The growing presence of paid political actors on social media is disenfranchising voters and pushing them out of online discourse, say Malaysia-based researchers.
A core election strategy involved the use of “cybertroopers”, which are anonymous politically linked actors often paid to enter online debates and to influence public perception. Malaysian voters have become incredibly cynical and jaded, often decrying the presence of cybertroopers as “clouding” public debate.
Up to 2018, the parties in government primarily funded most cybertroopers. After the change in government, many cybertroopers were likely sacked and became free agents, serving most major political parties who are willing to pay for their services. The PH-BN proxies’ efforts are focused on attacking PN’s conservative nature and its racist and bigoted rhetoric; the cybertroopers tried to paint a picture that a PN government will sideline non-Malays, implying that a strong PN win could bring them back into the federal government., Malaysia’s richest, which PN hoped to wrest from PH-BN.
Most MUDA tweets would trigger a flood of complaints and attacks from PH-BN cybertroopers and macais. The one-sidedness of this exchange was especially noticeable, as the attacks often overwhelmed MUDA defenders. Cyberbullying this way is a cybertrooper tactic and just one of the many ways they shut down balanced debate - by bullying opposing viewpoints into submission or silence.PN CYBERTROOPERS
In the final week of campaigning, two major issues became a focus of cybertroopers: An incident involving Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at an event with local pre-university students and a televised debate between Minister of Economics Affairs Rafizi Ramli and the PAS MP for Bachok Syahir Sulaiman on economic plans for Malaysia.
On the other hand, PN cybertroopers, in manipulating public opinion, accepted that Syahir performed poorly but sought to minimise the debate by calling it a waste of time and claiming that it would not affect the election.
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