How to deal with Malaysian cybertroopers (without resorting to violence)

GE15 is coming soon (19 Nov), so you know what that means: that’s probably all everyone will be talking about for a while. Social media is already flooded with election-related news, and netizens are already hard at work stanning (or cancelling) politicians and parties. And don’t even get us started on those family WhatsApp groups.

Ye, to be online these days is to be wading waist-deep in a flood of political content. And just as we should beware of leeches during the monsoon floods IRL, so should we beware of the online leeches: cybertroopers.

With the help of Mr Google and Miaoling Ng, media policy activist and co-founder of Reform Perspective, we’ve put together a handy guide on how to navigate these suckers.

Step 1: Knowing why cybertroopers are bad

1. What is a cybertrooper? A term that originated in Malaysia, cybertroopers are “actors acting on behalf of the government or political parties to manipulate public opinion online”, according to Miaoling. In other words, cybertroopers are people sent by political parties online to influence how netizens think.

• Some common names for cybertroopers that can be seen online include ‘macai’ or ‘barua’ for BN or PH, ‘red bean army’ for DAP, and ‘walaun’/’walauntit’ for PAS, to name a few.
• Cybertroopers are usually real people, although one person may control several social media accounts. To make things easier, some of these accounts may be automated or semi-automated bots as well.
• Although cybertroopers are commonly paid by a party, some fervent supporters of certain political parties may also partake in cybertrooper-like behavior for free, out of their own interests. In the interest of this guide, we’re treating them as the same thing.

2. Cybertroopers a cause of concern because they’re involved in disinformation tactics through social media manipulation. Some common cybertrooper activities include, but are not limited to;

• Spreading propaganda that supports certain political parties.
• Attacking other politicians or parties and mounting smear campaigns.
• Harassing or trolling people to discourage them from speaking up.
• Distracting people from more important issues, usually by turning people against each other.

These actions are bad for democracy, as they prevent the public from properly selecting the best leaders and diverts their attention from issues that really matter.

Step 2: Identifying a cybertrooper

1. There’s no easy, surefire way to identify a cybertrooper, but many use fake accounts, which are somewhat easy to identify. If you suspect someone of being a cybertrooper, check the following:

• Do their profiles look like it was recently made? On most social media, you can look at the date they joined. If it’s very recent, chances are the account was made for cybertrooper-ing. Other tell-tale signs include little or no information about themselves, or weird details, like a fake-sounding name.
• Do they follow other cybertrooper-like accounts? To hastily mimic real accounts, cybertroopers may befriend one another or have the accounts they control follow each other. If many of their online friends’ profiles are equally as sus, you may be dealing with a cybertrooper.
• Is their whole life about politics? Are their timelines filled with nothing but political content? Do they only show up to comment on political posts? Do they post the same content over and over again, multiple times a day? Chances are, you’re looking at a cybertrooper.

Tip: Fake account or not, the essence of a cybertrooper lies in the things they post. Check the previous step for cybertrooper-like behavior.

Step 3: Engaging a cybertrooper

1. Cybertroopers can be annoying, but the easiest way to deal with them is to focus on yourself. Educate yourself so you won’t be easily swayed by their comments and posts. This article has a guide on how to choose which sources to trust, but to simplify, ask yourself these questions:

• Says who? Check the sources of everything you read, and if you can’t find a source (or the information seems to just come out of thin air), then doubt it.
• Does this source has a reason to lie to me? Check where a sus piece of information came from and see if it’s neutral. If a study about evil cats is funded by mice, there’s reason to doubt the neutrality of the data.
• Is this content fair? Check whether both sides of a story had a say in it. If a report seems to talk too good or too badly about something, something’s amiss.
• Is there more to the story? Sometimes things are taken out of context as well, so if a piece of information feels strange or out of character, try and get the full picture.

2. Leave a mark on cybertrooper posts for future readers by commenting/replying to them. Miaoling suggests doing this particularly for posts that try and divert attention away from what really matters, usually by bringing up sensational issues like race and religion. The logic behind this is that the next person will know that it’s a cybertrooper by looking at your comment/reply, defusing the potential harm. Some things you can comment include:

• remind people that politicians have always used racial or religious issues to distract people before, and this is just another one of those instances.
• condemn politicians or the cybertroopers themselves for wasting the people’s money and time by trying to stir things up.
• direct the discussion back to issues that actually matter, which are your problems – traffic jams, job opportunities, inflation, etc. The point of elections are to choose people’s representatives to solve these problems.

Tip: Not engaging is also an option! Pick your battles. Engaging too much by replying or commenting might influence the social media algorithm to show the post to more people, so be sparing in your judgment.

3. For content that leans towards hate speech or just obviously cybertrooper-ing in general, Miaoling says that it’s always a good idea to report them. During her team’s engagement with Meta last year, they were encouraged to always report such content, although there’s no guarantee that such content will be removed.

• Most social media will have something in the top right corner that opens up a menu, where the option to report will be.
• On Twitter, you can reply to cybertroopers and tag the anti cybertrooper bot (@anticytro). To add to their list, reply “@anticytro add”, and to check whether someone is a cybertrooper, reply “@anticytro check”.