AlexSavard

"In Internet communication, a troll is defined as a person who provokes disputes, e.g. by raising controversial topics or attacking other participants. However, a troll factory is an entity conducting disinformation propaganda activities on the Internet. This activity is often concealed under an inconspicuous name, e.g. public relations agency, Internet research centre, etc. The operations of troll factories are usually focused on the political or economic sphere. The aim of the operations may be e.g. attacking political opponents, unfairly attacking a competing company or other action indicated by the ordering party. Troll factories achieve their goals using, among other things, fake news and hate speech."

They include fake profiles, fake influencers, botting, etc. and is a well documented reality, and they even have an agency for it: Internet research institute. I will link some articles about it, mostly from Europe since they are used to these kind of tactics:

https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda

https://spyscape.com/article/inside-the-troll-factory-russias-internet-research-agency

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exposes-sick-russian-troll-factory-plaguing-social-media-with-kremlin-propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/01/troll-factory-spreading-russian-pro-war-lies-online-says-uk

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-internet-research-agency-intl/index.html

There is also a segment from 2024 from CBC about fake influencers that were confirmed receiving funds from Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7KGwIZRZns&t=137s

Here is a little description of the website, Disinfowatch:

"DisinfoWatch is a leading Canadian foreign disinformation monitoring and debunking platform. Our data is sourced through an international network of journalists, civil society organizations and analysts, as well as some automated sources, and is anaylized and exposed in order raise broader general awareness of disinformation and build long-term resilience against it.

Our core objective is to increase public understanding and awareness about mis/disinformation, by whom and why it’s produced, how to identify it and how to help stop its spread."

Edit to add some text I copied this morning. The website is down. I don't think it is far-fetched to think Russia would DDOS this kind of website.

"Sputnik, a Russian state media outlet, has published an article targeting Mark Carney, the newly elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and incoming Prime Minister. The article frames Carney as an unqualified and problematic leader by listing alleged “mishaps” including one connecting him with Russia’s classic neo-Nazi accusation. It should be noted that Sputnik, like RT, is a key instrument of the Russian government and intelligence services, used for information and influence operations targeting Western democracies. Sputnik’s article is not a neutral critique but part of a broader disinformation campaign aimed at: Undermining Carney’s leadership by questioning his credentials, integrity, and political legitimacy. Eroding Canadian support for Ukraine by framing Carney’s pro-Ukraine stance, especially his use of “Slava Ukraini“, as radical or dangerous. Sowing distrust in Western financial and political elites by portraying Carney as an untrustworthy figure tied to corruption and globalist interests. This article follows a Kremlin playbook commonly used against Western leaders who support Ukraine, climate policies, or strong financial governance. Similar tactics have been used against Canadian officials"

First image is the twitter outage, second is Rogers.

Elon said the other was was a "cyber attack". Can we believe it? Why was it pretty much only In Canada? Hard to know in this post-truth era.

My internet has been acting REALLY weird this morning, and I have CCAP, a small independent internet company in Quebec City.

This is how immigrants are being treated in Spokane. They were on their way to their court hearing and were closed in by two trucks. Unmarked vehicles. These are Customs Enforcement Agents (better known as ICE). The passengers knew their rights so they started recording and asked the agents for a warrant. The agents didn’t provide a warrant and demanded they get out of the car. When they didn’t get out of the car the agents proceeded to smash their windows and forcefully remove them by dragging them out of their car. This is a gruesome display of excessive force. This family was on their way to court and were terrified.

read the document about hybrid warfare from the Canadian Armed Forces Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) Professional Development Centre (PDC. Anti-globalism is one of the main theme being pushed by Russia. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/mdn-dnd/D4-10-19-2016-eng.pdf

extract from the document:

To further understand the danger hybrid warfare poses, it becomes useful to examine the “Kremlin Tool Kit” as described by researchers from the Institute of Modern Russia: • The Kremlin exploits the idea of freedom of information to inject disinformation into society. The effect is not to persuade (as in classic public diplomacy) or earn credibility but to sow confusion via conspiracy theories and proliferate falsehoods. • The Kremlin is increasing its “information war” budget. RT, which includes multilingual rolling news, a wire service and radio channels, has an estimated budget of over $300 million, set to increase by 41% to include German- and French-language channels. There is increasing use of social media to spread disinformation and trolls to attack publications and personalities. • Unlike in the Cold War, when Soviets largely supported leftist groups, a fluid approach to ideology now allows the Kremlin to simultaneously back farleft and far-right movements, greens, anti-globalists and financial elites. The aim is to exacerbate divides and create an echo chamber of Kremlin support. • The Kremlin exploits the openness of liberal democracies to use the Orthodox Church and expatriate NGOs to further aggressive foreign policy goals. 38 • There is an attempt to co-opt parts of the expert community in the West via such bodies as the Valdai Forum, which critics accuse of swapping access for acquiescence. Othersenior Western experts are given positions in Russian companies and become de facto communications representatives of the Kremlin. • Financial PR firms and hired influencers help the Kremlin’s cause by arguing that “finance and politics should be kept separate.” But whereas the liberal idea of globalization sees money as politically neutral, with global commerce leading to peace and interdependence, the Kremlin uses the openness of global markets as an opportunity to employ money, commerce and energy as foreign policy weapons. • The West’s acquiescence to sheltering corrupt Russian money demoralizes the Russian opposition while making the West more dependent on the Kremlin. • The Kremlin is helping foster an anti-Western, authoritarian Internationale that is becoming ever more popular in Central Europe and throughout the world. • The weaponization of information, culture and money is a vital part of the Kremlin’s hybrid, or nonlinear, war, which combines the above elements with covert and small-scale military operations. The conflict in Ukraine saw non-linear war in action. Other rising authoritarian states will look to copy Moscow’s model of hybrid war—and the West has no institutional or analytical tools to deal with it. • The Kremlin applies different approaches to different regions across the world, using local rivalries and resentments to divide and conquer. 39 • The Kremlin exploits systemic weak spots in the Western system, providing a sort of X-ray of the underbelly of liberal democracy. • The Kremlin successfully erodes the integrity of investigative and political journalism, producing a lack of faith in traditional media. • Offshore zones and opaque shell companies help sustain Kremlin corruption and aid its influence. For journalists, the threat of libel meansfew publications are ready to take on Kremlin-connected figures. • Lack of transparency in funding and the blurring of distinctions between think tanks and lobbying helps the Kremlin push its agendas forward without due scrutiny.70 In sum, the threat posed by hybrid warfare is substantial. Its application is insidious as it deludes decision-makers into separating the specific tactics being utilized by an adversary from the actual strategic level political objectives that are driving their campaign. In short, it becomes hard to recognize that one is under attack or at “war.” As such, it becomes difficult to recognize the seemingly disconnected series of events as a carefully synchronized campaign designed to achieve specific political objectives.

CBC is a crown corporations. WE, canadians, own it. It is OURS and it is INDEPENDANT JOURNALISM. Crown corporations are wholly owned federal or provincial organizations that are structured like private or independent companies. They include enterprises such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), VIA Rail, Canada Post and the Bank of Canada; as well as various provincial electric utilities. Crown corporations have greater freedom from direct political control than government departments.

PP do not understand the difference between publicly funded and ‘state’ funded. The government transfers Canadian taxpayer money to the CBC which operates separately from government. The government does not control the CBC. This simple distinction is beyond his limited intellect.

CBC is PUBLICLY funded!! Therefore, yes the funds are funnelled through the govt, but not govt state media. We will leave that to fox propaganda news and post media that is owned by the USA ultra right wing.

Postmedia is owned by Hedge fund billionaires allied with Trump and pushing MAGA propaganda.

PP is straight up a Russian asset. This is the only reason the NPD were forced to do a coalition with the liberals, Singh wouldn't have intentionally destroyed his career. It is also the reason PP can’t get a security clearance for the life of him. You can look at the detailed documents about foreign interference from the CSIS and the official publications of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command 1 year ago, Pierre voted twice against a trade deal and against assistance to Ukraine. He said it was because of some "carbon tax", but no such language was used in the Bills, and Ukraine have themselves put a price on carbon in 2011. There is also the Freedom convoy that was helped by MAGA and the Kremlin. The funds that were frozen we receiving money from those two. https://publications.gc.ca/.../mdn-dnd/D4-10-19-2016-eng.pdf https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/ https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/.../COM0000197.pdf https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/.../COM0000327.pdf These are publications by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and from the Canadian Armed Forces Special Operations Forces Command

Postmedia Network, owned by a hedge fund in New Jersey that is allied to trump and pushing his Propaganda. They are reposted by the conservatives endlessly, and are compromised of all the "Sun" newspaper like Toronto Sun, The National Post and Financial Post, and basically every newspaper in Alberta. These are literally propaganda vehicles, and repeat lies and false claims shamelessly, lies that are often originating from RC, a Russian owned state media. They are then accusing CBC of being propaganda (PP said: don’t believe anything you see on the CBC) because it is a “state” owned media, and try to diminish the confidence the population has in their institutions. But we’re not Russia for god sake, the CBC is OURS. We, Canadians, own it. Once the population doesn't trust reliable and verifiable media, it is over. In our current context, we need to go back to the basics. Realize what is true and what is a figment of propaganda. They are literally using the Russian playbook, as Trump did, and it's working hard in the young male population, because they get their info on social medias like X and META (both owned by tech-billionaire oligarch) , and everyone living in more rural areas, since their newspapers have been bought since 2016, look up Post media networks. really. A hedge fund allied with Trump in new jersey bought it. Look up “postmedia connections to trump” online. So now they are using their channel to brainwash people, just like Trump did, trying to smear and demonize the opposition. and I swear, I've tried to talk to conservatives, and they believe Trudeau is a marxist and that if Carney is elected we can say good bye to democracy. It's Newspeak and Doublethink, straight out of 1984.

Which brings us to the International Democracy Union, or IDU, a global organization run by former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper that is dedicated to electing right-wing governments around the world. Membership extends to the extremely right-wing. Last year Harper met and fawned over Hungary’s Orbán, who pronounced Harper “a great ally.” Remember, Orban is literally Putin's puppet. If you want to see what sort of global club Canada will join if governed by a Poilievre-led Conservative party, a look at IDU’s membership — including the recently scrubbed — can be informative. Trump, Argentina, Modi...