While monitoring known inflated-ego Russian bloggers and academics, we discovered their attempt to coin a new acronym for an "influencer." Their term, Samozvannyy Lider Obshchestvennogo Mneniya or "SLOM" stands for "Self-Proclaimed Leader of Public Opinion." SLOM is the Russian acronym, but we would likely change this to SPLOPO. Regardless, SLOM describes individuals or entities, often on social media or other online platforms, who assert themselves as authorities or influencers when shaping public opinion. These individuals may not necessarily have any formal expertise or credentials in the subject matter, but they use persuasive communication techniques to position themselves as leaders in public discourse. We listed several more phrases in the Appendix at the end of this brief while personally aligning with SPOG or the Self-Proclaimed Opinion Guru. We will remain with SLOM for this brief since the Russian coining of this phrase provided no details on methods, use, or specific information about SLOM personality types.

Read the brief as part of the Treadstone 71 series on Cognitive Warfare