Just like Facebook, Friendica also has a sort of activity center where you can see all previous notifications. It was ~2 years ago when I first discovered Lemmy. Back then, .ml was the most active instance, with Beehaw on the rise as well. I remember I started by posting in non-political communities at first, and nothing bad happened. But the moment I started to show them how brainwashed I was by Western Imperialist propaganda (sic), they immediately resorted to downvoting all my posts and comments like crazy - be them political or not. Below there’s a screenshot with my beloved Russian Government shill living somewhere in the West, Yogthos gave me a downvote (dislike) to a post I did in a test community. Don’t even know why they bothered, since neither Lemmy and especially Friendica do not have imaginary points for activities on posts and comments. But there’s that, lol.
Yeah, yogthos was one of the original hardcore tankies on this place. Along with Shreddy Scientist and Poland is a state of mind and a bunch of others. He’s on Mastodon too, and has a website (where he however posts only technical stuff, but under his real identity). I won’t link them all here, as I have no interest in doxxing that guy. But I’m more than sure that he’s a Russian and I’m 70% confident he’s bluffing about his Ukrainian relatives. And if he did, the thing he is doing is much worse.
The thing he does goes literally in the playbook of manipulation - and this is fox news level of manipulation - never tell a complete lie. Start from a truth, something that cannot be contradicted at all. Then build up your lie based on that. Like, at this point, I don’t even know whether he’s an actual Russian agent, lol. He spews so much of their propaganda.
If you get bored and want to have a little conversation with him anywhere on the internet just to have some fun, simply ignore the true stuff and counter his lies in the most contondent way possible. At some point, you’ll get a reply that “I’ve had more clever conversations with ChatGPT”.
He literally goes the same route every single time. It is the most pathetic pseudo-intellectualist discourse I’ve seen in a long time. I had fun with it one night, but eventually he got boring and I moved on.
I almost hope he’s a paid shill. The alternative is far sadder. But it’s honestly more likely he’s some work at home tech guy who has just spent the past X years bathing in the Kool-aid.
The people who are actual expat Russians, I kind of get it. I don’t look at them as maliciously intended for the most part. It is a hard thing to grow up in a whole family / society / system / government, and then get out into the wider world and learn your whole people are looked at as big pieces of shit villains to almost everyone. It’s not his or his family’s fault where they were born. And I assume they’re not pieces of shit on a personal level or anything. So 100% I can understand the temptation to start doubling down or “fighting back” to stand up for the honor of your people. Especially when the governments doing the dis-honoring are, themselves, kind of pieces of shit on the world stage also in various provable ways.
Also, I don’t think the Russian educational system is real real good as far as history and political science, in some specific ways that just add more additional pieces to the cognitive dissonance puzzle. (I’ve heard people quote particular nuggets of disinformation to me as sort of “something everyone knows” in a way that makes me think maybe they picked it up from school and just have never re-examined it since.)
I think it’s just a lot to overcome and a strong temptation to slot into a mindset where actually you and your family are the good guys, after all.
Can you msg the url?