Slashdot Mirror
Russian Online Trolls Resist The Light
Rick Zeman writes: Since the beginning of the public Internet on Usenet and now following on comment boards worldwide, live the trolls, the online creatures dedicated to stirring up trouble with their versions of online flaming, fact-twisting, and overall being a menace to online society. Russia, by paying state-sponsored trolls, has elevated the troll to the level of professional propagandists spewing the party line. In neighboring Finland, a country again precariously balanced between Europe and the Russian bear, Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro's investigations have opened a new front in the (dis)information war (Warning: source may be paywalled) where "'There are so many layers of fakery you get lost,' said Ms. Aro, who was awarded the Finnish Grand Prize for Journalism in March," reports the NYT. All because "A member of the European Union with an 830-mile-long border with Russia, Finland has stayed outside the United States-led military alliance but, unnerved by Russian military actions in Ukraine and its saber-rattling in the Baltic Sea, has expanded cooperation with NATO and debated whether to apply for full membership." The NYT article explores many of the actions that the Russian propagandists use to keep Finland out of NATO, and some of the more indefensible ones directed personally at Aro. She says, "They get inside your head, and you start thinking: If I do this, what will the trolls do next?"
If Russia thinks their citizens who live sheltered from unpleasant facts can in anyway alter the opinions of their more educated western counterparts, let them try.
Is there any person reading this who genuinely believes the United States doesn't engage in exactly the same behavior, if not worse?
The US employs a large supercomputer AI to perform trolling, as well as human resources too. Millions of social media account, blogs and website, all spewing US gov propaganda and disinformation. Its orders of magnitude larger than any other nation.
The meaning of troll seems to have been lost. Just because you don't like them, doesn't mean they are trolls.
The latest trend being ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS A TROLL! TROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
In Soviet-Russia, something something, trolls YOU!
A good troll breaks tedium, adds flavor and annoys wusses.
We get them on slashdot too, but they're very obvious. That's what mod points are for, and any forum that is disrupted, needs to consider Slashdot's mod and meta-mod as an option.
EU is probably doing more harm by highlighting the troll to public figures, where those public figures otherwise would never read the troll or give it credance, they're hyped into tackling a threat of free speech, best handled by ignoring it.
A lot of this is not about Ukraine, its about Putin. If Putin was popular he wouldn't be invading neighboring countries, so the best way forward is to continue to expose Putin's corruption / the rigged election, fix TOR to protect the free speech of Russians etc.
Of course Russia would ry and influence public opinion. Finland is a direct neighbour. And they're certainly not the only ones. China does it, Europe^Wthe EU does it, even the USoA does it. Sometimes overtly, sometimes less so. Sometimes subtle, sometimes less so. Sometimes even naked threats, innit, mr. Cameron?
So yeah, nothing surprising here. If you're honest you don't try and spin it like a scandal story, like you're a SJW or something. Because if you do that you're really lying to yourself: This isn't extraordinary. It is much more useful to scetch the scene matter-of-factly, so that everyone knows what is happening and how.
That is the point. In a word where you cannot control the population by controlling the information supply anymore, you just pollute the well so much that it becomes unusable for anyone, except for those having the knowledge, time and resources to filter out the shit. ...) has really only one option, and that is to decide who he trusts based on completely unrelated, and possibly also incorrect, data.
On any non-trivial subject that is not average Joe. He (make that 'We'
The US elections are another prime example of this.
This link(EU vs disinfo) was burried deep in the story, but is rather interesting, though it is unfortunate this particular service only targets pro-Kremlin disinformation.
This one story though can apply anywhere: Three classic "disinformation recipes" put to use
Trolls are by definition people who enjoy causing strife by broaching subjects that cause friction. They're not political propagandists. Trolling isn't a good tool of propaganda because heart of trolling isn't creating falsehood but uncovering unpleasant truth. And such truth seeking does never serve a particular political need. So in my mind calling potential Kremlin propagandists trolls implies that they bring up unpleasant truth. While generally actual propagandists work by highlighting truths that further political goals while downplaying unpleasant truths that doesn't. So basically accusing propagandists in trolling is tantamount to complaining that there's too much truth in propaganda..
The "good guys" have been doing exactly the same thing for years too:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
'This “information war, is just part of a bigger struggle.” While not involving bloodshed, he added, it “is equally as dangerous as more conventional hostile action.”'
That's some safe first world bullshit right there.
NATO is the only hope for the world. Finnland should definitely join NATO. Just a few more cuntries are needed, and then they will be strong enough to move forward. You don't start WW3 unless you're sure you can win it. NATO is smart about things like this, you see. After the fallout clears and Russia is destroyed, then we can take their oil. And the troops can come home to their SUVs and fat American wives. Death to Putin!
Seems like Aro needs some help from Constantine, as played by Keanu Reeves. Wait, I just read the first few paragraphs of the NY times story. This is about the social media, that fun place where people who don't actually exist can attack each other to relax after a hard days of work. Scary part is that some people seem to think such nonsense should be used as a basis for a security policy. Oh well, the EU might as well brand these pro-Putin trolls as agents of foreign power and require them to register at the nearest police station.
Since the beginning of the public Internet on Usenet and now following on comment boards worldwide, live the trolls, the online creatures dedicated to stirring up trouble with their versions of online flaming, fact-twisting, and overall being a menace to online society
What rubbish. Here, let us consult the book of knowledge:
Oh holy fucking shit! I tried to paste the first paragraph from The Hacker Dictionary on Trolling. and the dumbfucks running this site have it tripping the lameness filter!
Let me just get around the filter with some 13375p34k.
troll
1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. This Derives from the phrase “tro11ing for n3wbies” which in 7urn c0m3s from lamestream “tro11ing”, a s7y13 0f f1sh1ng in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. Th3 well-c0n5truc73d tr011 is a p0st that induces lots of n3wb13s and fl4m3rs to m4ke themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate tro11. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.
Bunch of stupid net noobs now think a "troll" is an under the bridge dweller, but "trolling" is when you set bait lines for the new fishies to bite on, for the amusement of all. Esp. the noob who learns not to be a lamer and how to avoid getting baited, then later re-reads the hilarious thread.
Trolling is an art form. The Orwellian media is doing now to Tr011s what they did to Hacker. The authoritarian controlled media wants to conflate as much tech culture with criminal behavior as they can. Make no mistake about it, this is a propaganda attack. This is why Zoe Quinn, who was a self admitted helldump addict ( a somethingaweful forum dedicated to doxing and harassing people) is now getting government funds for her Online Harassment Prevention group Crash Override. Labeling more and more people as "criminal harassers" is what TFA is meant to get you to do.
She says, "They get inside your head, and you start thinking: If I do this, what will the trolls do next?" 1- Turn off your computer 2- Have a cup of tea 3- ???? 4- Profit
that's 1335 kilometers
I'm a citizen of a country that made the tragic mistake to be part of the EU, hopefully not forever, and I see the EU itself as a threat to the sovereignty of my own homeland. And given the topic of the article, I'd like to remember you that Bruxelles' institutions also use trolling to promote themselves, they don't even deny it: http://www.politico.eu/article... ... but results appear to be embarrassing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/bus...
History has widely proven that real "nations" arise from one majority people (yes, it means ethnicity), one culture and one language, "the EU" does not comply with these basic requirements, and it is composed by 29 nations that used to be at war with one another for more than 2K years. So please, don't spread the illusion of a non-existing "EU nationalism", recent elections and the skyrocketing results of anti-EU parties prove it is just bullshit.
Forgot to point out that despite Finland not being in NATO, Finland has been building direct relations to the US-Israeli war machine. There is a MOU (Memoranda of Understanding) - which is basically an international treaty - between Finland and the US. It's called "Host Nation Support Agreement" - and it's worded so carefully that it can be interpreted to mean just about anything.
Some Finns already think that the wording is such that the US can just tell Finland that we're bringing troops in and Finns no longer have a say in the issue. This MOU was basically a way to bring in NATO from a back door against the will of the Finnish population, an undemocratic scheme, which the current International elites are all about.
Something about the treaty here: http://shape.nato.int/finland-and-sweden-signing-a-memorandum-of-understanding-with-nato-for-operational-and-logistic-support
Exactly same situation in Georgia..
Exactly this. The International elites hate the peoples of Europe and the US. They have nothing in common w/their own people and everything in common w/the International elites of other countries. This Internationalist Clique is working against all of the European and US peoples towards their own goals and own ends and care not at all of the people at large.
Russia is just the new Nazi Germany that is blamed for everything in order to scare the big masses to do the bidding of their Internationalist masters. It's the same type of scheming that has led to the rise of Donald Trump. And I think it's falling apart. The Internationalists in control of the MSM are losing control of the debate. The peoples of European countries and the US are wising up to their scheming.
Found the Russian troll.
As has been repeatedly stated, but you Russian trolls repeatedly ignore because it exposes your lies, the U.S. does not have an army of paid trolls spewing nonsense on social media like Russia does. We know Russia pays people, its citizens, to put out lies because one woman sued the Russian government over the practice.
But as always from Russian trolls there will be an excuse or an attempt at deflecting the truth just like when it is pointed out Russia has lost over 2,000 soldiers during its invasion of Ukraine, that Russian soldiers "on vacation" keep getting captured in Ukraine, that Russia funds the terrorists in Eastern Ukraine, that the takeover of Crimea has cost Russia untold amounts of money because supporting a peninsula isn't as easy as Putin said it would be, that Russia has stolen businesses from the people in Crimea and given them over to oligarchs aligned with Putin, that the Tartars of Crimea are forbidden from speaking their own language or having their own schools, that Tartar newspapers have been shut down because they don't post what Putin tells them to do.
All this, and much, much more, is the truth but Russian trolls always find an excuse to deny the truth. Because that is what they are paid to do.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
stirring up trouble with their versions of online flaming, fact-twisting, and overall being a menace to online society.
Speaking of trolls...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The truth is not nearly as simple as you think it is.
First of all, Russia hasn't invaded Ukraine. If it actually had, the whole Ukraine would have been occupied long ago - you cannot even imagine how badly Ukrainian army is equipped and how many people there try to dodge the draft nowadays. It is telling that two thirds of Ukrainian soldiers stationed on Crimea have joined the Russian army.
What Russia does is supporting the separatists in Donbass with hardware and manpower so they can continue keeping Ukraine destabilised, because NATO treaty basically says that countries with ethnic or territorial disputes cannot join until these issues are resolved.
Second, "stealing" businesses is, in fact, business as usual in Ukraine. Every time a regime change happens there, the oligarchs of the new regime steal from the oligarchs of the old one. That was basically the reason for the latest coup (a.k.a Euromaidan) - Poroshenko has profited quite handsomely from being a president.
And as for the takeover of Crimea being expensive, well, duh. I've been in Ukraine a few times, it is not far away from being sort of European Zimbabwe. For the last 25 years Ukraine has sold basically everything they have inherited from the USSR and never invested in the country's infrastructure. Hence the expenses.
And before you call me a Putin troll - I've been on Slashdot even before Putin became a president of Russia. I just have some perspective by the fact of having actually visited Ukraine and by the fact of speaking several Slavic languages - being originally from the other Germany has its bonuses, you know.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I nominate rick zeman as faggot shill of the year
The whole western media is controlled by only a few individuals. These are the same people who also run the state, and press forward with their various neo-liberal trade 'agreements', which are designed to further undermine the protections for domestic workers.
There is a continually anti-Russian, anti-Chinese line spewed on slashdot these days. It does make you wonder if the person who wrote this article, isn't in fact the one being paid to do so by the US regime.
"Russia, by paying state-sponsored trolls, has elevated the troll to the level of professional propagandists spewing the party line"
Perhaps, but they have NOTHING on the fact-twisting and propaganda spread by Israel's Hasbara Troll Brigade.
Finland has a long history of "neutrality" and trying to play off both sides of the cold war against each other for their own benefit. It didn't take Russian propaganda to make the Finns pursue such a strategy. It's also hardly news that the Russians have been trying to place propaganda in Western media, that there are actual Russophiles in Europe and European media, or that the typical response of European government and media to speech they don't like is to stomp down on it. So, why is this crap on Slashdot?
1. If you're a Finn, you're a particularly stupid one.
2. Who gives a flying fuck that "She is known for being convicted for amphetamine-related drug-charges in Finland"? What has that to do with her credibility as a journalist? Did you really read that kind of ad hominem attack and say "well, shit, if she was once convicted of possessing speed, I can't believe her journalism"? As I said, if you really are a Finn, you're a particularly stupid one.
3. Someone fired a gun next to a phone because they didn't agree with this woman's politics. And you're defending them!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Didn't you read the article? The USA/NATO trolls are "special units" which are set up to protect the West against a "growing threat [to] civil discourse."
Any foreign or independent opinions which run contrary to the narrative spelled out in Western media propaganda are a "threat"
Thanks!
Communism — first implemented in and spread with support of Russia — has killed 94 million people in the 20th century. What have the Americans ever done to you to even approach — much less equal — that?
I invite you to compare Western Germany, dominated by Americans, with Eastern Germany... Are you still certain, the threats are equal? Or are you too young to even know, what I'm talking about?
Stalin is — thanks in part to the propaganda campaign described in TFA — once again a Russia's hero. A "strong leader"... The moment it "rose from its knees" (Russian propaganda's favorite expression), the country went on to attack neighbors. And not just to right wrongs — real or perceived — but to annex territory and expand borders. With overwhelming support from the citizenry — who forgive their own squalor to their rulers in exchange for military victories. Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine — all European countries — have already become victims.
America's last land-acquisition was Hawaii... Are you still sure, the threats are equal?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Nothing new here.
As a Finn I would like to point out that the reliability of the journalist you are referring to is not that great. She is known for being convicted for amphetamine-related drug-charges in Finland. The Finnish MSM has tried to hide the fact but the cat got out of the bag.
Other than that this article is a typical counter-troll pro so called US interests. The Finnish MSM is extremely pro-US and all and every critique against the west, no matter how valid, is always put down as Russian trolling.
I would take the article and this whole top post w/a whole lot of salt. Yes, the Russians can be a bit of a problem, but so is the Finnish MSM. It is as bad today as it was back in the day when it said exactly what Soviet Russia wanted it to say. These days it does just the same but repeats the pro-Western pro-US and pro-Isreali line perfectly.
In other words, it's full of ____.
Yours, a pissed off Finn who has to live in the country of MSM Pravda 2016, Finland, pro-US edition.
Juho Kusti Paasikivi supposedly said and this has been attributed to others as well, "That a small country always has an army, its own or some else's"
You must be among the first, well besides Otto Wille Kuusinen, finn that would advocate Russian/Soviet rule above your own.
Yikes, you're either a paid shill or on some sort of medication. Oh, perhaps you've gone off your meds on your own?
Whatever it is that you are, finnish can't be it.
Never met a Finn that wouldn't want to keep Russians at a lot more than arms length....
As a Finn I would like to point out that the reliability of the journalist you are referring to is not that great. She is known for being convicted for amphetamine-related drug-charges in Finland. The Finnish MSM has tried to hide the fact but the cat got out of the bag.
Reliability of the "MSM" is here under question. What is MSM, by the way?
pro-Western pro-US and pro-Isreali line perfectly.
So pro-Western cannot possibly include the French? You probably mean those US-born again Christian television networks which wonder into politics regularly? Well, I have news for you. They are not part of the mainstream media.
Are there European journalists and reporters who have been personally harassed in the way Jessikka Aro has documented? Were Guardian reporters who described USA propaganda budgets personally intimidated? Both sides play at propaganda, but TFA is about personal intimidation of a journalist by paid government "trolls".
Anyone who seriously entertains the notion that the US/UK or for that matter any country hosting governments interested in information control is not employing paid trolls, shills, misinfo and disinfo agents in an attempt to control the narrative and beliefs of their populace (or at least muddy the waters beyond comprehension) is to this writer's mind either lost in cognitive dissonance, or worse, willfully ignorant.
Sovereign trolls in online comments are wasting their resources. The high stakes strategic target for sovereign trolls is Wikipedia's administrative structure.
Seastead this.
Nigel? On Slashdot? In the words of INXS, "Two worlds colliding..."
Just you people tell me when we start injecting cyanide behind grandpa's ears and eating babies at breakfast! ...
I don't know whether this "troll factory" really exists in the alleged form - it may or may not. But if it existed the only difference between it and western media is that western media can spew anti-russian (or rather anti-anti-western generally speaking) propaganda on a much larger scale and with a self-appointed shred of legitimacy.
Well, I just don't see anything anti-Russian in the mass media, except from the particular news papers who don't like Putin. But Putin is no Russia, so anti-Putin messages are no anti-Russia messages. Is Russia like those Asian "shame" cultures where they are the only one seeing embarrassment and anti-something messages in the international media?
Some of the more visible hunters of pro-Russia trolls make no secret of the fact that they were trained to do this by the United States.
Nuts are good for the brain, but some stories are just too nuts to benefit any organ.
Finland to give up its sovereignty and join a more federation-like European Union
I have news for you: we are already a member.
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