Slashdot Mirror
Professional Russian Trolling Exposed
An anonymous reader writes: Today the New York Times published a stunning exposé revealing the strategies used by one of the Web's greatest enemies: professional, government-backed "internet trolls." These well-paid agent provocateurs are dedicated to destroying the value of the Internet as an organizing and political tool. The trolling attacks described within are mind-boggling -- they sound like the basis of a Neal Stephenson novel as much as they do real life -- but they all rely on the usual, inevitable suspects of imperfect security and human credulity.
Internet Trolls You!
I'm a satanic clam.
It's just about time to drag the American organized political trolling on sites like reddit, twitter, and tumblr into the open too, right?
Well, astroturfing is no new tactic but ... I think what this article deals with is scale. 400 clearly skilled (bilingual at the least) individuals running multiple catfish personalities online day in and day out ... the whole thing on a budget of $400k a month? That level and size is probably unparalleled by ... say, Digg's conservative idiots.
You have one entity orchestrating the 12 hours a day work of 400 individuals on topics that are pro-Russian and tangentially pro-Russian. They are sophisticated enough to "hit play" at a certain time to unfold a natural disaster or assassination or anything to destabilize/confuse a region and they do so over many accounts on multiple social media platforms. They create video, screenshots, websites, etc. And they use proxies and sufficiently sophisticated means to appear to be disjoint at first glance.
They appear to have run an exercise on a rubber plant explosion in Louisiana for no other discernible purpose than to test out their new super powers or demonstrate their abilities to their customers/leaders.
Frankly put, I'm unaware of "American organized political trolling" that rivals this. This is paid. This is tightly controlled. This is prepared. This is unified. American organized political trolling is just a run-of-the-mill monkey shitfight with the occasional Koch Bros/Soros website (usually easily sourceable) thrown in.
Now if you can point me to a faked ISIS attack on American soil right before an election that was done by some political group stateside, I'd be interested to hear about it.
My work here is dung.
Read Trust me, I'm Lying -- it is a book by a self-confessed media manipulator who got depressed and left the industry. He worked for an apparel company. One example tactic was to take sexually explicit photos of porn stars, and then complain about said photos to feminist groups. And then: OUTRAGE!!!
The story of ACORN is a perfect example of how media manipulators manufactured a scandal -- literally creating reality for movement conservatives -- in order to shut the group down. To this day, some GOP congress critters are unaware that ACORN is defunct. The interesting thing is, the more outraged a person is (politically), the easier they are to manipulate. It is all rather ironic.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Four years ago the article said: "The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda."
There is not a more recent update as to what has become of that software development effort. But we do know, that in 2011 — when the article you are linking to was talking about America's evil plans in future tense — Russian government's Internet-propaganda machine was already up and running:
Let me guess, USSR's Lavrenty Beria was a normal reaction to America's Joseph McCarthy in your opinion too?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Nyet, everything excellent in Russia, all American disasters real and American. Giant plume kill 1200 people in Louisiana city of New Orleans. Work of imperialists. American CIA responsible, deaths cover up. Real! Contact me at agent0@kremlin.gov for more big news.