The news over the past year or so, has been dominated by stories of Russian trolls stirring up controversy on social media, in attempts to further divide public opinion and cause online conflict. I'm sure you've seen examples of it too. There was an odd moment on my Facebook newsfeed that lasted for about 6 weeks back in October/ November 2017. Articles from almost every major media organisations had 'This is Fake News' (or something to that degree) written in the comments. That may not seems strange, but it was as if hundreds of random people had copied and pasted the same comments across numerous stories regardless of it's content or if it made sense. The commenters Facebook pages were also rather suspect, with very few friends and photos. What was even stranger was that I would only see these comments when I used Facebook on my phone and not on my laptop. Then all of a sudden these comments stopped appearing, although I have screenshots just to prove how weird the whole event was.
In many ways, we in the West have allowed this force-fed shit to happen. We gulp down any conspiracy theory with extreme superiority so we feel more 'in-the-know' about 'what's really going on'. The latest information seems to reveal that Trolls from the Kremlin backed Internet Research Agency have been involved in promoting one of America's favourite conspiracies: The Anti-Vaccination movement. The belief that vaccines cause autism has been brewing around in the States for a long time, however has always managed to stay somewhat underground. The argument here is that the Trolls are bringing a potentially dangerous theory to the mainstream, whilst simultaneously antagonising the general public and keeping them distracted with stupid arguments. It's another brilliant tactic from Putin and one that is nothing new in Russia too. Unfortunately Russian society is also victim to this kind of manipulation from their own government, although how we can come together to fight this effectively has not yet been realised. In the meantime, remain vigilant online by ignoring posts that almost seem comically idiotic and for God's sake don't respond to them.
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Mathieu Kassovitz put it best in his 1995 film La Haine when he said 'It's a story about a society in free-fall...' Nothing much has changed since his groundbreaking masterpiece about race and police tension in the gritty Paris suburbs. Except, now the tension lies between extremists and the rest of society that dominate our landscape. Propaganda, rallies and protests are splattered with extremist ideology, both from the European far-right groups as well as Islamic extremists groups. Ironically, whilst the two sides oppose each other's ideology completely, their tactics are more or less parallel. They utilise the current tool of victim-hood as a rationale for their beliefs, whilst infiltrating vulnerable people in society, both economically and socially, to garner support. Anti-Islamic activist Tommy Robinson and ex-Islamic extremist, Maajid Nawaz both have extremely similar stories about how they ended up harvesting these extreme beliefs. Tommy was beaten up by muslim Asian boys at school when he was young and faced discrimination for being white, whilst Maajid was a victim of "Paki-bashing" by violent, young thugs when he was a youth, as well as suffering other racism and discrimination. They were both isolated, young men who reacted with narrow-minded hatred towards the narrow-minded hatred they received. As we all know, hatred breeds hatred.
The leaders of these movements are powerful, strong men (mostly). No doubt they believe themselves to be the heroes of their people, salivating over the opportunity to convince others of the same thing. The more support they appear to have (which is usually less than they think, as those who want change the most amplify their voices the loudest), the more they realise there's two ways it can go. You either land on your face, or on your feet. However, since both create a mess, they may as well enjoy the ride. |