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The internet brigades (Chinese: 網特)(Russian: Веб-бригады) are alleged state-sponsored information warfare teams that conduct psychological operations on-line. Such teams may be affiliated with state propaganda departments, military, or secret police forces. They are said to disseminate disinformation and prevent free discussions of undesirable subjects in political blogs and internet forums by using cyberstalking, cyber-bullying and other psychological warfare methods against political bloggers. Since the existence of internet brigades is often officially denied, such activities may be defined as "black", covert or false flag operations.

Internet brigades in Russia

First publications

This alleged phenomenon in RuNet was first described in 2003 by a group of Russian immigrants led by Anna Polyanskaya, a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova., historian Andrey Krivov and a programmer Ivan Lomako. Anna Polyanskaya since 1998 resides in Paris. Andrey Krivov since 1988 lives in France. Ivan Lomako since 1991 lives in USA. The allegations of Polyanskaya and her co-authors have been supported by other immigrants: writer Grigory Svirsky (residing in Canada since 1975) and psychologist Vladimir Bagryansky (emmigrated from Russia in 1989), who claimed the appearance of organized and fairly professional "brigades", composed of ideologically and methodologically identical personalities who were working in practically every popular liberal and pro-democracy blogs and Internet newspapers of RuNet in the Russian blogosphere. These Internet teams appeared suddenly on Russian language forums in 1999. According to the allegations of Polyanskaya, Krivov, Lomako, Bagryansky and Svirsky, they have been organized by the Russian FSB service, the main successor of the KGB.

Criticism and discussions

Alexander Usupovski, head of the analytical department of the Federation Council of Russia (Russian Parlament) dismissed the existence of such brigades as a conspiracy theory..

According to Usupovski: "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 usefullness of functions performed by them for the country, state, society and citizens. Sweepeing 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"..

The work of the FSB brigades has been debated in RuNet. 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. A discussion was also conducted on the internet forum of Moscow News. Grigory Svirsky claimed that Usupovsky and his supporters are "incompetent" "internet propaganda brigade" "unfit for serious intellectual discussions" and "agitators of FSB". Grigory Svirsky also claimed that Alexander Usupovski "internet propaganda brigade" threatened to kill him. The discussion ended by a series of personal threats from the first group with address to Ivan Lomko, one of authors of the original publication. According to the allegations of Grigory Svirsky, "the internet brigade led by Alexander Usupovski is probably the most incompetent team of Russian state security services in RuNet".

Brigades on the Polish Internet

Russian "Internet brigades" allegedly appeared in Poland in 2005. Polish newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny published allegations of anonymous "Polish specialists in Russian affairs" according to which "at least a dozen active Russian agents work in Poland, also investigating the Polish internet. Not only do they scrutinize Polish websites (like those supporting Belarusian opposition), but also perform such actions, as—for instance—contributing to internet forums on large portals (like Gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, WP.pl). Labeled as Polish Internet users, they incite anti-Semitic or anti-Ukrainian discussions or disavow articles published on the web."

Recent developments

Behavior

According to the allegations of Polyanskaya, Krivov and Lomko, the postings from people supposed to be part of the Internet brigades have certain distinct features some of which are the following:

Propaganda of the Communist ideology, and constant attempts to present in a positive light the entire history of Russia and the Soviet Union, minimizing the number of people who died in repressions.
Boundless loyalty to Vladimir Putin and his circle.
Respect and admiration for the KGB and FSB.
Hatred of dissidents and human rights organizations and activists, political prisoners and journalists, especially Anna Politkovskaya and Sergei Kovalev.
Anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism.
Accusation of Russophobia against everyone who disagrees with them.
tendency to accuse their opponents of being insane during arguments.
Round-the-clock presence on forums. At least one of the uniform members of the team can be found online at all times, always ready to repulse any “attack” by a liberal.

Tactics

According to the allegations of Polyanskaya, Krivov and Lomko, tactics of Internet brigades include:

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 “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."

Internet brigades in Russian immigrants literature

The alleged FSB activities on the Internet have been described in the short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer, immigrant Grigory Svirsky, who was interested in the moral aspects of their work. 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 police teams in mainland China

Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao ordered to "maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online," "An internet police force - reportedly numbering 30,000 - trawls websites and chat rooms, erasing anti-Communist comments and posting pro-government messages", although the exact numbers of Internet police personnel was challenged by Chinese authorities It was reported that departments of provincial and municipal governments in mainland China began creating "teams of internet commentators, whose job is to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names" in 2005. Applicants for the job were drawn mostly from the propaganda and police departments. Successful candidates have been offered classes in Marxism, propaganda techniques, and the Internet. "They are actually hiring staff to curse online," said Liu Di, a Chinese student who was arrested for posting her comments in blogs.

Miscellaneous

Organized teams of information fighters become an increasingly common phenomenon. Some of them are not sponsored by the state, but can push different political agendas, be involved in astroturfing, or participate in election campaigns.

References

^ China's secret internet police target critics with web of propaganda, by Jonathan Watts in Beijing, June 14, 2005, Guardian Unlimited
^ Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003 (English translation)
^ Template:Ru icon Eye for an eye by Grigory Svirsky and Vladimur Bagryansky, publication of the Russian Center for Extreme Journalism
Articles by Anna Polyanskaya, MAOF publishing group
Template:Ru icon "They are killing Galina Starovoitova for the second time", by Anna Polyanskaya
Conspiracy theory, by Alexander Usupovsky, Russian Journal, 25 April, 2003
Conspiracy theory, by Alexander Usupovsky, Russian Journal, 25 April, 2003
Operation "Disinformation" - The Russian Foreign Office vs "Tygodnik Powszechny", Tygodnik Powszechny, 13/2005
" Grigory Svirsky Anastasya. A story on-line (Full text in Russian)
China's Hu vows to "purify" Internet, Reuters, January 24, 2007
War of the words by Guardian Unlimited, February 20, 2006
Ｗho are China's Top Internet Cops? China Digital Times
Internet as a field of information war against Armenia, by Samvel Martirosyan, 18 October, 2006,
George Monbiot, "The Fake Persuaders. Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet," The Guardian (UK) (posted by Norfolk Genetic Information Network), May 14, 2002,
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, "For Activist Constituents, Click Here," The Washington Post, September 19, 2005.