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Why Johnson’s Setback Means More Russian Memes
Now that Boris Johnson’s attempt to ram a no-deal Brexit down the throats of the British people has met with significant setbacks, the one thing we can be certain about is that we will now see a huge increase in the number of pro-Brexit and anti-Remain memes being churned out by Russian troll factories.
Putin’s Kremlin long ago realized the value of cheap memes in destabilizing his enemies. It costs very little to have a couple of hundred young people churning out a hundred or so memes each per day. While only a tiny fraction of these memes ever gets picked up and retweeted, reposted, and repeated, that tiny fraction can make a lot of difference.
We humans are rather dull-witted and we readily imagine that by reposting an “amusing” meme that amplifies our unthinking prejudices we’re being “clever.”
Thus Russian troll factory memes can spread across the pro-Brexit population, reinforcing their attitudes and causing ever-greater division in British society. We’ve seen the same thing in the USA with Russian support of Trump and in France and Germany (among many other countries) with Russian support for Le Pen and the AfD.
These memes don’t have to be clever. In fact, because so many people aren’t very bright, stupid memes tend to be the most efficacious. Hence memes about how if Switzerland…
