Russian trolls offered to pay me $1000 per month if I stop talking about Russian trolls on my subreddits, and threatened to destroy me if I refuse the money
Russian trolls are destroying pro-Biden subreddits, with the help of at least one Reddit employee.
Over the past 4 years, I created over a dozen popular anti-Trump, pro-democracy subs from scratch, like r/BadChoicesGoodStories, the largest political video sub on Reddit. That made me a target.
For over 3 years, MAGA/Russian trolls tried to character assassinate me with lies and cancel my subs like Bud Light. They finally succeeded, with the help of a Reddit admin.
It’s no secret that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter X and Reddit are overrun by thousands of Russian trolls who spread toxic disinformation to manipulate elections and destroy western democracies from the inside.
On Reddit, Russian trolls have spent the past few years infiltrating the mod teams on dozens of popular subs.
When you run a popular subreddit, you notice that most followers don’t actively participate. About 90% are lurkers who just scroll and read. Only 9% comment here and there. And only about 1% post content themselves. Those few regular contributors in the top 1% are the power users.
If your sub grows to the point where you need help moderating the comments, the power users are usually your first choice. Russian trolls know that. So they act like normal power users, hoping to get picked as mods.
Once a Russian troll manages to get into a mod team, other Russian trolls harass the top mod with endless hostile confrontations, hoping to encourage the top mod to say or do something that will get his account suspended, after being mass-reported by Russian trolls.
Sooner or later that trick works, the top mod loses his account and the control over his sub, and the Trojan horse Russian troll moves closer to the top of the mod list. They repeat that process as often as needed, until the Russian troll is the top mod and can take ownership of the sub.
Once Russian trolls gain control over a sub, they add other Russian trolls to the mod team. After adding each other to various mod teams, many Russian trolls become “power mods” with control over dozens of popular subs.
The process of taking over a sub can take weeks or months. During that time, other Russian trolls continue to post and comment anti-western pro-Russian propaganda. Russian troll mods encourage that behavior and ban Democrats who try to point out or correct the Russian disinformation.
Eventually outspoken Democrats are banned from many popular subs for no legitimate reason, while Russian trolls roam free and continue to take over more and more subs.
Some mods are aware of the risk of inviting random strangers to help moderate a sub. That makes their subs harder to take over. If Russian trolls can’t infiltrate and take over a sub, they try to sabotage and destroy it instead. That’s what happened to my subs.
But first they offered to pay me $1000 per month to buy my silence.
Russian trolls really hate it when you talk about Russian trolls. They work in the shadows. Their lies only work when people believe them and don’t suspect that they’re being lied to. The more people know about Russian trolls, the less Russian disinformation works.
That’s why Russian trolls try to destroy anyone who spreads information about Russian trolls:
I didn’t take him seriously. I figured it was just a teenage dipshit trying to be funny. So I made a counter-offer of $3000 per month to retire from spreading awareness about Russian trolls on Reddit. Just to see how he would react.
Apparently this guy really is part of one of the Russian trolls farms who spread anti-democratic, anti-Ukrainian propaganda on Reddit, and they really did try to character assassinate me by spreading lies about me.
They created a private subreddit specifically to organize targeted harassment campaigns against me. They tried to intimidate me and/or get me suspended, so that my pro-Biden subs would turn into unmoderated orphans and get shut down.
They also instigated dozens of brigades against me, by lying about me to turn random strangers against me based on those lies, and then encouraging them to harass me. A brigade is a Reddit term for an organized, targeted harassment campaign against a specific user or his subreddit.
These screenshots are just a handful of examples. I could show you hundreds more.
After several years of daily harassment, brigading, doxxing, stalking, character assassination, lies, death threats and daily attacks on my subs, a group of MAGA/Russian trolls finally managed to get my account suspended and my subs shut down — with the help of a Reddit admin who suspended not only my account, but all mod accounts on all my subs.
Meanwhile Russian trolls are now “power mods” on some of the largest subs on Reddit and gain mod access to more every day. Their toxic disinformation reaches millions of people.
And they use their leverage to ban outspoken Democrats like me, or spread lies to manipulate others into antagonizing me.
I’m not the bad guy here. I never harass anyone. I’m not the one who should have been suspended. I should have gotten some help and support from Reddit. I have been the victim of targeted harassment by a group of trolls for several years.
Reddit admins are only human. They’re probably understaffed and overworked, just like everyone else. Sometimes they make mistakes. Maybe this was an honest mistake.
Or maybe at least one of the Reddit admins is pro-Trump and pro-Putin and actively aids Russian trolls in destroying pro-Biden subs, if they can’t replace the Democratic mods with Russian trolls.
Who knows. What I do know is that I’m not the first one who has been harassed by Russian trolls, or the first one to ask Reddit for help. I have repeatedly sent them copies of the death threats I received and screenshots of the targeted harassment against me.
Reddit made no effort to help me or respond to my repeated attempts to contact them. They seem to have no interest whatsoever to help victims of Russian harassment campaigns.
Pro-Putin disinformation warriors take War of Aggression to Reddit: Reddit seems strangely indifferent to Russian disinformation groups.
Center for European Policy Analysis
‘Vulkan files’ leak reveals Putin’s global and domestic cyberwarfare tactics: Russian program aims to control internet and spread disinformation
Prominent pro-Sanders subreddit WayOfTheBern aims to divide Democrats, says social media analyst
Russian spam accounts are still a big problem for Reddit: At least 89 subs have been targeted by Russian propaganda.
How Russia Secretly Orchestrated Dozens of U.S. Protests: A group of Russia-linked Facebook accounts helped organize at least 60 events on U.S. soil, in an apparent attempt to deepen political discord.
Russia organized 2 sides of a Texas protest and encouraged ‘both sides to battle in the streets’
This post first appeared on Malloy.rocks
This is great information. Thank you.
Really scary! Russian trolls have done so much harm to America.