Ty Burr, a former film critic for The Boston Globe, writes the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s Watch List.
Dear [Your Name],
Congratulations on signing up to be a social media bot! You are now part of an invisible but proud army whose sole purpose is to sow division and rage in a far-off country, the United States of America. Regardless of whether you’re a Nigerian pretending to be an Ohio real estate salesman, a Mississippi mom who’s actually from Macedonia, a true-blue American patriot from Pakistan, or an account for the Democratic Socialist Party of America beaming in from Portugal, we welcome you and hope you don’t mind being paid in cryptocurrency from the Russian national bank. Uncle Vlad thanks you, and so do our useful idiots in the United States: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, as well as the magazines and newspapers that allow trolls to flourish in their online comments to increase engagement.
This handbook offers helpful tips on tailoring your online persona to fool Facebook and other social media users into thinking you’re a regular American “just asking questions” while seeking to “engage and enrage” as many people as possible. You could be a MAGA diehard responding to an Alex Pretti memorial post by saying, “He brought a gun, so he had it coming” or a far-left Brooklyn firebrand pouring scorn on “neo-lib normies” who voted for Kamala Harris. Be who you want to be! Remember: The more time Americans spend arguing online, the less they’ll actually get up, go outside, join together, and change things.
Here are some tricks to disguise yourself as a friendly social media user who only happens to spew racist invective in otherwise benign conversations. No one in America will recognize these “tells” as evidence of a paid troll.
▪ That Facebook waving avatar: The thing that flips from your profile photo to a happy little cartoon? Rest assured that when you see that, you are almost certainly seeing one of us. True, many Americans still use it because it signals open-hearted sincerity. That’s why it’s useful for a bot: It says “Trust me, I’m naive.”
▪ Puppies, kittens, and nature shots: Fill your feed with them. The cuter the better. They’ll confuse people appalled at your inflammatory statements by suggesting that you’re just a softy at heart and they must be the ones in error. No need to post a lot; few Americans will notice you’ve only updated your feed twice in three years. Your real work is in the comments.
▪ Photos of “yourself” and your “loved ones”: Your Kremlin-approved account allows you to choose from among thousands of selfies of pasty Midwestern guys with wraparound sunglasses sitting in the front seat of their pickup trucks. Use them. Post group shots of your “kids” and “pets.” Flaunt the logo of “your” sports team. (Make sure the team matches your fake location. You can’t be in Boston and love the Yankees. Well, you can if it will infuriate the locals even more.)
▪ Screen names to make you sound knowledgeable, politically neutral, or in the heartland: These work well for comment sections in US newspapers and magazines. Names like “RecoveringRepublican,” “CincinnatiJoe,” “AwakeNotWoke,” or “MiddleLaneVoter” will gull fellow commenters into thinking you can be reasoned with when what you want to do is pick as many fights as possible.
▪ Blanket talking points and mass responses: You’ll receive these using the secret decoder ring that came with this package. Feel free to improvise, but it’s rarely worth the bother: Americans never notice when dozens of accounts post the same pot-stirring denials using the exact same words, e.g. “The trees on Boston Common look way too green for an October No Kings Rally, so this is obviously a fake photo.”
▪ AI is your new best friend. Post a cooked-up video of a Catholic priest laying into Immigration and Customs Enforcement operatives or Zohran Mamdani grabbing a handful of Halloween candy. Congratulations: You’ve now caused Middle America to question baseline reality.
This leads us to our most important point, little neo-bot:
▪ Sow doubt wherever you can and keep the argument going. Say you’re “just asking questions.” Engage in “sealioning” — polite bad-faith demands for evidence until the other party loses it and you can claim the moral high ground. Never back down: Uncle Vlad’s Five-Point Plan for turning America into a “shithole” country depends on making sure that Twitter right-wingers, Bluesky progressives, Instagram kiddies, and Facebook grandmas never, ever look up from their screens to see what’s actually going on around them.
Just think: If you succeed at helping us bring America to its knees, you may someday make enough money to realize your dream of moving there.