The internet brigades (Russian: Веб-бригады) ^{[1] [2]} are state-sponsored information warfare teams that conduct psychological operations on-line. Such teams can be associated with state propaganda departments, military, or secret police forces. They allegedly 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 ^[3]. Since the existence of internet brigades is often officially denied, such activities may be defined as "black", covert or false flag operations (or "active measures" according to Russian terminology).

Internet brigades in Russia

First publications

This alleged phenomenon in RuNet was first written about in 2003 by a group of investigative journalists led of Anna Polyanskaya ^[4], a former assistant to the Russian politician Galina Starovoitova ^[5] They found the appearance of organized and fairly professional "brigades", composed of ideologically and methodologically identical personalities, who work in practically every popular liberal and pro-democracy blogs and internet newspapers of RuNet in Russian blogosphere. These Internet teams appeared suddenly on Russian language forums only in 1999. They have been allegedly organized by Russian FSB service, main successor of KGB ^{[3] [2]}

Criticism and discussions

Work of FSB brigades has been extensively debated in RuNet. The discussion began in "Russian Journal" just a few days after the first publication by Polyanskaya and others, and it lasted for two months ^[3]. One group of bloggers was led by Alexander Usupovski, head of analytical department of Federation Council of Russia. He dismissed the existence of such brigades as conspiracy theory ^[6]. Other bloggers claimed that Usupovsky and his supporters are the governmental "internet brigade." 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. A discussion was also conducted at the internet forum of Moscow News ^[3].

Brigades in Polish internet

Russian "internet brigades" reportedly resurfaced in Poland in 2005. According to Polish newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny, "at least a dozen of active Russian agents work in Poland, also investigating Polish internet. Not only do they scrutinize polish websites (like those supporting Byelorussian 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." ^[7]

Recent developments

The teams of "Live Journal fighters" are reportedly created by a Russian Youth organization directed from Kremlin ^[8] Their ideological work in Live Journal is extremely important, said Vladislav Surkov, a top aide to Vladimir Putin ^[9]

Behavior

The people from the Internet brigades have certain distinct features some of which are the following ^[2]:

• 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

• 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." ^[2]
• Accusations that opponents are working for “enemies”. The opponents are accused of taking money from Berezovskiy, the CIA, MOSSAD, Saudi Arabia, Zionists, or 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." ^[2]
• Appealing to the Administration. Th 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." ^[2]
• 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." ^[2]

Internet brigades in Russian literature

The alleged FSB activities in the Internet have been described in a short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer Grigory Svirsky who was interested in moral aspects of their work ^[10] 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 do not see a disfigured body or eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, human soul lives by its own basic laws that force it to pay the price for the virtual crime in his real life". ^[3]

Secret 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," ^[11] "An internet police force - reportedly numbering 30,000 - trawls websites and chat rooms, erasing anti-Communist comments and posting pro-government messages." ^[12], although the exact numbers of Internet police personnel was challenged by Chinese authorities ^[13] 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 ^[1] 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 ^[1]

Other teams of information fighters

Organized brigades of information fighters become an increasingly common phenomenon. Some of them are not sponsored by the state, but can push different political agendas ^[14], be involved in astroturfing, or participate in election campaigns. They may openly employ military-like organization and even call themselves CyberArmy.

References

See also

• Harassment by computer
• Computer crime
• False flag
• Information warfare
• Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
• Astroturfing