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My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

kioski.yle.fi

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Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#11

Post by ousta »

every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web.

She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through any means. Russians do not need to pay anyone to do this, people are patriotic enough to do it by themselves. To attack a one sided kind of people in their own realm with their own tools (the internet and social networks) is a foolish thing to do and this woman journalist learned this the hard way.people need to understand that the internet is a battlefield and wars cant be won by journalists but by warriors.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#12

Post by Drdrdrq »

acqq wrote: post #8

"In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls" I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles written by the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic. I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try…

I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big...

As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#13

Post by nocsaer1 »

ousta wrote: post #11

every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web. She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through…

They indeed pay folks to do this.

One Professional Russian Troll Tells All: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760

The rest of your comments is directing blame on the victim (the journalist).

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#14

Post by Kliment »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #12
acqq wrote: post #8

"In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls" I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles written by the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic. I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try…

I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big... As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.

Not paid for - sourced from. She asked people who had experienced such trolling to come forward and interviewed them. The work was funded by her employer.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#15

Post by acqq »

Kliment wrote: post #14
Drdrdrq wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big... As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.

Not paid for - sourced from. She asked people who had experienced such trolling to come forward and interviewed them. The work was funded by her employer.

And my question is if these people (who had experienced such trolling) were anonymous, and how biased the "series" was. From the view of somebody who understands Finnish.

When we're at it, I also don't understand the story with the "Official of the Finnish Parliament Peter Saramo." Again, not enough details.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#16

Post by drxzcl »

ousta wrote: post #11

every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web. She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through…

Harassment is not acceptable, regardless of whatever cynical-sounding excuses you come up with.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#17

Post by metafunctor »

acqq wrote: post #8

"In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls" I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles written by the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic. I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try…

Here "crowdsourced" means that Jessikka Aro solicited for experiences from members of the public who have been targeted by trolls. As far as I can tell, any resulting articles have been written by journalists and have gone through the usual journalistic process.

I haven't actually read many of her articles, but my assessment is that she is not strongly biased. It is widely accepted as fact that pro-russian trolling is rampant also on the Finnish web.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#18

Post by Drdrdrq »

Kliment wrote: post #14
Drdrdrq wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big... As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.

Not paid for - sourced from. She asked people who had experienced such trolling to come forward and interviewed them. The work was funded by her employer.

Thank you for clarification, I stand corrected.

Still, not "written by" but "getting input from".

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#19

Post by benten10 »

dimitar wrote: post #3

The whole idea of the state-sponsored troll army is to destroy the Internet as a reliable means of discussion and to devalue it as a venue for journalism, especially independent journalism. Russia would much prefer that there were only liars and cheerleaders, that anyone disagreeing with the Kremlin sinks to their level or picks a 'side'. I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet d…

You overestimate people's ability not to be offended, and underestimate the diversity in people's actual beliefs.

For example: When someone on HN said over the weekend "I don't see anything inherently wrong with colonialism. Remember that scene from Monty Python -- What have the Romans done for us? A lot of good has come out of colonialism", I was almost certain (almost) it was trolling. Once I saw others agreeing, I reconsidered. What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views.

I bring this often on HN, and I will do so again: such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet, and everything it has mostly stood up for. When every woman is threatened with rape and murder, and every person of minority is humiliated (often under the pretension of 1) irony, as in reddit, and 2) strictly unemotional data-based Vulcan objectivity (as is often the case here)) , the internet loses its most powerful component: the diverse group of people using it.

I absolutely believe This is the issue why a lot of platforms have struggled with harassment and bullying issues, and it tickles me when the HN crowd --predominantly libertarian-- drones on about 'free speech at any cost' (suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship), not realizing that an absolute free-for-all arena is most likely to be used by the parties with the most available resource to shape the conversation easily. To put it differently, if Russian trolls can reshape (partly?) the conversation, so can the American government, and so can any agency, with enough resources. To reiterate, it is not necessary to completely change people's point of view -- just scare a targeted population away from a location, and identifying that is NOT as simple as 'calling out the trolls'.

I'll offload something tangential too here. When women say 'there are issues for women in technology', fellow HN users, the least correct response is to offer 'well maybe if they worked harder instead of wasting time complaining, they'd have less issues'. That actually happened in one of the last few discussions about women in tech.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#20

Post by dimitar »

joonoro wrote: post #10
dimitar wrote: post #3

The whole idea of the state-sponsored troll army is to destroy the Internet as a reliable means of discussion and to devalue it as a venue for journalism, especially independent journalism. Russia would much prefer that there were only liars and cheerleaders, that anyone disagreeing with the Kremlin sinks to their level or picks a 'side'. I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet d…

> I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. Yeah but the idea isn't to sponsor enough trolls to trick everyone, but more like turn all internet discussions into one big version of 4chan. Sure you might be able to pick out a few trolls, but it doesn't matter anymore because nobo…

Well, I think they are indeed trying to turn into 4chan, but they don't understand that 4chan users understand trolls and know how to filter them.
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