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China's secret Internet police target critics with web of propaganda , by Jonathan Watts in Beijing, ", Covert or False Flag operations (or " Active Measures " according to Soviet terminology).


INTERNET POLICE TEAMS IN MAINLAND CHINA

It has been reported that in 2005, departments of provincial and municipal governments in Mainland China began creating teams of Internet commentators from propaganda and police departments and offering them classes in Marxism , Propaganda techniques, and the Internet . They are reported to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names. "They are actually hiring staff to curse online", said Liu Di , a Chinese student who was arrested for posting her comments in Blogs .

Chinese Internet police also erase anti-Communist comments and posts pro-government messages. , January 24 , 2007


INTERNET BRIGADES IN RUSSIA


First publication

This alleged phenomenon in , 2003 ( English translation )


Behavior

According to Polyanskaya and her colleagues, the behavior of people from the Internet brigades has distinct features, some of which are the following:


Tactics

  • Individual work on opponents. "As soon as an opposition-minded liberal arrives on a forum, expressing a position that makes them a clear "ideological enemy”, he is immediately cornered and subjected to “ Active Measures ” by the unified web-brigade. Without provocation, the opponent is piled on with abuse or vicious “arguments” of the sort that the average person cannot adequately react to. As a result, the liberal either answers sharply, causing a scandal and getting himself labeled a “boor” by the rest of the brigade, or else he starts to make arguments against the obvious absurdities, to which his opponents pay no attention, but simply ridicule him and put forth other similar arguments."

  • Accusations that opponents are working for “enemies”. The opponents are accused of taking money from Berezovskiy , the CIA , the MOSSAD , Saudi Arabia , the Zionists , or the Chechen rebels.

  • Making personally offensive comments, especially of sexual nature.

  • Remarkable ability to reveal personal information about their opponents and their quotes from old postings, sometimes more than a year old.

  • Teamwork. "They unwaveringly support each other in discussions, ask each other leading questions, put fine points on each other’s answers, and even pretend not to know each other. If an opponent starts to be hounded, this hounding invariably becomes a team effort, involving all of the three to twenty nicknames that invariably are present on any political forum 24 hours a day."

  • Appealing to the Administration. The members of teams often "write mass collective complaints about their opponents to the editors, site administrators, or the electronic “complaints book”, demanding that one or another posting or whole discussion thread they don’t like be removed, or calling for the banning of individuals they find problematic."

  • Destruction of inconvenient forums. For example, on the site of the Moscow News , all critics of Putin and the FSB "were suddenly and without any explanation banned from all discussions, despite their having broken none of the site’s rules of conduct. All the postings of this group of readers, going back a year and a half, were erased by the site administrator."



Criticism

Alexander Usupovski, head of the analytical department of the , 2003

Yusupovskiy's points included:
  • He supposed, that officeers of GRU or FSB have more topical problems, than "comparing virtual penises" with liberals and emigrants.

  • There is difference between "dislike of hegemonic policy of the United States" at Russian forums and "quite friendly attitude towards usual Americans". Aggression and xenophobia doesn't characterize one side but is a common place of polemics, well met not only among Russian patriots, but also Russian emigrants from US, Israel, or other countries.

  • Change of attitude of virtual masses in 1998-1999 could be caused by Russian Financial Collapse which "crowned liberal decade", rather than "mysterious bad guys".

  • Authors exclude from their interpretation of events all other hypotheses, such as internet activity of a group of some "skinheads", Nazbol s or simply unliberal students; or hackers able to get IP addresses of their opponents.

  • According to Yusupovskiy, authors treat "independence of public opinion" in spirit of irreconcilable antagonism with "positive image of Russia".


Usupovski concluded: "We would never make our country's military organizations and security services work under the rule of law and legal control, if won't learn to recognize rationally and objectively their necessity and usefulness for the country, state, society and citizens. Sweeping defamation and intentional discreditation with the help of "arguments", which are obviously false, only contribute to the extrusion of security services outside of rule of law and instigates them to chaos".


Support

The findings of Polyanskaya and her colleagues have been supported by writer Grigory Svirsky and psychologist Vladimir Bagryansky. They claimed that "the Internet brigade led by Alexander Usupovski is probably the most incompetent team of Russian state security services in RuNet".


Discussion

The discussion began in the Internet Forum of the "Russian Journal", just a few days after the first publication by Polyanskaya and others, and it lasted for two months. Bloggers claimed that Usupovsky and his supporters ''are'' the governmental "Internet brigade", " FSB agents", and "bastards of SMERSH ". A discussion was also conducted on the Internet forum of Moscow News Usupovsky supporters suggested to sue Ivan Lomko for libels and defamation [http://www.library.cjes.ru/online/?a=con&b_id=318&c_id=2691 and issued various threats.[http://www.library.cjes.ru/online/?a=con&b_id=318&c_id=2691]

In 2007 sociological analysis of big groups in Russian society published at Russian resource RIO-Center , it's mentioned that idea of existence of web-brigades is a widespread point of view in RuNet. Authors say "it's difficult to say whether hypothesis of existence of web-brigades corresponds to reality", but claim that users professing views and methods that are ascribed to members of "web-brigades" may be found in vast amounts at various opposition forums. Big groups in Russian society: analysis of prospects of organization of collective actions. , by RIO-Center. (in Russian)


Brigades on the Polish Internet

Russian "Internet brigades" reportedly appeared in , 13/2005


LiveJournal fighters

A member of '', 19 March , 2007 and said that people's brains must be " Nationalized " . He instructed "LiveJournal fighters" that

:"We are losing in the Internet in that respect. It is always easier to break down things than to do something positive. What you are doing are jokes and minor infractions. Not only methods, but also goals must be radical. We must blow this romantics out of them opponents . It is important not only to protect the authorities - this is understood, but we need to attract young people who can work creatively in the Internet. This is an important communication place of young people. Make them interested in conversations with you."


Internet brigades in Russian literature

The alleged FSB activities on the Internet have been described in the short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer Grigory Svirsky , who was interested in the moral aspects of their work." Grigory Svirsky ''Anastasya. A story on-line'' (Full text in Russian) He wrote: ''"It seems that offending, betraying, or even "murdering" people in the virtual space is easy. This is like killing an enemy in a video game: one does not see a disfigured body or the eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, the human soul lives by its own basic laws that force it to pay the price for the virtual crime in his real life"''.


INTERNET BRIGADES IN WIKIPEDIA?