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Professional Internet Troll Sues Her Former Employer

Posted by Soulskill on from the guessing-there's-no-health-care-with-that-job dept.

baegucb sends a followup to the news from March that professional internet trolls were operating by the hundreds at factories in Russia. A woman hired to be one of these trolls, Lyudmila Savchuk, spoke to the media about her job, which led to her being fired. She's now suing her former employer and providing further details about how they operate. "The 'troll factory' operates based on very weird schemes, but all those firms are connected to each other, even though they are separate legal entities," she said. "I knew it was something bad, but of course I never suspected that it was this horrible and this large-scale." She describes how they flooded comment sections with pro-Putin responses, pushed out over 100 blog posts each shift, and doctored images to suit their employers' needs. Savchuk is now gathering activists to oppose this form of internet propaganda.

10 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. It's 1930s retro! by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stalin-- uh, I mean Putin -- would be proud of their efforts.

    I hope she carries a portable geiger counter. Polonium 241 is nasty stuff.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:It's 1930s retro! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why did Dice buy Slashdot?

      So they could suppress discussions about their own scandals!

      SHAME ON YOU DICE!

    2. Re:It's 1930s retro! by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The parent post should not be off-topic. We don't have a choice except to talk about this on unrelated threads, precisely because Dice is suppressing stories about it!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    3. Re:It's 1930s retro! by JazzLad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ^ This. Unfortunately, Slashdot editors have unlimited mod points, so I expect your post and this one to get modded into oblivion. My karma can take it, but I think it's a shame that what would have been 'the big story' today was suppressed by Dice. If Soylent, et al weren't so lame, I'd have jumped ship, but /. is still one of the best sources for discussion.

      Say what you (not you specifically) will about /. going downhill, there's still much good signal in the noise - just hard when the corporate overlords expect you to not look behind the curtain.

      --
      "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
    4. Re:It's 1930s retro! by dcollins117 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The the most important issue of today will not be appearing on the front page and that is very sad. This used to be the place where we could come together and share a common bond. Those days are gone.

  2. Professional trolls by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    are called shills.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  3. Re:Not really a troll... by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why did Dice buy Slashdot?
    So they could suppress discussions about their own scandals!
    SHAME ON YOU DICE!

    Are you trolling?

    No, he is not trolling, he is merely pointing out the power of propaganda as mentioned by the OP. I believe it should be more considered irony given the context off this story

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  4. So the concept of Putlerbot sockpuppet is true!? by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have seen on various non-tech forums some extremely biased and even absurd views from a very obvious pro-Russian government position. All these accounts seemed to work in unison, with the same talking points and a very clear agenda. The fact that their agenda was so clear and transparent is the reason why many forum patrons call them "putlerbot" and "Kremlin's sockpuppets". I thought that Putin most likely would not waste money on such nonsense, but I did find the comments humorous.

    But now I am starting to think that these... "people" aren't just utterly delusional Internet users from Russia, but actual, paid-for, managed and directed sockpuppets.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  5. Re:Troll v Troll by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The alternative, that those are real people expressing their actual opinions, is too horrifying to contemplate.

    The first rule of Fight Club might be "Don't Talk About Fight Club", but the first rule of The Internet is "Don't Read The Comments Section." There are very few exceptions to this rule, but most times reading the comments section on an article is an invitation for the worst of humanity's opinions to invade your brain via your eyeballs.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  6. Re:Propaganda trolls propagandize propaganda artic by Pfhorrest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless they've been deleted somehow (Slashdot wouldn't do that, would they?), none of the posts prior to yours in this thread appears to be pro-Russian propaganda-trolls. There's a Stalin/Putin comparison (with a OT subthread ranting about Dice), a OT rant about Dice, an "In Soviet Russia" joke, a post distinguishing internet trolling from plain old propaganda (with an OT subthread ranting about Dice), and an AC calling trolling an artform. What's pro-Russian in there?

    --
    -Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
    "I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."