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How Professional Russian Trolls Operate
New submitter SecState writes: Hundreds of full-time, well-paid trolls operate thousands of fake accounts to fill social media sites and comments threads with pro-Kremlin propaganda. A St. Petersburg blogger spent two months working 12-hour shifts in a "troll factory," targeting forums of Russian municipal websites. In an interview, he describes how he worked in teams with two other trolls to create false "debates" about Russian and international politics, with pro-Putin views always scoring the winning point. Of course, with the U.S. government invoking "state secrets" to dismiss a defamation case against the supposedly independent advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran, Americans also need to be asking how far is too far when it comes to masked government propaganda.
It's only those damn Russians are doing this, all other countries are saint.
Yeah, because that makes it all OK then.
Your comment is designed to distract from the issue at hand, shut down intelligent conversation on the topic, and imply the wrongdoer is just fine because, by implication, "everybody else does it, too" (no evidence to said implication provided, certainly not proven, and probably not true), all without contributing a single creative or new thought to the discussion at all.
Nice job, (Russian?) troll.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Conversations in online forums havent really taken the bulk of social-political discourse in america, because we're all still convinced the news media is capable of objectively reporting wars and foreign politics. the administration, any administration really, has made perfectly clear that those outliers that do not fall lock step with the new york times, fox, nbc, and other household staples will be punished. Expect wiretaps, spying, litigation to uncover your sources, accidental shelling of your foreign offices, and outright disinformation and lies from both houses of congress. Expect Joe Libermann to pen a strongly worded letter to your hosting provider, as in the case of wikileaks, that insists you should be shut down. Credit processing will cease, bank accounts will be frozen, and dubious arrest warrents will be issued once you begin to report on the actualities of american foreign policy and interventionalism. during both the iraq war as well as the Afhan war, we censored news coverage of planes returning with dead soldiers. We didnt do it because of television censor standards, we did it because coverage of that nature led to mass protest of the viet-nam war. peaceful demonstration is fine, but whenever we grow tired of it we install agent provocateurs and quickly crush the manufactured dissent.
narratives contrary to the song of exceptionalism aren't tolerated. In fergusson as in occupy we routinely arrested journalists that didnt belch the days talking points for 20 minutes, and immediately knock off to the hotel bar for steak and booze.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Excluded middle much? Other countries may be doing this — or planning to catch-up — but Russia has been doing this on massive scale for many years — all the while, in a classic fit of projection, accusing others of it.
Another difference is, the US, for example, may consider such propaganda a war-fighting tool to be used outside, but Putin's regime — according to TFA — is happy to use it to prop the government domestically.
Then, I suppose, for knuckle-dragging simpletons happy to equate Joe McCarthy with Lavrenty Beria, none of the above makes any difference...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I believe the term is astroturfing, i.e., when someone is paid to write commentary in support of some other entity.
Go to any major news site and click on an Ukraine story?
90% of the posters are about those American backed Nazi's out to destroy the freedom fighters who had enough of American backed oppression. It is stated so many times it is true that Ukraine is a puppet of the Nato and the US.
Really? How can anyone believe this. It is obvious Russian trolls. Also Crimea is a place with tons of political censorship and political prisoners now. All the comments say it is propaganda and paradise now under Putin. Uh yeah
http://saveie6.com/
I often wonder what percentage of responses on slashdot climate stories are made by paid trolls.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
If you don't think there are democratic trolls/astroturfers, you're kidding yourself. It depends on the issue, but both sides have corporations paying for Dark-PR.
I'm not sure what Fox News is except the biggest, most well known right wing troll on planet Earth. Russia just doesn't quite get how to do it properly.
Of course we are saints. We are the good guys. When we deceive the enemy with lies that this is only a tactic to prevent evil. When the Russians do it, it is to undermine freedom and democracy. Welcome back in the eighties, well maybe it is already the sixties. Those old top honchos in the US, UK and the rest of the west have secured another round with Russia with their special inferiority complex based politics. Both sides have hoped to get back to that. For a short time, they thought Islam might be a suitable evil, but that does not work very well when one half of the Muslims tries to kill the other half over things we do not really understand. True, I do not understand why we had that 30 years war in Europe over religion and power.