Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and a few other influential global celebrities put out a tweet calling for attention to the farmers protesting against the New Farm Laws passed in India and the entire BJP/RSS/Indian government propaganda machine comes into power play mode, amplifying the government's POV. The government's statement released on the Ministry of External Affairs twitter handle stated that “facts have to ascertained” before making “sensationalist social media comments..especially when restored to by celebrities..is neither accurate nor responsible”.

One starts to wonder, why do the tweets of a private persons trigger the government of a sovereign nation? What is it that the government fears that simple pointing of a fact culminates in a full fledged propaganda campaign that is ironically hash-tagged #IndiaAgainstPropaganda?

The problem is that of image perception. In India it is easy to silence critics of the BJP government with paid trolls and TV journalists. Coordinated smear campaigns and plain old intimidation work, which makes it easier for the government to control the narrative. But with Rihanna's 100+ million twitter followers it is hard enforce control as it would prompt global scrutiny that the Modi government cannot bully or bulldoze over. The BJP government knows that the easiest way to get out of this soup is to play its favorite the nation is under attack card which has proven its potency in the past years. By making simple criticism an issue of National Security, the BJP government invokes both paranoia and patriotism to deflect the attention of its citizens while muzzling its critics.

Whether it is the near coup attempt in the United States or the actual coup in Myanmar, voicing out one's opinion is a matter collective responsibility that goes beyond the allegiance to a State. The BJP government behaves as if there is nothing that it does that warrants criticism. On paper and in propaganda BJP is the best thing that has happened to India, period. Anyone that criticizes any of its policies or political high-handedness is an anti-national, a comic insinuation when it was first used and now a very valid threat. India is not some kind of magical superpower where everything is hunky-dory, the mythos that the BJP sells is ignorant, egoistic dreaming, a political acid trip for the weak.

For now we found a small opening in BJP's self-inflated armor: relentless international criticism. For a government that is lauding itself to be atmanirbhar (self reliant) it definitely is behaving like a narcissistic lover needing a lot of external appreciation. The country is riled up and that the farmers who are protesting against corporatization of Indian agriculture are seen as terrorists, traitors and every other identifier except as farmers. The way to reverse the narrative for now is to put the focus back on them and deny the narcissist the positive attention they demand.

As for Rihanna, Cheers, I'll drink to that

#FarmersAreIndia #BJP #India #propaganda

Follow @anihil3

Engage

Demand an elaborate, time-consuming comparison / analysis between your position and theirs.

Entangle

Insist that the Liberal put their posts in their own words. That will consume the most time and effort for the Liberal poster.

They will be unable to spread numerous points on numerous blogs if you have them occupied. Allowing a Liberal to post a web link is too quick and efficient for them. Tie them up. We are going for delay of game here.

Demoralize

Dismiss their narrative as rubbish immediately.

Do not even read it. Once the Liberal goes through the trouble to research, gather, collate, compose and write their narrative your job is to discredit it. Make it obvious you tossed their labor-intensive narrative aside like garbage. This will have the effect of demoralizing the Liberal poster.

It will make them unwilling to expend the effort again, and for us, that is a net win.

Attack

Attack the source. Any Liberal website or information source must be marginalized, trivialized and discounted. Discredit Liberal sources of information whenever possible.

Confuse

Challenge the Liberal position with questions, always questions. The questions need not be relevant. The goal is to knock the Liberal poster off their game, and seize control of the narrative.

Once you have control you can direct the narrative to where you want it to go, which is always away from letting the Liberal make their point. Conversely, do not respond to their leading questions. Don't rise to their bait.

Contain

Your job is to prevent the presentation and spread of Liberal viewpoints.

Do anything you must do to prevent a Liberal poster from presenting a well-reasoned argument or starting a civil discussion.

Don't allow a Liberal to present their dogma unchallenged EVER.

Intimidate

Taunt the Liberals. If you find yourself in a debate with a Liberal where you are losing a fact-based argument then call them a name to derail their diatribe. Remember your goal is to prevent a meaningful exchange of views and ideas which may portray Liberalism in a positive light.

Your goal as a conservative blogger is to stop the spread and advance of the Liberal agenda. Play upon any identifiable idiosyncrasies, character flaws, physical traits, names, to their disadvantage. Monitor other posts for vulnerabilities you can exploit. Stay on the offensive with Liberal wimps. Don't let up.

Insult their Movement

Assign as many character and moral flaws to Liberals as you can. You must portray Liberals as weak, vacillating, indecisive, amoral, baby killers, unpatriotic, effete snobs, elitists, Leftists, Commies, sense of entitlement, promiscuous, union lovers, tax raisers, Welfare Queens, Socialists, lazy, sex-obsessed, druggies, moochers, troop hater,.etc. Always use these negative epithets when referring to, or describing Liberals.

Deceive

Identify yourself as a moderate, centrist or independent. It will also cause Liberals to lower their guard a bit, which gives you an effective opening. This may also have the effect of aligning conservative viewpoints with the real moderates we are attempting to reach.

It may serve to influence some moderates over to the Conservative side.

Patriotism

Always claim the high ground of pro-military, low taxes, strong defense, morality and religion. We own those virtues. Learn how to exploit them when debating.

Demean

Always refer to the other side as Liberals, Lefty Liberals, Libbies, Librandus. Never assign them the status of a bona-fide political party. Hang Liberalism around their neck like a burning tire. Make Liberalism appear as a moral turpitude or a character flaw. They are NEVER, NEVER to be referred to with their party affliation. Never assign them respect.

Opportunity

Be alert for ways to insert our catch phrases into your narrative. You will receive your daily list of talking points and topics that we want you to cover. Consistent, persistent repetition and inculcation will drive our talking points home and so will neuro-linguistic programming. Stick with it and our talking points will become truth. If they debunk your talking point, ignore it, and move on as if you didn't hear it.

#propaganda #fascism #media #democracy

Credit: u/BouncyBunnyBuddy

Follow @anihil3

Part one

This is a reddit comment by u/enteirush that I found interesting. Reddit, like any other media and social media platform has its share of discourse maintenance by foreign actors that vary from country to country. China, the US, Russia, Turkey and to an extent every other country tries to curate and maintain a public image as they wish. To see a whole collective of people under respective brand names – Chinese, Maltans, Sudanese.., 1 billion people that fit into a simple category because of a country name.

The conversations are about us and we form identities we want to inhabit, our professions, our street and our countries. The doctors are our heroes and so are the bus drivers. These are labels given to individuals who share a profession, a collective will. We identify with and imagine people while living indoors, hooked to screens, this is heroin awash into every waking minute. Heroin, that's transmitted through screens connected with invisible tubes and wires, the internet. Our societies are now built in our minds, where there is no resistance to what we are confronted with. These are the manipulations we allow.

我在这个问题下稍微写一点最近在YouTube和Reddit上带节奏的经验心得。我不是键政侠，也不打LOL没有直接和老美巨魔过，但是跟老美交流还是有点经验

I'm here to share some of my experiences baiting people on YouTube and Reddit. I'm not a keyboard warrior, I don't play LoL and I haven't overtly trolled Americans before, but I still have some experience conversing with them.

要点一：不要明确站中国，用户名也不能一眼看过去是中国人

这不是懦弱或者不自信，而是一个基本操作问题。设想一个印度人要（正当地）批评中国房价过高人民住不起房，网上大多数人第一反应估计是“先把你10亿低种姓贫民百姓的住房解决了再腆着脸来说吧”。然后对方无论说什么我们都不会认真辩论。同理我们要是想在美帝的版块里带节奏（注意是带节奏而不是巨魔），第一不要表明自己的中国人身份。

Requirement #1: Don't explicitly show you're on China's side / Your username shouldn't make it obvious you're Chinese

This doesn't make you seem cowardly or insecure, rather, it's a simple manipulation tactic. [blah blah some rant about Indians being poor] Likewise, we need to hide our identities when baiting (remember: baiting, not trolling [?]) Americans.

要点二：话语范围要和美国人一致

他说美国抗疫比瑞典好，你说中国10天建医院；他说美国测试不如韩国，你说中国医护装备好——这都属于话语不一致。想让对方接受你的观点就要在对方的话语体系里骂美国，按照美国人的方式来骂他们。如果一个印度人来批评中国开口就是中国没有种姓制度不利于形成稳定的社会结构，你肯定觉得他脑子有问题。同样我们不应该过多地考虑我们想让他们接受什么，而是他们能接受哪些话题上的辩论，然后尽力把话题往有利于我们的方向上引。

Requirement #2: Your style of discourse must align with those of Americans

If they say the America's coronavirus strategy is better than Sweden's and you say China built a hospital in 10 days... if they say America's testing is worse than South Korea's and you say Chinese doctors are well-equipped... there's no real discussion taking place. If you want the other side to accept your attacks on America, you need to imitate the way Americans argue amongst themselves. [blah blah cut some other rant about the Indian caste system] Similarly, we shouldn't overthink what views we want to implant in their heads. Rather, we should base our arguments around views that they are willing to consider, and then bait them further in our direction.

比如我最近在Reddit上比较成功的论调之一就是揭示了“美国政客根本不关心人命，只在乎选举”“社会各界上层人士为了他们的利益而撒谎让平民买单”，得到了不少积极回应。这些是他们可以认同的东西。政治上，你怎么喷都是可以的，喷川统，喷科莫，怎么合适怎么来。

Some topics that I've used to success on Reddit:

“The US government doesn't care about lives, only elections”

“The elites lie to the middle class to protect their profits”

I got a lot of replies saying these things because they identify with these viewpoints. Anything goes when it comes to politics – attack Trump, attack Cuomo, just use whatever works.

要点三：在互相辩论的氛围内假装站美国的台

而且这样站台一定要有不合理性——其实找到这种不合理性很容易，但你如果直接在一个问题上指责美国某一点，对方会潜意识地反驳你；如果你支持这一点，对方会找出合适的逻辑来反驳你的立场而达到你带节奏的目的。假如一个印度人跑来跟你说，我觉得你们中国高考招生制度不行，各省招生不公平，我们多数人估计也是先辩护再说；但如果他说我觉得我们（注意第一条）高考招生制度很好，北京的教育资源就应该向北京户口倾斜，那就轮到你来说高教资源分配不公了。

Requirement #3: Pretend to be on America's side in your discussions

Importantly, you need to be somewhat illogical – it's actually really easy to do this. If you directly accuse the US of something, people will rebuke you; instead, if you pretend to support the opposite view, people will use mental gymnastics to argue in favor of your actual position. [Wow, this CCP lemming just discovered the power of reverse psychology! ...and cut some other contrived example of an “Indian” criticizing China's school admissions system]

比如在一个“加州州长下令医院做回溯尸检，检查截止到去年12月的死亡中是否有新冠肺炎死亡病例”的帖子下，有一条回复是“为什么只检查到12月？”我直接回复：“因为再往前就可能会暴露美国才是新冠发源地，这对我们在国际上的声誉影响太大了。一定要坚持中国是第一个报道病例的国家。”对此我得到的回应是“抱歉，查清事实比要面子更重要。”

For example, under a post titled “Gov. Newsom Orders All California Counties To Review Autopsies Dating Back To December”, someone asked, “why stop at December?”

My response: “Obviously they don't want to push it too far back as to suggest the virus started in the United States. I'm not being sarcastic here but if we ended up being the first country having Corona virus we would look really bad in the international community. Keeping China the first country to have reported the virus is necessary.”

Note: Found the comment chain here and pasted it word-for-word

我也不是什么大V，没有一呼百应的能力，但是如果能帮一些看到这个回答的人在美国网站带节奏的话就很好了。

I'm not a big V [something like the blue tick on Twitter] and I can't summon an army of followers, but I'll be happy if can spread the word with this post and help others troll American websites.

—————————————

This block of text explains the US political system and how to sow divisions between the left and right.

I won't translate everything but I'll highlight a few snippets.

居然有人看，感觉我不多写一点对不起观众啊……我就补一点美国政治基础，和我针对美国不同人群的对线策略。

美国的联邦制保证了每个州都是独立主权，其主权和联邦政府高度对立。很多民主党州的民选官员都以和联邦政府对立作为拉选票的卖点。比如明尼苏达的总检察长Keith Ellison说起自己对联邦政府提起了多少诉讼，和多少州的总检察长联合起诉联邦政府的时候，语气满是自豪。这和密苏里总检察长起诉武汉一样，都是他们拉拢选票的政治手段，不需要做过多的解读。然而这种分裂的现状我们完全可以利用。

首先要明确我们带节奏的目的是什么。要想扭转中国在国际上的舆论劣势可以说是不可能做到的，毕竟这么多年的洗脑和宣传，我们的舆论势力根本不在一个层面上。我个人认为最好的做法是继续分化美国人，把他们的注意力从中国身上拿开，让他们重点关注美国的负面信息、对美国政治愤怒就行。川统的甩锅是转移矛盾，我们如果没有实力和他们正面硬甩，那就尽量把他们的注意力转移回美国内务，增加他们对美国国内事务的愤怒和失望情绪。

... the West has brainwashed and spread propaganda for so long that we can't change our perception on the world stage. Instead, we should incite division within America to distract them from China, and make them hate their government...

对于民主党选民，有好几种矛盾可以激化。一是民主党内部腐败和无能问题，挑拨拜登和桑德斯的支持者：对拜登支持者就嘲讽拜登不会说话，没有魅力，对付川普必死；对桑德斯支持者就嘲讽他不是真民主党人，无法团结民主党对抗川普，失败活该。二是挑拨联邦和民主党州之间的矛盾，不断重复联邦根本不在乎蓝州疫情，克扣蓝州医疗物资，放任蓝州人民死亡，以至于蓝州需要大量私下行动自保（比如伊利诺伊州长绕过联邦偷偷从中国进口大量物资，因为怕被联邦截胡；加州州长掏加州的钱帮其他蓝州购买物资，因为联邦给的缺斤少两），把仇恨转移回联邦政府上。三是挑拨红蓝州之间的矛盾，这个涉及到政治正确，对程度的把握有点难。注意的是蓝州选民已经很痛恨川普了，没有必要引导他们针对川普；最好是引导他们痛恨整个联邦政府，从政府结构上摧毁他们的信心。

Ways to sow further divisions in the Democratic Party: Say that the Democratic establishment is corrupt and useless, and then inflame Biden and Sanders supporters: Say Biden has trouble speaking and has no charisma, and that's he'll lose against Trump. Say Sanders isn't a real Democrat and he can't form a coalition to beat Trump, and that he deserves what's coming.

Next, exaggerate the conflict between the federal and state governments. Constantly mention that the federal government doesn't care about blue states, that they're confiscating medical supplies and leaving people out to die. [paraphrases some recent news headlines] Direct their hatred towards the federal government.

Third, inflame the divisions between red and blue states... remember that blue states already hate Trump so there's no reason to bait them into targeting him. Instead, you should make them hate the entire federal government and destroy their trust in the system.

对于共和党选民，一是尽量放大共和党人和川普之间的矛盾。比如放大Rand Paul和川普不对付的报道，放大Romney和川普的矛盾。最近佐治亚州长跟着川普说要重开经济结果反被川普泼冷水，也可以拿来做文章。二是从基督教角度去攻击，往哪个方向都可以，反正目的是激化政府和教会的矛盾。你可以搬出牧师不遵守居家令组织礼拜被罚款的新闻来骂政府干预教会，也可以搬出牧师举行礼拜结果染病挂掉的新闻来嘲讽牧师。总之就是把注意力转移到他们自己的矛盾来，不要关注中国就行。

For the Republican Party: Emphasize conflicts between the GOP and Trump himself. Emphasize news reports about Rand Paul and Romney disagreeing with Trump. Highlight how Trump turned his back on the governor of Georgia when he announced the state would reopen. Attack them using a Christian perspective, inflame the divisions between church and state. [gives example of pastors ignoring stay-at-home orders]

对于中间选民，把川普自我矛盾、川普和政府内科学家的矛盾摆出来就行。这个不展开说了，国内的文章写了很多

最后如果有人有其他想法欢迎在评论里补充～过两天我如果有闲心再补写一下对美国选举政治的解析

For moderates/swing voters: Post about Trump's self-contradictions and disagreements between him and his own cabinet. You can use examples from our own [Chinese] news sources about this. Post your thoughts in the comments below~

——————————————

更新一个最近刚得到一些积极回复的帖子。我把全部的回复都附带翻译截出来了，并没有刻意筛选。

这主贴是个新闻：芝加哥一个护士几周前告诉她朋友说她吓得要命。现在她和她孩子都死于新冠肺炎，她丈夫勉强活了下来。

截图的回帖串是回复一个主回帖：母亲是护士，我非常担心她。我尽量不来这里看帖子，不然我后半天都会心惊胆战。我的截图就是回复这个主回帖的整串帖子。

有人直接来给中国网站打广告我倒是从来没想到过( • ̀ω•́ )✧

Posted a screenshot of this thread which he considers a successful bait operation

#propaganda #internet #media