Russians in gamers community be like

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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

2 years ago

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15 Comments

TrickyPotato

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

2 years ago

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ChrisKutcher

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.

2 years ago

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JasonFilips

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.

2 years ago

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adam1224

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 :)

2 years ago

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VahidSlayerOfAll

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

2 years ago

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lesik

lmao

2 years ago

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devonrv

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

2 years ago

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adam1224

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

2 years ago

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Deleted

This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

2 years ago

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tevemadar

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.

2 years ago

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Axelflox

These are weird times we're living through

2 years ago

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Fluffster

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

2 years ago

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