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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNY Times - An army of well-paid trolls has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet
Kudos to Skinner for His Efforts to Try To Weed Out Such Trolls and Keep DU supportive of Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=0
Savchuks revelations about the agency have fascinated Russia not because they are shocking but because they confirm what everyone has long suspected: The Russian Internet is awash in trolls. This troll business becomes more popular year by year, says Platon Mamatov, who says that he ran his own troll farm in the Ural Mountains from 2008 to 2013. During that time he employed from 20 to 40 people, mostly students and young mothers, to carry out online tasks for Kremlin contacts and local and regional authorities from Putins United Russia party. Mamatov says there are scores of operations like his around the country, working for government authorities at every level. Because the industry is secretive, with its funds funneled through a maze of innocuous-sounding contracts and shell businesses, it is difficult to estimate exactly how many people are at work trolling today. But Mamatov claims there are thousands Im not sure about how many, but yes, really, thousands.
The boom in pro-Kremlin trolling can be traced to the antigovernment protests of 2011, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets after evidence of fraud in the recent Parliamentary election emerged. The protests were organized largely over Facebook and Twitter and spearheaded by leaders, like the anticorruption crusader Alexei Navalny, who used LiveJournal blogs to mobilize support. The following year, when Vyascheslav Volodin, the new deputy head of Putins administration and architect of his domestic policy, came into office, one of his main tasks was to rein in the Internet. Volodin, a lawyer who studied engineering in college, approached the problem as if it were a design flaw in a heating system. Forbes Russia reported that Volodin installed in his office a custom-designed computer terminal loaded with a system called Prism, which monitored public sentiment online using 60 million sources. According to the website of its manufacturer, Prism actively tracks the social media activities that result in increased social tension, disorderly conduct, protest sentiments and extremism. Or, as Forbes put it, Prism sees social media as a battlefield.
The battle was conducted on multiple fronts. Laws were passed requiring bloggers to register with the state. A blacklist allowed the government to censor websites without a court order. Internet platforms like Yandex were subjected to political pressure, while others, like VKontakte, were brought under the control of Kremlin allies. Putin gave ideological cover to the crackdown by calling the entire Internet a C.I.A. project, one that Russia needed to be protected from. Restrictions online were paired with a new wave of digital propaganda. The government consulted with the same public relations firms that worked with major corporate brands on social-media strategy. It began paying fashion and fitness bloggers to place pro-Kremlin material among innocuous posts about shoes and diets, according to Yelizaveta Surnacheva, a journalist with the magazine Kommersant Vlast. Surnacheva told me over Skype that the government was even trying to place propaganda with popular gay bloggers a surprising choice given the notorious new law against gay propaganda, which fines anyone who promotes homosexuality to minors.
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The point is to spoil it, to create the atmosphere of hate, to make it so stinky that normal people wont want to touch it, Volkov said, when we met in the office of Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation. You have to remember the Internet population of Russia is just over 50 percent. The rest are yet to join, and when they join its very important what is their first impression. The Internet still remains the one medium where the opposition can reliably get its message out. But their message is now surrounded by so much garbage from trolls that readers can become resistant before the message even gets to them. During the protests, a favorite tactic of the opposition was making anti-Putin hashtags trend on Twitter. Today, waves of trolls and bots regularly promote pro-Putin hashtags. What once was an exhilarating act of popular defiance now feels empty. It kind of discredited the idea of political hashtags, says Ilya Klishin, the web editor for the independent television station TV Rain who, in 2011, created the Facebook page for the antigovernment protests.
moondust
(19,979 posts)Vlad can easily afford to pay his trolls very, very well...but does he?
Of course even a warm bowl of free borscht on a cold Russian night would be better than unemployed and freezing to death.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)All Putin needs to do is say he won't send you to Siberia - Nothing more complex needed in getting what he wants.
moondust
(19,979 posts)But the way they've been known to fudge numbers it wouldn't be at all surprising if it's much higher. For one thing, it probably doesn't count those who have given up looking for work.
As evidence of the desperation, last month there was a story about 50 people in Siberia dying from drinking bath oil, presumably because they couldn't afford vodka.
It's coooold out there! Free borscht and a little vodka money would certainly warm things up for a while.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)LongTomH
(8,636 posts)After the election, the degree of hatred and divisiveness on Democratic Underground has just been growing. It threatens to destroy DU as an effective, progressive force, and we need that to counter Donald Trump and his agenda.
elmac
(4,642 posts)But this time it isn't overblown. We were, are being attacked by a former communist country with former KGB in control. The American people are divided, close to a civil war, our own intelligence agencies can't be trusted and we are being attacked by a foreign country. I think a little paranoia is in order.
TomCADem
(17,387 posts)...ad hominem type attacks on Democrats without any type of constructive discussion, it is a troll. It may not be a Russian troll, but it serves the same purpose of creating a poisonous atmosphere and killing any constructive dialogue.
mopinko
(70,091 posts)i could write their scripts for them. we are such easy targets, too.
so hard not to take the bait.
i have no doubt the russians hacked this site.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)Bernie vs Clinton...we need to know it is not a valid debate..we are all on the same side.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)The following year, when Vyascheslav Volodin, the new deputy head of Putins administration and architect of his domestic policy, came into office, one of his main tasks was to rein in the Internet. Volodin, a lawyer who studied engineering in college, approached the problem as if it were a design flaw in a heating system. Forbes Russia reported that Volodin installed in his office a custom-designed computer terminal loaded with a system called Prism, which monitored public sentiment online using 60 million sources. According to the website of its manufacturer, Prism actively tracks the social media activities that result in increased social tension, disorderly conduct, protest sentiments and extremism. Or, as Forbes put it, Prism sees social media as a battlefield.
You can be certain that, after Trump takes office, his staff will be coordinating the monitoring of the internet with Putin and Volodin.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)comment sections on so many boards - left wing boards - with such hateful right wing bullshit. That is the stuff that really gets me down. If it's by design, it's effective. It really gets me down.
Hekate
(90,674 posts)...to touch it," Volkov said.
Watch out, DU.
elmac
(4,642 posts)and Putins army will continue to destroy Democracy and back the fascists because they can without any real punishment. My Russian flag goes up in little over a week. We will be a Soviet State then, and putin, once KGB always KGB.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)Are actually Russians that have learned English, at least enough to type it somewhat passably. All those grammar and spelling mistakes may not be because they are inbred home schooled American idiots.
I am always appalled at how every news story that was/is about Trump or Clinton is littered with anti-Hillary, and pro-Trump comments in the comment section. When a few years ago it was overwhelmingly more liberal commenters. And the fact that more people of education, and means, have the internet at least in North America. And it is a fact that the more educated you are, the more liberal views you have. Add to that that Hillary won by more than 3 million, it shouldn't be 90% Hillary and Democrat bashing on these comment sections.
It gives a false impression of how many other deplorables are out there. And emboldens the few that do know how to use the internet feel that they have a majority viewpoint. And discourages anyone supporting more liberal views wading into the thread.
Cha
(297,196 posts)uponit7771
(90,335 posts)demmiblue
(36,845 posts)I can't stand the layout, though.
Heh, the only time I go there is when someone posts a link here.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)still check it a few times a week. Some good stuff, but I don't like the layout either.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)Russia is fucked up and we're absolutely headed in the same direction.