Slashdot Mirror
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.
They just open in the middle and stack inside each other!
It's like Valentine and Peter in real life.
The only places these trolls operate are unlikely to influence public opinion in one way or another. Their tactics are pretty simple. First, redirect the conversation by pointing out something bad the US has done in the past. Second, demand proof that the perceived negative factoid involving Russian activities is true. Finally, finish up by casting the opposition as something negative -- fascist Nazis are a favorite. They'll also tie themselves into knots trying to get in the last word, as if that means they "win" the discussion thread.
Which country is paying you to say that?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
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.
Hail Putin! He will save Russia , make Russia the most powerful country is. There's no doubt that he will do it , in time. Rejoice, Putin !
I believe the term is astroturfing, i.e., when someone is paid to write commentary in support of some other entity.
On various news sites, I see what are obviously paid Republican Trolls, Paid Pro-Koch Brothers Trolls, they come in day after day under various identities but having the same writing style, and post comment after comment (sometimes the same comment multiple times on multiple sites).
So exactly what's the difference...
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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)
So we have evidence of a government doing it, but can we get a whistleblower from the lobbyists/PR/Corps? In just a recent example, the amount of comments on many websites' (particularly right-wing websites, but even on some more mainstream sites) articles about Net Neutrality and Title II far exceeded the normal levels, and most of the comments were negative and looked to me like they were scraped from other sites or autogenerated, plus there were large groups of trolls that were using every trick in the book to drown-out or malign anyone who posted pro-NN/T2 comments. Aside from the rampant astroturfing, there were fake 'grassroots' websites and social media accounts that spouted the same anti-NN talking points.
I'm far less worried about government propaganda right now when the corporations and lobby groups are undertaking orwellian large-scale psyops to sway public opinion.
Sure, and just think if he wasn't a far-right hugging nationalist idiot. He could've hit 500% by now because Russia has massive amounts of land, the largest natural resource reserves in the world, and a decent sized population that can, if it wants to, be quite innovative.
Instead it seems Russian pride is more important than actually contributing anything worthwhile to the world and so yep, you're stuck at 66% growth (and shrinking) from a low point. How pathetic.
Eh, getting caught at it, even if everyone else is doing it too, is still news worthy.
And he increased the chocolate ration to 20 grams per week!
This has been going on a long time in China, though there the troll workplaces are decentralized and the pay's a lot lower.
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
On the other hand, the US has always had a rather loose interpretation of 'war fighting outside' which allowed for usage on disruptive elements of American society too. How much it is done is a big question though.
Given the low visibility slashdot has today, probably not many if any at all. Slashdot just isn't the major nexus it once was, and using paid shills here would likely not be all that worthwhile.
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
lets talk about the american troll tv stations and the american troll movie industry and ...
But Putin is sending expert to learn from US and A to better their health system.
http://saveie6.com/
"It's only those damn Russians are doing this, all other countries are saint."
I can assure you that I'm not getting paid for my trolling.
Good one! - like anybody actually pays attention to comments posted to online forums...
Compare our invasion of Korea with that of Vietnam only a few years later. Before you say "Korea was UN-approved" — no, that's a lame excuse. Stalin boycotted UN at the time action on Korea was decided, but by the time of Vietnam USSR has changed its approach. That's all.
In both cases American military was sent to fight in remote lands against people, who didn't threaten America directly in any way — for fear of the domino effect of Communism. In both cases the fighting was heavy and numerous war-crimes have taken place.
And yet, there was no domestic opposition to the Korean war — virtually none. No protests against the draft, no accusations of returning soldiers being "baby-killers". John Kerry, for example, has gained more political capital for opposing the war (and returning his medals), than for fighting in it (for an entire 4 months).
Vietnam was widely considered a national shame long before the war was lost. Meanwhile the only source of any negativity about the Korean war in mass culture was the M*A*S*H series.
Why was the domestic reaction to the two wars so drastically different? The theory of propagandists controlled and funded (with or without their own knowledge) by the USSR would explain the known facts.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Citations?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Those are not trolls, those are sockpuppets; there's a difference.
Time to repeat the British entry to the astroturd brigade. JTRIG:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
"Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums"
"Then there are the tactics used to destroy companies the agency targets:"
"Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends."
"The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes:"
Lord Ha Ha
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.
Look at any forum - especially news forums.
It's usually pretty obvious to see who is paid to troll.
Comments that are responded to by paid trolls are usually peppered with words and phrases such as "the Liberal government...", "what a conservative thing to do", "If the republicans were in power", "blame Obama", "Harpercrytes", "the far right", "leftist", etc. - which is very telling.
The same is true of any criticism of Israel regarding the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine. Anyone who disagrees with the occupation is attacked by trolls and labelled an "anti-semite" and a "holocaust denier". Unless, of course, if they are Jewish then they are a called "self hater".
Sometimes it seems like the whole world has gone completely mad.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
FTFY
Social media trolls have been with us for years. On the good side, they're trivial to spot and ignore - a fact completely lost on their employers.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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.
Sorry for expressing my opinion then you fucking asshole, I guess the community here has become so bitter this is what Slashdot comments simply are now. A bunch of shitposters and crybaby perfectionists like yourself. Fuck you
I accept your apology. Have a nice day!
So anybody who interrupts the anti-American, anti-West circlejerk is a shill?
Sounds like the internet-libertarian equivalent to the Pharma Shill Gambit that anti-vaxxers love to trot out every time they're losing an argument.
Well, a nice high profile one would be the entire McCarthy era, and Hover's infiltration of civil right's organizations under the argument that they were aligned with communists.
'Poisoning the well'. Incidentally, a common tactic of the Putinbots.
Just make everyone believe that there is no truth or reality, just narratives. And spoil the usefulness of the media for everybody.
It suits Putler's short-term needs, but fucks everyone in the long term.
"Troll"?!? Someone clearly didn't get the joke...
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
In America, cooperations do this.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
And the NSA hoovering up Americans' communications data.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Yeah, all the shills here are unpaid interns.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
So anybody who interrupts the anti-American, anti-West circlejerk is a shill?
Cold Fjord isn't interrupting any anit-American or anti-West discussion. He is disrupting discussions where someone mentions that we shouldn't hand Snowden and instead should hold people who work against the US population responsible.
That is Cold Fjord is anti-American and anti-West. He actively works against the things that makes the American and western values worth fighting for.
And no, anyone who takes that position isn't a shill, some of them are just retards.
The things that separates Cold Fjord from those people is that he only shows up in NSA related threads on Slashdot and he is so obvious that the only way he isn't a shill for NSA would be if he is a shill for some other nation that is trying really hard to make the US government look bad.
Either way, the result of his actions is that things get worse for the American public.
Amen, Brother.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
By reducing the value of the Ruble 66%, the Ruble value of the Russian economy increased 66%. 50% of which went to pay for his Sochii boondogle, harem of gymnasts, assassinations of journalists and advocates of justice, etc.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I'm pretty sure that this does not happen in Vanuatu.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Well they're not doing very well especially on Reddit. Propoganda posts stick out like a sore thumb there.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Yeah, this happens on Slash too, so apparently the Chinese astroturfing squad seems to lurk here as well. For example, in regards to cheating exams:
You have this guy mentioning that cheating test scores is also a big problem in China, followed by some more detailed posts as to why.
Then you have a response by an AC who basically says "oh it's just Westerners trying to make China look bad. We don't do that anymore! Look, I'm in the US now so I'm believable. Despite posting AC and having stereotypical Chinese grammatical mistakes common to non-landed Chinese astroturfers, modded +1
I point out that the previous response is an obvious astroturfer (aforementioned grammatical errors etc), and am modded down twice rather readily. But seriously, read the astroturfer's post out with a bad accent and it will sound like a Chinese villain from an old movie. The linguistic keys make it pretty clear the guy isn't somebody who's been living in the west for any length of time.
For the record, I have plenty of Chinese friends etc whom I've worked on language skills with. Missing pronouns is usually a fairly basic thing that gets fixed earlier on, as is the use of infinite verbs ("keep to spread" instead of "spreading"). So unless the poster had been living in Chinatown for the last few years, one would expect those language'isms to have cleared up by now.
Also, "flied lice", though attributed to a Chinese restaurateur in Lethal Weapon and added for humour, would be more of a Japanese/Korean language issue as they lack distinct "L" and "R" sounds in their language (or rather, "L" and "R" exist as single character/sound). Chinese don't really seem to have issues with consonant swaps in English.
The turtle lady was wrong.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I've often wondered how much astroturfing goes on at Slashdot.
Certain news stories come up, and people make the most twisted arguments imaginable to deflect, downplay, or show shades of grey. Sometimes it's from long-term users with varied post histories - are these well-crafted astroturfers, carefully building up a false history to deflect suspicion?
My last remembered example was the one about home solar installations: The panels give unused power to the grid during the day, and the users take power from the grid at night.
The home-solar owner is using the grid as offline storage and not paying for it... and that's not fair.
This is straight from Robert Cialdini's book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion(*). "I'd like to get solar panels for my house, but oh! if I'm being unfair, then the answer's obvious! I can't be unfair now... can I?"
It's a well-crafted argument that halts rational thought by activating an automatic response on the part of the reader... by presenting a point of view that's not particularly obvious, and not something that is actually important to the issue.
(Consider: Do you really care about being unfair to the huge corporate energy conglomerate? And do you think that they would be fair to you in return? And looking forward 50 years, is the world populated by distributed home solar installations *better* than the world relying on monolithic energy production? And if so, won't "being unfair" now help to bring that about?)
This is only one example, I've noticed many sketchy arguments presented here - the Uber controversy seems to be particularly inflated.
We know that big corporate interests will astroturf politicians and regulators by faking letters of support &c (viz: the outpouring of support of the Comcast/TimeWarner merger).
We're a nexus (probably the biggest one) of smart people on the internet. Are there teams of astroturfers trying to shape public opinion?
Has anyone else noticed any particularly suspicious arguments?
(*) Chapter 3, "Commitment and Consistency"
Oh no, the USA would *never* do anything like that. To flood forums with US propaganda? The US are *so* above that. Evil Russians indeed are the only people evil enough to do that and evil enough to spy on their own people and evil enough to wage war on other countries to increase their hegemony over the rest of the world and evil enough to export their debts to the rest of the world through confiscatory taxation through inflation by holding the world's reserve currency. Only Russia would do that.
Inside each Russian troll is another, slightly smaller Russian troll.
I find that most people I talk to don't trust US media. They don't do anything about it, but they don't believe what they are told any longer. Apathy works for a while, but historically this can not last. Corruption and abuse will get to a point where there has to be some form of revolution (not always bloody) and then the cycle will start over again.
To be in line with TFA's point, sure the Russian's have paid shills and trolls. Their play books are the same as our own Government's. Whistle blowers have demonstrated that most large US companies have paid shills and trolls, the US Government pays shills and trolls, as does just every "Western" Government including the UK and Canada. Snowden's leaks give us a nice powerpoint view of the play book, no need for anecdote and hearsay trying to vilify "those other guys". Nobody likes a hypocrite..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not only country governments do that but even municipals do it. Often using trolls that ridicules those willing to raise the questions about high-risk projects.
Looking at Västlänken, Gothenburg, Sweden you will see a local debate that's quite heated.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
That was a covert operation, which is a direct opposite of propaganda.
Hoover was running FBI — federal police — not military. Countering foreign agents and spies is openly and officially within the scope of such establishments in all countries and infiltration is a perfectly legitimate tactics.
"Interesting" my butt.
Many were USSR-controlled (knowingly or not), in all likelihood. Some certainly were.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Fox News might be hiring. Most active major commercial propaganda outlet we have. Amazingly distorted rhetoric straight-up designed to mislead and motivate the gullible. The chief job requirement for on-screen employees seems to be the ability to keep a straight face. Off screen, though, they need video editors and "reporters" who can take the key elements of a story and write up (barely) credible fiction that somehow implicates that "Kenyan Muslim Socialist." Digging up images that are supposed to be about a story, but really are about something else, is also a very important job skill.
Voice of America used to be a great place for the aspiring propagandist, but shortwave isn't what it used to be. Of course, you can go into politics, which near as I can tell is about 9.99% purest propaganda and .1% some poor bastard trying to buck the system.
Drudge might be looking for an intern as well. Or Breitbart. For that matter, there is the clergy, always a hotbed of cobbled-up agitprop -- pay tends to be low unless you go the evangelist route, so keep that in mind.
Wikipedia is a good place to practice, and you can always put it on your resume -- public figures are always looking for (cough) "image management."
Be of good cheer! Plenty of opportunity still remaining!
NSA's domestic spying is highly secretive and covert.
They run away from any sunlight and do not engage in propaganda, which would've blown their secrets.
They supply information to other branches of government, but don't do anything with it themselves. Had they done anything of the kind, you've would've heard plenty about it from Snowden's fans...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You totally blew that. As third post, there was supposed to be a picture demonstrating the first posters point.
Russian ones: you call them trolls. Western ones: you call them press. Hummm...
Who cares abouy Russian trolls when slashdot already has its share of government shills (cold fjord), telecom / cable shills (Sarten X), and fossil fuel shills? Russia is the least of our worries when it comes to disinfo.
That would explain the quality of some comments...
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
Russia gets its quite well. RT is backed up by every remaining news source in the country. Its all 100% controlled from the top down now. Russians are becoming irrelevant as they are almost completely buried in this crap and are scared out of their wits to say anything out of line with it. The Russian church is even on the dole or afraid, they declared the march into Ukraine a holy Crusade. Believe me, Russia does quite get it. The Question is do you.
when a corporate talent search firm owns the thing? You must not have noticed the shift over the past decade or so, in the slavish adherence to conventional wisdom and mainstream narratives.
For that matter, most conspiracy theory can be explained by good old high-school conformism and a shared culture among those whom we are allowed to endorse to run the place.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
The Militia Acts of the 1790s are fair examples. Think of the larger pattern this way: when has the US not been bipolar and schizophrenic in its social order? When has it not had some Other into which to schizophrenically split off its less Exceptional parts?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
You pathetic, whimpering, pietous, arrogant, Exceptional tool. People like you who are willing to die for some gorram BEDTIME STORY ought to do so posthaste.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
You forgot the entire Republican Party. If you really believe the trappings of intellectualism or anti-intellectualism are not just the designated irreconcilable tribal grunts, you are probably too naïve to understand politics.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
The act of deflection is on the part of those who are posting this ZOMG RUSSIA propaganda in the MSM. But without victim blaming, it is impossible to have American Exceptionalism, a not-too-distant offshoot of Protestantism, as the secular religion, so what then? I for one will happily pee on the grave of American Exceptionalism once it is buried.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
You'd think people on /. would be smarter than mainstream-fed USians and actually think more than 1/2 move ahead, but to do so risks "talking like a fag", as a certain Mike Judge movie once labeled it, so it's not done.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
In Russia it is a small government based operation involving couple hundred people. In US it is a wide scale, industrial operation, otherwise referred to as mainstream media and involves hundreds of thousands of people. In Russia the product is comments under articles, in US the product are the articles themselves. I don't think that we, in the US, are exactly qualified to complain about what the Russians are doing.
Just as one example, look at articles from 2008 to 2013 about Russia in the US mainstream media. It reads like hit job. There is not a single article published without a mention of some perceived problem in Russia, be it with Putin himself, so called human rights violations, free speech violations or corruption. Not a single article that would not spend at least several paragraphs on bad mouthing Russia.
And even if you say, those are justified, compare it to articles from 2008 to 2013 on Saudi Arabia, which has much worse record in every single regard. You will see the stark difference.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
So much so that they even have a name for it: Maskirovka. The term was originally used just for camouflage, and the uses of it seem entirely in keeping with ordinary warfare. The disinformation campaign around D-Day would have been a brilliant example of maskirovka.
But the Russians do it before a war, and even during active hostilities as a way to demand that they be treated as if they were non-combatants. It's going on right now, pretending that they aren't engaging in war against Ukraine. It's so traditional in the culture that it's not even really something we can blame them for, exactly. But it means that our actions and reactions have to be calibrated around the fact that this is part of the way they view the world.
Wrap yourself in the flag much?
Playing the patriot does not make you right
Wherever You Go, There You Are
The Heartland institute is paid by the fossil fuel industry to spread misinformation about climate change. Popular misinformation sites like WUWT have received $80,000 in a single year. Even as a lowly intern you can get a small piece of the pie. They'll pay you $150/week to comment on relevant blogs, newspaper articles, and social media.
If I were waging a propaganda war against Russia, (and we are; it is ferocious, filled with an utterly astonishing amount of crap; hell, the entire Western media coverage of the last Olympic games was one giant psychological warfare operation.)
Given that, then this little article is *exactly* the kind of spoof I'd publish. Not saying it isn't truthful. Maybe it is. But it could very easily be a complete or partial fabrication. It has the same flavor as that "Incubator Babies" lie packaged and sold by the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador posing as a refugee before a congressional committee, and all packaged up neat and tidy by American PR firm, Hill & Knowlton.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/...
And why not? That kind of shit is incredibly effective. If you use the "who benefits" measure to determine the likelihood of a story being a fabrication, then this one stinks to high heaven. -It casts doubt on any of the counter-arguments Russia might present in defense of itself against many of the ludicrous claims of the West. I mean, how many times has the West claimed that Russia has "invaded" Ukraine? FFS.
Seriously. Would this kid be allowed to report on his psy-ops activities were he really what he claims? Would an intelligence operation really not be able to vet this kid's past political leanings? He's an internet child, for goodness sake. According to the propaganda, the Russian secret services should render this kind of leak next to impossible. So which is it? Is Russia a fascist empire or a clown show incapable of controlling a bunch of trolls for hire? You can't have it both ways. Unless you're dumb.
And how dumb are we?
Well, just look at the number of people posting today who have taken for granted that this article represents reality.
So one way or another, this astroturfing bullshit works.
For those who want to work out what is *really* going on, you need to do three things:
1. Take the time to listen, read and sift through the media.
2. Measure the claims against the samples of objective reality you can distill.
3. (And this is the most important one) Remember past behavior patterns of the players involved and use those recollections in your calculations. Psychopaths who have lied and manipulated once will not suddenly be truthful and honest just because today is a new day.
-This message brought to you by a completely unpaid Western idiot who should really be working right now but is instead wasting time throwing useless punches at a tidal wave of bullshit.
Hill and Knowlton earned a reported 10 million for their efforts which sent us to war. I'm trying to scrape a few bucks together for my next rent check. Go America.
Only Soulskill's Department byline had any reference to the game. What has slashdot turned into?
Actually I prefer the Quorum Trolls as outlined in HackMaster.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
What job titles and keywords are used in ads for troll operator positions? I would love to read some of their job postings.
Reading job ads is a good way to see what the Empire is actually working on. For instance, if you work on databases, the job ads in Northern Virginia are just fascinating. Read them for a while if you wish to be disabused of the silly notion that we live in a free republic. Similarly, I suspect job ads for troll operators would give some insight into the ideologies and memes promulgated by the financialist cybernetic police state.
NSA's domestic spying is highly secretive and covert.
They run away from any sunlight and do not engage in propaganda, which would've blown their secrets.
So which organizations ("government" or "corporate") are responsible for our domestic propaganda ops?
– If you want to troll Damon Linker, just accuse him of being a troll. In his latest column for the Week, Linker calls the term "facile, vacuous, imprecise," and "insipid." After all, "everyone online wants to be noticed, have a say, start an argument, be recognized as clever." There are thousands of people online saying things that someone considers outrageous. "Are they all trolls?" We can never know if someone means what they're saying, which means accusations of trolling "invariably amount to an ad hominem attack." Was Niccolo Machiavelli trolling when he wrote The Prince? Was Nietzsche trolling when he said that "God is dead"? Malcolm X, Ayn Rand, HL Mencken, and countless others could look like trolls in the right light—and it's much easier to call them that than engage with their ideas. "At its most basic level, trolling is what everyone is doing online every hour of every day. And at its best, trolling is coterminous with thinking itself—which often requires provocation as a goad to move the mind out of its well-worn grooves." http://www.newser.com/story/19...
I honestly don't care if they're getting paid or not... 99% of them are so easy to spot it's laughable. Always look at their history, if it's mostly Russian conflict stories then *ping* They'll refer to NATO or Ukraine as fascist *ping* They LOVE to use a basic western first name and claim to be American. Ironically when they're pretending to be American they're typically support a conservative stance politically.
The things that separates Cold Fjord from those people is that he only shows up in NSA related threads on Slashdot and he is so obvious that the only way he isn't a shill for NSA would be if he is a shill for some other nation that is trying really hard to make the US government look bad.
I'd think a real NSA operative wouldn't act so... well, in a way that would make us suspect he's an NSA operative.
I'm not sure what MSNBC is except the biggest, most well known left-wing troll on planet Earth
Ehhhh, I don't know about that. No one watches MSNBC. I'd give that award to Huffington Post, maybe? Village Voice? The left-wing stuff seems far more spread out and less centralized.
But Fox's numbers are only impressive when compared against other cable news channels, which most people don't care about. Hell, more people probably see Fox clips on the Daily Show than on Fox.
Sheesh give me a chance here, it was a shitpost as stated. They get full time pay, it's rather discouraging!
Do you get paid in shit then? Sounds like a shit job.