Digital delegitimization: Biden representations in the astroturfing discourse of the RuNet

This article examines the delegitimization strategies employed by Russian bot networks in constructing the image of U.S. President Joe Biden on the VKontakte platform. Drawing on a unique corpus of 48,000 bot-generated messages (2019–2024), the study employs natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling to uncover the rhetorical, lexical, and thematic features of astroturfing discourse. The findings reveal a systematic pattern of “low-threshold rhetorical toxicity”, in which irony, infantilization, and cognitive stigmatization are used to simulate grassroots discontent while avoiding overt aggression. The figure of Biden is strategically deconstructed into a symbol of weakness, senility, and geopolitical threat. This campaign functions not only to undermine a specific political actor but to reinforce broader anti-Western and pro-authoritarian narratives. The analysis contributes to understanding how digital propaganda produces simulated public opinion through coordinated, affectively loaded micro-discourses embedded within controlled information ecosystems.