It is interesting when you consider how deeply involved Russia was (is) involved in using 4chan as a “troll farm testing grounds.”
This from reddit: Some insight into the Russian psyop on 4chan as I experienced it.
Fast forward to 2015. /pol/ has a man in the ring. He’s the “Chaos Candidate.” We are engaged in “meme warfare” which is of course a form of chaos magic. We wanted to meme our candidate into presidency. There is this obsession with repeating digits (in post numbers) on 4chan, and someone found out that there was an Egyptian God of Chaos called Kek and that he was represented by a frog (as Pepe memes were resurging). And so a cult was born. Of Kek, of meme magic, of Donald Trump. This is all ordinary 4chan nonsense on the surface but intensified into something I have NEVER SEEN as someone who has been all over that website for about a dozen years. Meme warfare is real. The triggers of associated images and recurrent phrases makes things stick very easily. And you’re on /pol/, so you are likely there because you are addicted to this fun sort of outrage where you can laugh at something meanwhile not being sure of how serious you are… it’s like cocaine. Coupled with the sense of community or likemindedness this was extremely effective at turning what was a sea of conflict and random discord into a cultlike mentality:
-Everyone who tried to expose us to facts was a paid CTR shill.
-Foreign actors were influencing the election in favor of Hillary to weaken the United States of America.
-What we were doing was something of great magnitude.
-Meme harder, win the fight. High energy.
-Anime girls posted in every single /ptg/, and other “American-friendly” themes forcibly associated with the Trump movement to keep momentum going.
Innumberable troll and disinfo campaigns extending to all corners of the internet.
If we don’t pull this off it will be just about the end of the fucking world as we know it.
I have little doubt now that 4chan was the original Russian troll farm testing grounds. Being where most original content starts circulating in its less refined form before making its way to other sites, I’m sure the impact of this has run deep and started long before the election. It took me a long time to come back to reality after the election, and I still feel psychologically raped to this day. Feel free to ask questions, downvote, or ignore me. I just needed to post this.