesting.

Yes, interesting.

They never left

I’m not sure why they’d waste time here, but I have no doubt they’re everywhere in social media and have been for some time.

for the elections was like how police infiltrate gangs.
First cozy up and seem to have the same values, then use the trust to sway opinions and to divide the Dems. Those are the really good ones.

We regularly see negative posts about Biden.

Maybe that would be a good subject for debate... what constitutes a fair discussion of ANY candidate's prior voting record, statements, positions, actions, proposed agenda, etc. Then, if we can come to some consensus about what those standards should be, we agree to apply them EVEN-HANDEDLY to any and all candidates, regardless of whom we support or the subject of the discussion.

That just seems reasonable... I've tried to initiate such a discussion in prior threads, to no avail. I feel this might help unify people, rather than dividing them.

No doubt, I'll either be ignored or ridiculed for suggesting this yet again... but, that's honestly how I feel is the best way to contribute to a healthy political debate with so many candidates running and end up with the best possible candidate to go against tRumpty Dumbty in the general election.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

discuss what constitutes a fair discussion of ANY candidate's prior voting record, statements, positions, actions, proposed agenda, etc.


Especially where Sanders campaign funds have come from in Bernie’s recent past.

But it’s all been neatly packaged as “refighting the primaries “ so the discussion can be avoided.

Why would the admin allow that? That’s a huge question.


Every aspect of Biden’s past is being scrutinized.


So it’s not the same for all candidates.

Not a fan of Biden for the primary primarily because of his bankruptcy reform, Iraq war vote, wrote the crime bill, etc.

A lot of trolls with the same old crap coming out of Australia, of al places.

Many of us aren't on Facebook because we have no desire to read anything posted there.
So why are DUers cross-linking anyway? There's no way to see if it's a possible troll posting.

I never click on Twit posts anymore; Twit is an agent of Putin.

They have been embedded for awhile.

He's been in on some pretty awful things, and had some poor judgement, for decades now. You're going to find a decent sized chunk of liberals/progressives who are going to have Biden near the bottom of the list.

If you're going to be suspicious of people being Russian trolls, look for the types pushing a message to stay home or vote 3rd party, if a candidate wins/loses.

There's 20+ people running. If you use your test, you'll drive yourself mad with paranoia.

The stay home/don’t vote messaging will come later to appeal to disgruntled people who didn’t get their pic. There’s a certain kind of anti Biden message that’s a tip-off.

they should be immediately banned for all time. This election is WAYYYY to effin' important!! That way, Russian trolls, or ANY trolls for that matter, will be wasting their time on here. Once the primary election is over, it's vote blue, no matter who... or else!! There's not one Democratic candidate I wouldn't walk over hot coals to vote for in the general... not one. Hell, I'd view for Satan over the Dickwad-in-Chief... assuming Satan decided to run in the Democratic primary!! (Better the devil you know, I always say!)


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

Russian does not have a present tense for the verb "to be." When written, they just use a blank. The Russian for "Trump voters are idiots" would be "Trump voters--idiots."

Also, Russian does not have articles (like "a/an," "the" ). This is why Boris and Natasha (if you're over 60) always used to say "Look for moose and squirrel!" Russians are unsure of how and when to insert "a" or "the" because their language just doesn't have them.

One more thing: Russian is declined. Instead of some prepositions, they put on endings to their words. Take the word "city (gorod)". To say "of the city," you would say "goroda." To say "of the cities," you would say ""gorodov." Thus, to say "take a basket full of goodies," a Russian would think, "take basket full goodies."

Look for little grammatical mistakes like that. Experienced Russians will have learned, but less experienced trolls will make those mistakes again and again.

Nongrammatical give aways related to the types of posts.

that you want inspected. You could do with a comma after "yes", and unless you are talking about the whole English language, then you should write "their English".

If you want to have everyone's wording analysed for perfection, then most of DU will be under suspicion. Few people here write perfectly.

I wrote a simple classifier for tagging likely bots (I had no ground truth as to national origin but I used multiple block list membership as a proxy). Some of the grammatical mistakes above were strong predictors. As was claiming to be a grandmother from the Midwest, for some reason.

Someone is making fun of Russians there.

(or otherwise is one!)

Thanks DFW

They will fix them.

And also take Russian lessons from cartoon with Moose and Squirrel!

is better than most Republicans. Especially when you have the media quoting their posts verbatim.

Тот, кто может прочитать это и ответить, вероятно, русский. Вот как вы можете сказать, кто тролль

WAIT.......what does that even mean?

And no I'm not. Just really good with Google Translator.

Вы пытаетесь нас поймать?

О Боже!

Конечно мы пытаемся, и не всегда без успеха !

Боже твой господин Холодно! И почему Холдно? Ты из Сибири или что?

but, I have throughly enjoyed all the comments.😃

I'm so old, I do it the old fashioned way--I learned the language in high school and college.

There are about 150 million Russians who think it's no big deal at all

**on edit: when I first finally set foot in Russia, they all looked at me strangely. At first, I thought it must be my accent, but they told me my accent was fine, but I must have been asleep for the last century. All my Russian had been learned in grammar and then literature classes, and of course, we all learned Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, etc. Nineteenth century stuff. Only the occasional short story by Vassili Aksyonov gave us a hint of modern Soviet era Russian. So, I was sort of like a Russian Rip Van Winkle to them. They understood me just fine, but I had a terrible time trying to understand them because I had never been exposed to their 21st century conversation. Imagine someone who only knew English from Dickens novels suddenly showing up in Times Square today. That was about what happened to me. By the way, my wife and I got the perfect metaphor for Russia the second we stepped off the plane. From the jetway, immigration was floor below us. There was an escalator down to the passport checkers, but as we headed for it, a beautiful Russian woman border guard came up the stairs, smiled sweetly at us and said: "Не работает (it doesn't work)," which turned out to be pretty much a metaphor for the whole country.

Swedish (I'm near fluent) and Danish are very similar. I can grab a Danish newspaper and understand 85% or more of it. However--the moment they open their mouths, disaster strikes. Danish is pronounced SO differently from Swedish, the Swedes describe it as someone with a throat disease trying to pronounce Swedish while having a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

When I made a comment (in Danish) how difficult Danish was to get used to, a Dane dryly commented to me, "what on earth do you mean? Just listen. There are three year old kids running around all over the place speaking perfect Danish, pronouncing it perfectly and with a flawless accent! How hard can it be?"

The dialect I know is over 100 years old and still uses many old Slavic letters, words, etc.

I'll talk to people at work who are from the more modern Russia in Russian...every so often they give me a strange look, and I likewise. Some of my coworkers were discussing different languages, long story short, some from Russia and I discussed that there were differences. When pressed, I said, "its like were both speaking English right now, only, I'm speaking the Kings English where Thou and Thee are used consistently...whereas they are using the modern day version."

невозможно доказать в любом случае. В любом случае, я, наверное, просто мозг в танке.

I have NEVER heard that expression before!

I mean, I don't think that's a widely used idiom in any language...

But yeah, just google translate and me not knowing the first thing about the Russian language.

(or maybe that's not it; maybe I just put up some nonsensical phrase to cast off suspicion, so I can continue my secretive mind control program...you never know, really)

on the farms. Do you think you can walk away from your job?
You may hate Americans, but look at yourselves. We are all in the
same boat regarding climate change. Who will guide your country... Putin?
What a joke. If you think you'll ever be free of GRU - or its psyops
contractor - you're deluded. I don't think you're bad people -
some of you may even believe you are helping your country. Maybe
it's just decent money and good jobs are short. Consider immigrating to
another country and getting an honest job without having to
propagandize. I'm sorry - Russia is a beautiful country, but
even more fucked up than the US is currently.

You forgot "the" GRU
Sorry, I'm a grammar nerd..
m

and frequently omit "the" - a trait shared with Russian.

IOW, your not so subtle inference (and the snark below) comes as no
surprise.

If you have any questions regarding my position on issues - I'm sure
a search of DU will answer them.

Also, I'm fine with Biden - I don't really give a shit who gets the
Dem nomination as long as they're capable of beating Trump.

I have my favorites (Harris, Warren)...but Biden is fine - and I've never criticized
a Dem candidate.

I concur with the OP that the Russians are here...
Do you think I'm one? Spooooooky...

One other thing, my alias on the old DU was "ironrooster." I've been lurking longer than many
posters in the 30K post count.

I do think that one tried and true way to undermine a discussion group is to
spread paranoia. It doesn't matter that "The Russians are here" if Dems stick to
their core principles.

It's pretty damn simple to neuter a troll. If you feel as though a poster isn't "real" don't feed the thread.

I've been washing more socks than ever lately.

Glad to hear from you.

Trolls employ a variety of tactics.

This place would go apeshit... as it should!!


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

I hope you can appreciate, however, why I might have interpreted your OP the way I did. Perhaps, you could clarify somewhat what you're saying. Again, you have my humble apologies.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

Just think what message someone will take from this OP, without reading other things first (and no-one would read something else first - you didn't link to anything). You talk about 2 things: Russian trolls, and them not liking Biden. That's your entire message. Can you now see why people will assume you are trying to get the 2 linked?

I read DU a lot, but don't find much to comment on for long periods of time. I've been here since 2002 and I only have about 8000 posts.

Next someone will suggest anyone without a star is suspicious.

As said above, if there are trolls, just alert or ignore.

...and make sure I don't sling it, too.

I've been duped before and I'd rather not feel that foolish again.

Answer: no. It's not important enough or influential enough to waste the effete.

I deal with politics in the real world. Discussions at DU don't influence them.

connected with the political world, so, I rely on those like you, whose opinions carry more weight on subjects like this.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

I would not believe a word anyone posts here or give their opinion any 'weight'

based on our prior discussions, as he seems to know what he's talkin about when it comes to real-world politics.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!

With that you can check my FEC filings to see how involved I am, and with whom.

Or you can check my Twitter feed (@chrisbastianbkl)...

Why would it be different now?

The Russian trolls have been lying in wait.

And many many other forums. Not just political forums. All forums. Even chat channels in video games.

They've basically starting publishing Pravda again right here on DU.

That would make the Russians happy.

They’re focused on bigger platforms like Facebook etc.

But DU, as many predicted, is experiencing the return of many who left after the schism is 16. They tried to start their own competing site, and well, the results were sub-optimum.

I’ve only been here for just over 3 years. But it is apparent to me that a small minority of folks here are not happy with this site being Democratic Underground. That much prefer Progressive Underground or Socialism Underground. Since that apparently will not happen they just sow dissent.

Personally I try to ignore it. I am focused on a huge victory in 20. Will vote for the candidate I believe will get us there.

Agree... Who ever floats to the top, i'll vote for.. Anything but tRump.. VOTE HIM OUT..
M

Reporting them to FB seem to do nothing. Now I got a long list of some scantily clad female names all blocked. I haven't got a clue why but it was a community non for profit page. I've since adjusted its settings.

EU elections are on Thursday so apparently they're busy there.

France24 and DW did a half-hour documentary looking into it:

Divide and influence: Russia and the EU elections

I have noticed that a number of posters with 3 or 4 hidden posts taking a break 'till their hides expire.
Quite a few seem to be back in full form now. Until they collect a few hidden posts. Then they'll run and hide again.
Personally, I enjoy their absence.

Jesus.

as can be. But then...I don't like apple pie or baseball either. So maybe... Other than the admin's no one really knows. If there were a problem with Russian trolls I would think they would address that. Haven't seen them do it yet.

It was obvious that there was cross platform posting. The same odd slightly nongramattical English.

You do know that we have people from other countries than America that post here? I'm sure there are trolls here, but they aren't Russian.

Not really broken English but just a bit off. Then I realized that some of the same kinds of posts were on DU. They lacked the fluency of a native speaker, were of the anti Hillary sort. This was in October. I posted my suspicion on DU and nearly got laughed out of the place.

....phrases that are a bit off. Usually the topic is innocent and no HRC bashing but low post count. Im sure 'they' are here..

about these 'units', and consider how much deeper they've become entrenched, it's kind of hard to believe that the more popular political sites are not infiltrated. Of course, they can advocate for any candidate, build up their reputation, and then be one of many that pushes a narrative. Whenever some obscure info rises to the top for no reason, there's always a reason. The thing that surprised me, is that they promoted rallies across the country.

There seems to be less control and standards than at most political discussion sites. Even here the traffic is less it was during the Bush years. Nance Greggs used to post the stats from the Alexa site showing how much traffic has declined here. I haven't been there since the last time she linked it like in 2015 but I think based on what I see traffic is even slower now than it was then.

...now im wanting some apple pie!

...I think we found an extremely convenient means to dismiss people we don't like.

You can suspect whatever posts you want might be Russian trolls, but it doesn't make it so.

Not liking Biden is most definitely not it.

And they will argue vigorously and condescendingly when presented with reasons for impeachment.

It may not mean anything, but the pattern strikes me as strange— newbies taking a hard stance against impeachment, saying how bad it will be for Democrats. And never a bad word is written about the monstrous creature in the White House.