Microsoft President @BradSmi says the Wagner Group and Russian intelligence have been working to penetrate gaming communities to use them “as a place to get information into circulation.”

https://twitter.com/semafor/status/1646174094562402304?s=20

1 year ago

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Sure, would you like some geopolitical information while we play a nice match of CS:GO?

1 year ago
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But with all jokes aside, we see this even here on SG discussions. The Ukraine Awareness thread is constantly being penetrated by obviously paid trolls who very openly copy/paste prepared propaganda information. They periodically come up, shitpost the thread to oblivion with fake telegram news and then disappear on another assignment.

So while it might seem funny to think they peddle propaganda within games, I would say this kind of information circulation within forums as well is quite dangerous.

1 year ago
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They obviously wouldn't do it if it wasn't effective in spreading their imperialistic views. And targeting gaming communities doesn't seem to be like the worst place to do it since it has a huge presence in the online media. And pushing their views onto oblivious onlookers may not be their target but to create a "whataboutism" environment where their wrongdoings can be basically downplayed by it. They can also be more aggressive and force their views on the same oblivious people sometimes even posing as "citizens of the said" country to change the view of the 3-rd party people who aren't in one of the conflict countries. And this can have an effect as for example westerners making edgy jokes about the conflict and basically not taking the seriousness of it at best case and worst case indoctrinating them.

They definitely have been doing this with relative success internally for a long time with various media types such as songs like -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVBciWFSNSE or the various meme pages on VK and etc.

1 year ago
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In the video at the tweet they talk a little bit more about it - Minecraft discord servers, for example. Gaming is huge, and the social structure that surrounds it is incredible - friends groups, servers, topics and themes and groups on any social media. I don't think many CSGO matches are going like "you know guys, I think Putin did nothing wrong" or so :)

1 year ago
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i dont need to know all the places my mom has been.....

1 year ago
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lmao

1 year ago
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Start with War Thunder players; they're the ones most interested in getting info from governments.

1 year ago
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Everybody, make your bet about how many days until they leak more military info in its forums lol

1 year ago
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1 year ago
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That's indeed very subtle. So far it has never occurred to me that when someone joins and starts writing Russian into an ongoing English discussion, they're spreading disinformation and propaganda. I was always thinking something else, about donkeys and cavities.

1 year ago
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These are weird times we're living through

1 year ago
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That's gotta come as a surprise to people in the Ukraine War thread.... yeah maybe not.

1 year ago
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Well, if a microsoft exec says so, it must be true.

1 year ago
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try to write what you think about ruskies in some abandoned game on steamcommunity and don't be surprised what they answer you

1 year ago
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1 year ago
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