In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing a neo-nazi,conspiracy theorist & a troll, Andrew Anglin (@WorldWarWang). He's by no means a prominent figure of influence,but I wanted to introduce him as a cautionary tale of how people with fragile egos become brainwashed online.
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It seems that throughout his life Andrew has been soul searching, but in all the wrong places. As a teenager, he was a declared atheist and a vegan, wearing clothes with "Fuck Racism" written on them. Even as a youngster, his friends described him as erratic and sadistic.
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Ironically, he even flirted with homosexuality during his teenage years, something that he would strongly condemn later on, supporting the ISIS-style of throwing gays off buildings.
At some point he became interested in conspiracy theories, and became a fan of InfoWars ...
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... and other fringe medias. Lizard people, chemtrails, fake moon landing, fetus-eating pedophiles and their blood rituals... he embraced them all. He also spent a lot of time on 4chan, and he's declared that "4chan was more influential on me than anything".
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At some point he roamed around Southeast Asia for some years and stated that the only way for the humanity to survive was to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. He apparently wanted to marry two local Muslim women until "by the Grace of God", ...
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... he found Hitler and neo-nazism. You can't make this shit up, unless you're Andrew Anglin.
In 2012 he launched a neo-nazi website, Total Fascism. It was a failure and he decided to switch to more provocative, short-form content with his new website, The Daily Stormer.
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The website was quite popular, drawing in millions of readers. Anglin used his website to organize a brigade against Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent. In Jul, 2019, a judge issued a 14 million USD default judgement against Anglin.
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These days Andrew is fighting against the American obesity epidemic, women's rights and NAFO. He's a stout supporter of Russia's genocide in Ukraine, and he's (ironically) spouting about Russia being "the last White Christian country".
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Bankrupt, disenfranchised and alienated, Andrew resorts to only thing he can do: trolling. The best thing people can do is ignore him and move on.
He was banned from Twitter in 2013. but Musk reinstated his account in Dec, 2022.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.
1/19
But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.
Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
3/19
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss a specific propaganda/disinformation that the Kremlin likes to use – antisemitism. I also talk about how the Russian society itself has become riddled with antisemitism & how this has led to a decrease in Jewish population in the country.
1/19
Russian antisemitism works on many levels, and their narratives vary depending whether they’re targeting a local audience or people in Europe and the US. For example for the latter, Russia attempts to create a false narrative of Ukraine being an antisemitic “Nazi state”.
2/19
But before diving deeper, let’s look at a survey data of Russians in 2023: Nearly 30 million Russians harbour antisemitic attitudes, and 15% of those surveyed believed that “Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% think that the Jews have...
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian media personality and propagandist, Diana Panchenko (@Panchenko_X). She’s best-known for betraying her own country by peddling anti-Zelenskyy and anti-Ukraine propaganda and disinformation for the Kremlin.
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Panchenko was born in 1988 in the Mykolaev Oblast in Ukrainian SSR in 1988. She studied publishing and editing at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in law.
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After graduating, Diana worked briefly for the news site . Between 2010 and 2015, Panchenko was a presenter for KyivTV, but she found her true calling as a pro-Kremlin propagandist after she was hired by a national “news channel” called NewsOne.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Belarusian politician and dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. He’s best-known for giving up his country to Russia, and for cracking up political opposition and dissidents in Belarus, ruling the country with an iron fist.
1/19
Alexander was born in the Byelorussian SSR, living an unhappy childhood with his mother, taunted by his schoolmates due to being fatherless. His father’s identity is not known, but there’s a rumour that his father was a Roma traveler passing through the region.
2/19
Lukashenko joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1979, and a few years later he became the deputy chairman of a collective farm. By 1990, he had risen to the rank of Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR. He claimed to be an opponent of corruption…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss social media superspreaders. Due to their effectiveness, superspreader accounts are often used to spread "low credibility" content, disinformation and propaganda, and today this is more often done by hostile state actors such as Russia.
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DeVerna et al. (2024) described superspreaders as "users who consistently disseminate a disproportionately large amount of low-credibility content," also known as bullshit. It’s worth noting, that some of these people may actually believe the lies they spread.
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The numbers behind these accounts are astonishing – a study by Grinberg et al. (2019) found out that 0,1% of Twitter accounts were responsible for sharing approximately 80% of the mis/disinformation related to the 2016 US presidential election.