Originally posted on r/ActiveMeasures by u/LRLOP-TA. Reposted here with their permission-- all credit to them!

Previous posts here and here by robotevil on this topic were welcome, so I hope this follow-up is too. I got permission to post this on a throwaway.

For years the (Russia-backed?) head mod of r/MurderedByAOC and other popular left-leaning subs, LRLOurPresident, has been posting propaganda to anger, misinform, and demoralize US progressives and encourage them to stop voting. They reinforce this by using bots/alts that copy-paste their past comments immediately after a post goes up. For a long time LRLOP and the alts only talked about US student debt cancellation, and had been in hibernation ever since Russian sanctions began after its invasion of Ukraine. While LRLOP was gone, the only other active mod, voice-of-hermes, has been working overtime to delete posts/comments critical of tankies and Russia in LRLOP's subs. Now LRLOP and the bots are back, using US progressive politicians to push a new pro-Russia narrative.

Despite the name, r/MurderedByAOC doesn't have much from AOC or murders by anyone, really. It used to be that a long time ago, but for over a year it's typically consisted of one person posting misinformation/propaganda designed for enraged and increasingly apathetic progressives to latch on to, then using alt sock puppet accounts to immediately copy/paste old comments (so they're likely to be seen first and upvoted to the top, comments were often gilded immediately for this purpose as well). In the meantime, the post immediately gets massive upvotes (probably by bots, it's easy to buy upvotes on reddit, but who knows) to boost it towards the front page where it can rise more organically.

The person behind this is LRLOurPresident (tho people often mistakenly think it's "IRL" which is a different user that's already been banned, while LRLOP is still going). Here's some of the best examples of the kind of "propaganda" posts they've made:

• This one is my favorite. Obviously Black Americans don't own 48% of all student debt as the tweet says. Here's the actual data

• Guys, Biden is "To the right of a literal fascist"! No actually Bolsonaro forgave some late fees for a fraction of a fraction of the Brazilian population just before an election. If you're interested in more actual details

• Hillary the next presidential nominee? Or just an opinion piece by a hack for the New York Post, a tabloid. Like most posts, this one is designed to just anger progressives

• This is literally just a picture of Biden walking away with its own narrative slapped on. There was no "abrupt" end to that day's press conference, it went on for hours

Anyway, after a post was made, comments immediately started popping up, wow that was fast! Actually these are alt/bot accounts obviously controlled by LRLOurPresident. They would copy/paste their old comments, mostly to r/MurderedByAOC but sometimes other subs within LRLOurPresident's network of 20 subs they mod, with only minor or no variations. Even a quick glance at their comment history reveals this:

finalgarlicdis crambledont DrWaxu DCokeSpoke

These were the only alt accounts for a LONG time, but haven't been seen in a while (since the Russian sanctions) and are slowly being replaced. Lately new bot accounts have been popping up, usually created within minutes of a post with a prepared comment to immediately copy-paste. Mostly they just copy-paste comments from themselves or other bots, though the most recent ones sometimes write something slightly more original, and many are likely controlled by another mod (more on that later). Some are even shadowbanned on reddit (but their comments get mod-approved anyway):

originaltas 500lettersize lettergetterbetter aquapropazicene recruitcat desktopramtr juniormemento okcriver servicewithastyle nooneedle lowerbullfrogalfalfa jazzlikeenergydelay

Anyone pointing out the copy/pasted responses of this bot network in the comments are deleted ASAP to keep up the scam (but running MBAOC posts through reveddit.com reveals this).

Lots of lies hits spread in political subreddits were nurtured in r/MurderedByAOC by these bots. For over a year they've been focused on Biden and the Democrats to sow division:

• When it appears Biden isn't doing enough, repeating that he said "Nothing will fundamentally change". Actual context: Said to wealthy people to assure them taxes increasing wouldn't really affect them

• Biden and the Democrat congress have done literally nothing! Well except for this list of dozens of things...

• Biden hasn't followed through on his campaign promise to forgive $10K in student debt by executive order (He said he would do this if Congress gave him a bill to do so, not by EO)

• Biden said he'd cancel $50K in student debt by EO! (There is no context for this, it's literally just made up and repeated by the bots enough that others assume it's true)

• Who's the architect of and solely responsible for legislation disallowing student debt from being discharged during bankruptcy? Of course it's Joe Biden! Except the bill was written by a Republican and would have passed an R majority Senate anyway, he just voted for it. (Also saying it can never be discharged isn't true, though it's certainly NOT easy and few try)

Once sanctions against Russia began after its invasion of Ukraine, LRLOP's posts went from near-daily to about once a month. With LRLOP stepping back, the only active mod in MBAOC and a dozen other LRLOP subreddits was voice-of-hermes, who ever since Russia invaded Ukraine has gone mask-off as a "Yes daddy Putin please flatten me" tankie. Or has he? Really their entire worldview boils down to "USA bad", so NATO and Ukraine bad, so constantly supporting Russian propaganda is really just a cRaZy side-effect. Surely it's a coincidence too that reveddit reveals they've been deleting anti-Russia comments and those that encourage voting in any subreddit they mod (including non-LRLOP "leftist unity" subs, AKA tankies welcome/encouraged).

• voice-of-hermes takes a day off from being terminally online allowing this thoughtful post in r/DemocraticSocialism calling out tankies with LOTS of agreement in the comments to actually gain traction before being removed

• Gets downvotes on MBAOC for supporting RT (RussiaToday) host claiming US is lying about Russia preparing to invade Ukraine, then deletes the entire submission in shame when Russia invades the next day

• Putin HAD to invade, Ukraine was going to build nuclear weapons in just 2 weeks! Also everyone knows the US wants to start WW3

• Can't allow progressives to suggest strategic voting

• Deletes all comments encouraging voting so there's a spotlight on his response (click "show hidden replies")

When the only active mod calls anyone slightly right of Bernie a liberal/neoliberal and anyone to the right of that a fascist and ensures the sub's posts and comments reflect that, the end result is you could be a fan of Bernie/AOC or just progressive/leftist and yet find a sub like MBAOC or DemocraticSocialism surprisingly hostile, especially if you're not aware of how many comments get removed and assume "Well, I guess this is what progressives think?"

All of LRLOP's posts (except one) since the sanctions 2.5 months ago are pro-Russia, and LRLOP is back to posting nearly every day:

• Comes out for first time since the Russian invasion to... use Bernie to simp for Russia. Guys, ignore what the entire world is enraged about, what's really important is the US is JUST as bad. This submission comes after posting almost exclusively about cancelling student debt for MONTHS prior

• Comes out again a month later just to steal someone else's post that got popular on MBAOC without them. No time to set up bot comments on this one when you're copying someone else's work

• 3rd, weeks later, not about Student Debt or Russia but Roe v Wade? Has LRLOP turned a new leaf? Oh it's because hours later once the post got 14k upvotes they sticky a comment to SIMP FOR RUSSIA AGAIN! As usual it's really easy to find the bots in the full comments, just look for the ones with awards

• A day later, again using Ilhan to spread a pro-Russia message. This time the comments go off the rails, with everyone disagreeing and pointing out the propaganda in the alt's comments until over half the comments are deleted and the post is locked! Also the best evidence yet that bought upvotes are also used on bot comments: Their top-level comments have hundreds of upvotes yet additional comments underneath preaching the same pro-Russia anti-US/NATO sentiments have massive downvotes, one even sitting at -135. Maybe it's too expensive to upvote them all? All these bot comments sound exactly like voice-of-hermes's "US proxy war" bullshit, it's becoming apparent that the new bot/alt comments that aren't just copy/pastes of their old comments are controlled by this mod

• Still pushing the same agenda, posted days after AOC voted to send more money to Ukraine anyway, the exact thing these pro-Putin mods are against, because she too realized it was necessary!

• More of the same, with voice-of-hermes replying to himself on his various alts in the comments ...pretty sad really

• Edit: Brand new post, time for a 2 year old tweet by Bernie to make it look like he's against giving aid to Ukraine, propaganda from bots already deployed

• robotevil was permanently suspended for his previous posts here revealing LRLOP's botnet, wonder if LRLOP's bots mass-reported him? BTW his first post compiles a lot of past research into LRLOP if you're interested

• willwriteofthe is another LRLOP alt that just cross-posts the same disinfo at the same time to other subreddits in the network

• Running MBAOC (and other LRLOP subs) through reveddit makes it clear that EVERY comment mentioning "Russia" now is being automatically removed... comments by the mod's alts or those that keep with the mod's message are all re-instated

• Mass comment purge of pro-Ukraine comments in r/DebtStrike, another LRLOP sub that's often promoted with stickied comments in the other subs

• A good site detailing the propaganda Russia is employing against Ukraine outside of reddit

Thank you for reading. I hope you found this post informative and consider sharing it elsewhere on reddit

EDIT: Thank you so much for the awards, but again, I am not the OP of this post. All I did was repost this here at u/LRLOP-TA's request. Please go award them on their original post instead!