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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

#81

Post by comrh »

acqq wrote: post #73
comrh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the article, he posted: "media prostitutes, who have sold our independence for money and put out anti-Russian scum on a daily basis aiming at increase NATO war mongering". So he's alleging she's a paid NATO propagandist.

No, it's a posting by some other Peter, not Peter Saramo, on the picture is a posting by some "Peter Ilskola" (in Egypt! Al-Whateverghrhqh! Speaking Finnish, about the Finnish journalists!? Appears legit, right?) if I read it correctly.

Ah good looking out.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#82

Post by jamespo »

FilterSweep wrote: post #69
orf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, this "harassment" is to be expected from boots-on-the-ground paid Russian trolls. Complaining about it is poking a bear in the nose with a stick and not expecting it to react. Therefore it's her fault? That's like saying "if you complain about sexual harrasment and get fired it's your fault, you shouldn't have poked the bear". I hope you see how ignorant that is.

You're equating professional harassment regarding an external subject to sexual harassment within an internal workplace. I don't think this is appropriate here, in the least bit. Not only is it distasteful, but it also was a poorly posited example that failed to even make the same connection to "bear poking"

So as long as harrassment isn't sexual or "internal" it's OK. Right.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#83

Post by kaitai »

acqq wrote: post #23
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…

She states: the "high level Finnish Parliament official Peter Saramo has been spreading lies about me – Saramo said I put all Finnish journalists to shame and later spread false information about me." Does she claim that the member of the Parliament is a paid Russian troll? Or that he believed some false information to be true? What was it? What are the "lies" he have "spread"? I only see something he wrote using his…

You can look at Saramo's Twitter mentions of Aro: they're pretty negative, mostly implications that she didn't do any research/is biased/is herself a liar and that her work is a threat to Finland.

The specific quote ("Jessi[kk]a Aro is a shame to YLE and her profession. If the state's broadcaster is spreading things like this, Finland is not a Nordic country" -- my translation) is in response to this article: http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/this-is-what-pro-russia-internet-p... Since it's in English you can read it and judge yourself if you think the article means she's a shame to journalists and the state broadcaster YLE.

Saramo is in general smart enough not to say things that are quickly disproved when attached to a specific name. He's written some long pieces on rather partisan sites [1] attacking the "Infowar" book (Infosota) and essentially saying that these folks (Aro, Saara Jantunen) are themselves manipulators of opinion and that their work on trolls is a threat to freedom of expression and set on suppressing dissent in Finland. [1] http://vastavalkea.fi/2015/10/21/infosotarintamalta-ei-mitaa...

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#84

Post by kushti »

jonatanheyman wrote: post #78
johnnydoebk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption level is high in Russia, you're right here. But totalitarian government? I'm afraid, you drink too much someone else's Kool-aid. And as for the GDP fall. Could you please provide some references? Because mine show that it's not even close to what you've written [1] [2]. I'd like to read more about generations in the army and the aged military, too. Lack of any references but very big conclusions. That's ex…

Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents, persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states etc, etc. I don't know about you, but I think "totalitarian" draw a more correct picture, than "corruption level is high".

And again, without a single reference? Is it a joke?

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#85

Post by fsloth »

pessimizer wrote: post #60
ysilver wrote: post #28

Back to the USSR. East-West relations are reverting to the Cold War days. From saber-rattling, proxy wars to propaganda campaigns, few will dispute that there has been a back-slide in recent years. But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda…

>But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda campaign. It is a highly unstable equilibrium. At any time, information can get out of the hands of the propagandists and the system will find a more stable equilibrium -- ie. leaders will be repla…

American political machine is fueled mostly by big money. Famous names sell and apparently people really like supporting dynasties of leaders.

However, I would claim the biggest reason for these dynasties is just their familiarity as a political convenience, not a nefarious plot to rule the land from here to eternity. Sure, papa Kennnedy had a lot of money and influence and he was a huge contributor to his sons successes. But it seems to me anyone with money can enter the political arena, and one can make that money without first being a crony (although I'm sure it helps).

At least to an outsider there seems to be a huge difference in the basic dynamic if the US is compared to a typical corrupt state with an embedded power clique.

In totalitarian crony states there is a tiny elite who grab it all - in US, as far as I can tell, anyone can become part of that elite if they just have the money. It's not people's democracy but it's dynamic at least.

In US, money owns the government, in Russia, government owns the money?

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#86

Post by theworstshill »

sharetea wrote: post #40

Russian trolls are fascinating. The trolls' messages are low class, hateful, incoherent and always grammatically incorrect, yet they seem to be able to infiltrate discussions on cnn, bloomberg, reddit, zerohedge (which is an anti-western site anyways), and sometimes hacker news, and seem to have some influences amongst uninformed and angry netizens. Case in point, a random stock broker at my brokerage mentions to me…

Well you sure showed them. I wouldn't call anything related to Crimea an invasion either - were the forces stationed there resisting? They switched sides instantly. What about the population, did any insurgents materialize? Seems like what happened really WAS democracy - citizens of one country decided to join another one. Didn't seem to be a problem in Kosovo, but becomes a big problem when Putin is involved.

Speaking of democracy - the biggest thread to democracy in the world occured in 2003, when Iraq was invaded. Now instead of one big asshole in control of his own turf, you have hundreds of tiny assholes that are just as bad, all doing terrible things to become the biggest one. And their ambitions are not limited to Iraq anylonger.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#87

Post by chiph »

If you know of someone in the US doing this, you should advise them to consider registering with the Justice Department.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...

The law was amended in the 1960's so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#88

Post by exelius »

ysilver wrote: post #79
exelius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's media is also nominally pluralistic. They have been careful to permit the existence of dissenting media -- if for no other reason than to have something to discredit. The propaganda outlets are much better funded and organized though, so they can largely drown out the voices pushing an agenda that differs from the party line. The Russian masses (just like the masses everywhere else, including the US) are lar…

> ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism... The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me. I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly a…

I'm not talking about media quality like it's something that has just recently gotten bad. I don't think it's gotten worse; but the mass media is also no less important now than in the past.

I realize it's always been an issue; I'm just saying we can't act high and mighty relative to Russia because it's a problem here too.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#89

Post by acqq »

kaitai wrote: post #83
acqq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She states: the "high level Finnish Parliament official Peter Saramo has been spreading lies about me – Saramo said I put all Finnish journalists to shame and later spread false information about me." Does she claim that the member of the Parliament is a paid Russian troll? Or that he believed some false information to be true? What was it? What are the "lies" he have "spread"? I only see something he wrote using his…

You can look at Saramo's Twitter mentions of Aro: they're pretty negative, mostly implications that she didn't do any research/is biased/is herself a liar and that her work is a threat to Finland. The specific quote ("Jessi[kk]a Aro is a shame to YLE and her profession. If the state's broadcaster is spreading things like this, Finland is not a Nordic country" -- my translation) is in response to this article: http://…

"You can look at Saramo's Twitter mentions of Aro"

As I said, I don't know Finnish. Still, thanks for the link to her article.

The quote I like from that article is

"Torsti Sirén, an Adjunct Professor in the National Defence University of Finland:" says "it seems name-calling and slandering usually backfires on the name callers themselves. Finns are conscious and educated people and understand what is propaganda and what isn’t. So let them just go ahead and call other people names, says Sirén."

But that article itself really doesn't contain much real information, compared to the one zorf linked here, which is really interesting.

So you also can't specify any actual "lies" he "spread." I don't think it's wrong to consider that she in fact influences the public opinion, being a journalist. And that the article you link to doesn't give any fact apart of "setting the tone" against "those who don't think like we." It seems that the big part of her "worry" is that not all people on the Russian-speaking forum (!) think the way she would like to. Looks a lot like a longer variant of the post made by sharetea here.

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