NAFO Discord: Bronies, Furries and Fellas Plot to Spam Rival 4chan Ukraine War Thread and Coordinate Online Behavior. 90% of Bots Sharing War Hashtags on Twitter Were Pro-Ukrainian.
A paper comparing 4chan pro-Ukraine and pro-Ukraine daily war threads finds that the most common term in original posts on NAFO's /ugh/ thread is 'gay rape.' And neo-Nazism furries and bronies.
NAFO are a group of internet trolls that seek to amplify pro-Ukraine messages. A previous article covers the NAFO Twitter trolls, it’s memes, and general endorsement of racism and violence.
The Twitter account with the hashtag NAFO Official, which endorses NAFO account hosting Saint Javelin merchandise to raise funds for drones, shared a discord channel. The public discord channel showed a definitive bronie and furry culture.
NAFO, Bronies, and Furries
Bronies
Bronies are adult men who are super fans of My Little Pony. Bronie culture was prominent on 4chan in 2011, which an entire board devoted to My Little Pony culture.
Rolling Stone wrote a story about a bronie mass shooter and the potential rise of Nazism among bronies: in 2021:
Bronies created a 4chan-like website called poneychan:
Their profile picture is of a My Little Pony character. The indi
Furries
Tragically, the furry community was ravaged with an internal dispute between neo-nazi and anti-fascist furries in 2017.
The Daily Beast provided a vivid account of the battle for the soul of the furry community:
NAFO, unironically, has posted pro-Ukrainian propaganda with Aryan dogs:
In February, a far-right furry shot and killed a disabled woman at a BLM protest in Portland, Oregon.
Rolling Stone also covered shooting, describing the problems of neo-nazism and far-right extremism in the furry community:
NAFO Discord Channel Bronies and Furries
A Twitter account called Official_NAFO shares a public discord NAFO channel. The account had 2,952 followers on September 5th, which ballooned to over 11,000 by September 9th, 2022. Langley, Virginia is where the CIA main American office is located:
Official_NAFO shared a NAFO Polish-themed account that shares the link to a website called Saint Javelin (which raises money for drones and the Ukraine war efforts):
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Adam Kinzinger endorsing Saint Javelin:
Adam Kinzinger tweeted “there is no CIA” on September 9th, with a common phrase/theme within the NAFO online community:
Other NAFO furry fellas have likewise posted “there is no CIA” phrases in their Twitter bios:
Another NAFO Twitter fella with “the CIA does not exist” in their profile bio:
And yet another NAFO fella with a “not the CIA” Twitter reference (and a link to the Georgian Foriegn Legion):
Becky the NAFO fella who is “definitely not CIA or CIC:”
Likewise, the NAFO discord channel’s twelfth rule is “No talking about the CIA. There is no CIA:”
Some additional examples of NAFO’s online activity:
NAFO Discord Channel
The NAFO discord channel discussed coordinated trolling of the pro-Russian /chug/ thread and /ugh/ thread posts:
The channel included accounts with bronie, furrie, and other sexual references:
NAFO discovered they were raided by “Z-tards” (the paper below finds /ugh/ users frequently use retard):
The infiltration resulted in a moderator “locking down” the channel:
Let's Play War: /chug/ vs. /ugh/ 4chan Rivalry Explored
Let's Play War: Inside 4chan’s intergroup rivalry, contingent community formation, and fandomized war reporting (full PDF below), the pro-Ukraine /ugh/ and pro-Russian /chug/ threads emerged shortly after the February 24, 2022 Russian “Special Military Operation.”
The paper found the pro-Russian /chug/ thread focused more on unity while Pro-Ukraine /ugh/ focuses on their rivalry of /chug/:
/ugh/ included Azov Battalion and other nationalist logos:
The images in the original post image on the /ugh/ and /chug/ threads demonstrate key differences, such as /chug/ liking cats while /ugh/ likes anime with a NATO Nazi Black Sun Flag:
The most popular post terms for /ugh/ were gay rape and cum chug gers:
/ugh/ was likewise more antisemtic and “more traditionally 4chan-y” than the pro-Russian /chug/ community:
The paper found chug had higher quality and more creative images, making it more difficult for outsiders to infiltrate the group or appropriate images:
The findings concluded the /chug/ board was more focused on creating an inclusive environment where members focused on that which unified them, while /ugh/ was more anti-semetic, sexually violent, and had less creative images and memes:
PDF of the paper:
90.16% of Twitter Bots Sharing War Hashtags Pro-Ukrainian
Another recently released paper entitled #IStandWithPutin versus #IStandWithUkraine: The interaction of bots and humans in discussion of theRussia/Ukraine war shows that over 90.16% of identified bots on Twitter posting pro-Ukraine or pro-Russian hashtags between February 23, 2022 and March 7th.2022 shared pro-Ukrainian positions. Conversely, only 6.8% of the bots shared pro-Russia hashtags.
Key points of the study:
90.16% of accounts fell into the ‘ProUkraine’ category, while only 6.80% fell into the ‘ProRussia’ category (pg. 4):
“The highest information flows are out of pro-Russian non-bot accounts (ie, most pro-Russian information is not from bot accounts) (pg. 2)”
The ‘ProRussia NotBot’ account group has the largest outward information flows and significant flows to a range of other groups, having a positive information flow into both ‘ProUkraine’ and ‘Balanced’ account groups. This indicates that these Russian non-bot accounts influence a variety of user groups with the greatest between group information flows. This may indicate that human-controlled accounts, or accounts which appear less bot-like, have more influence in our social network, potentially due to their behaviour or perception (so humans may prefer human sources of information). While the ‘NotBot’ label is derived from the Botometer score, this label does not mean these accounts are not malicious or automated (pg. 8).
“The ‘ProRussia NotBot’ account group has the largest outward information flows and significant flows to a range of other groups, having a positive information flow into both ‘ProUkraine’ and ‘Balanced’
account groups (pg. 7-8).” This demonstrates non-bot, pro-Russia accounts influence balances and non-pro-Russian accounts more than pro-Ukraine bots.
This indicates that these Russian non-bot accounts influence a variety of user groups with the greatest between group information flows. This indicates that these Russian non-bot accounts influence a variety of user groups with the greatest between group information flows. This may indicate that human-controlled accounts, or accounts which appear less bot-like, have more influence in our social network, potentially due to their behaviour or perception (pg. 8).”
Conversely, pro-Ukraine accounts influence other pro-Ukraine accounts, as “most of the significant information flows between ‘ProUkraine’ account groups is between groups with the same lean. This may indicating that more information flows between the accounts within each of these groups rather than to accounts in other groups. ‘ProUkraine’ groups have the highest self entropy rates, meaning that these groups do not just aggregate information from other account groups, but influence other accounts within the same group (Figure 4 (d) (pg. 8).” This, pro-Ukraine accounts are “preaching to the choir,” while pro-Russian non-bot accounts have more influence with balanced and accounts not expressly supporting Russia:
“Pro-Russian non-bot accounts are most influential overall, with information flows to a variety of other account groups. No significant outward flows exist from pro-Ukrainian non-bot accounts, with significant flows from pro-Ukrainian bot accounts into pro-Ukrainian non-bot accounts (pg. 12).”
Thus, pro-Ukraine bots primarily send information to non-human, pro-Ukraine accounts, while pro-Russian non-human accounts share information that is shared with a variety of human groups (ie, not just other pro-Russian bot and non-bot accounts).” Pro-Ukraine accounts are thus more likely to be influenced by bots than human, non-bot, pro-Russian accounts:
Full PDF of the paper:
NAFO Discord Additional Photos
Images from the NAFO Discord were shared on multiple 4chan threads.
A PDF of the thread is below: