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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

#101

Post by nine_k »

crdoconnor wrote: post #41
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. America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. You either need very sophisticated propaganda (America) or a very strict contr…

> Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around.

Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food, due to very poor agricultural practices and very inefficient industry. Per Yegor Gaidar (who later became Russia's Prime Minister) there was barely enough food to feed the population of Moscow during the winter of 1985-85. This is what made the Soviet leadership of the time suggest some changes, before hunger really struck the country.

Actually, there were a few more or less efficient industries in the USSR: it produced quite nice automatic weapons, military aircraft and pretty reliable spacecraft. These things required efficiency (at least, in a form of a well-working end result) due to high visibility and apparent military importance. The regime could not afford to be weak on the military side, or look like a failure in space. It could ration butter, milk, sausage, etc to the population because it was not such a big deal, apparently.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#102

Post by kiiski »

acqq wrote: post #71
zorf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She wrote them. Take a look at one of her articles: http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propagan...

Thanks. But what's "crowdsourced" with it? That article looks like a real investigation. Maybe the term was actually a loss in translation? That's why I hoped to get all the info from somebody who understands Finnish (and maybe even followed these news). Edit: kaitai linked to an article that has a lot of opinions of other people. It is a better example of what she would maybe call the "crowdsourced" article (it has…

Basically the crowdsourcing here means that YLE published a article saying (shortened): "Tell us what kind of web trolling you have been targeted by and in what situations. We'll compile an article of peoples experiences"

The term "crowdsourcing" isn't really used in Finnish. Apparently there exists a translation for it ("joukouttaminen"), but I haven't ever heard anyone use it (not that I've looked too hard).

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#103

Post by acqq »

pm90 wrote: post #58
talmand wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That threat you speak of is not from trolls, but from people who believe them. Our world of instant communications and easy access to it has shown the problems of not educating the masses of how the internet works. This is nothing new. History is rife with examples of propaganda leading to policy. It's just more widespread and happens faster now.

We have to remember that there were a lot more controls over propaganda from other nations just earlier this century than what they are now (e.g. banning communist literature). I honestly don't see a solution to this unless we have a general increase in the wisdom of the population. Censorship worked when the flow of information could be regulated, but with the internet, it seems unlikely that this is possible (unles…

> I'm not saying its communism which will take grip of the imagination of people. But it might be some other radical idea.

There are some very effective specific radical ideas I'm aware of which stood the test of the time. They typically involve otherworldly entities and an immediate but also the eternal punishment for disbelievers.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#104

Post by ptaipale »

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…

> Does she claim that the member of the Parliament is a paid Russian troll?

No, she doesn't - first of all, Peter Saramo is not a member of the Parliament, he is a civil servant who is working at the Parliament (as the head of secretaries for Grand Committee, whose task is e.g. to prepare legislation for EU matters.)

Second, she doesn't claim that Saramo is a paid troll. He is clearly paid well enough by the taxpayer (that's me); his hobby is to be a fellow traveler of trolls.

As to the rest of what you ask, this is yet another typical example of methods in trolling - throwing about many unclear and therefore unrefutable implications. As a Finnish proverb says, "one fool can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer".

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#105

Post by ptaipale »

acqq wrote: post #44
nabla9 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saramo is not a paid troll (at least not directly). You could call him captured pawn for troll army. Saramo is member of Finnish-Russian (Friendship) Society and very sympathetic to Russian point of view.

> a captured pawn (...) a member of Finnish-Russian (Friendship) Society and very sympathetic to Russian point of view And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament? What's wrong with that? Democracy working, he being a representative of his voters and all that. I'm still asking what the "lies" she claims that he "spreads" about her are. After that question, calling him a "captured pawn" is a distraction,…

> And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament?

No, not elected. A civil servant working at the Parliament.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#106

Post by acqq »

ptaipale wrote: post #104
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…

> Does she claim that the member of the Parliament is a paid Russian troll? No, she doesn't - first of all, Peter Saramo is not a member of the Parliament, he is a civil servant who is working at the Parliament (as the head of secretaries for Grand Committee, whose task is e.g. to prepare legislation for EU matters.) Second, she doesn't claim that Saramo is a paid troll. He is clearly paid well enough by the taxpayer…

She actually claimed Saramo "spreads lies" about her and I'm yet to see any confirmation to that. I understand you don't like Saramo, maybe I wouldn't too if I knew more, but at the moment I don't like her too. I see she writes a lot, claims a lot but seems that she really claims more than she should be believed (like that specific "lies" thing).

And I also have some proverbs for you but I'll refrain from writing them here (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_calling )

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#107

Post by iamcurious »

acqq wrote: post #80
ohitsdom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are grammatically correct. Chinese trolls > Russian trolls

Specifically, and unsurprisingly, grammar(Anti-China trolls) > grammar(Russian trolls)

Why is it unsurprising?

Also, your notation pleases my eyes.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#108

Post by acqq »

ptaipale wrote: post #105
acqq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a captured pawn (...) a member of Finnish-Russian (Friendship) Society and very sympathetic to Russian point of view And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament? What's wrong with that? Democracy working, he being a representative of his voters and all that. I'm still asking what the "lies" she claims that he "spreads" about her are. After that question, calling him a "captured pawn" is a distraction,…

> And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament? No, not elected. A civil servant working at the Parliament.

Then the place where he works isn't even worth discussing. Even the gatekeeper there works "at the Parliament" but it's not relevant to the opinions he posts on the Facebook.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#109

Post by ionised »

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".

> Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents, persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states etc, etc.

I'm no fan of Russia, but many of these things you mentioned could be applied to the US and UK too.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#110

Post by acqq »

iamcurious wrote: post #107
acqq wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, and unsurprisingly, grammar(Anti-China trolls) > grammar(Russian trolls)

Why is it unsurprising? Also, your notation pleases my eyes.

> Why is it unsurprising?

We'd have to imagine what is being counted behind the former and the later. Behind the former ("Anti-China trolls", that is) at the moment we have just one specific example brought to our attention. Behind the later ("Russian trolls") is anything anybody understands as such. It appears that the journalist who wrote the article we discuss here considers every author of some pro-Russian opinion as a troll (according to the article kaitai linked to http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/this-is-what-pro-russia-internet-p... ). So there you have a lot of ordinary people who could actually be Russians living in Finland. Or if we extend that to other languages, we also get the people who aren't necessary native speakers.

Then we have the people supposedly working at some "government site which pays people to write comments" (as linked by zorf, http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propagan... ) being paid some 600 EUR a month, who again are almost certainly not the native speakers and probably aren't motivated too much to care ("we'll lower your salary because you screwed up the grammar on some of your posts").

So we can't expect grammar(Russian trolls) to have a high value, and the grammar(Anti-China trolls) is based on a very small sample. That "proves" the current state of the given inequality.

I also hope that this "derivation" also illustrates that naming names ("Anti-China trolls" "Russian trolls") is actually a wrong approach to learn anything about anything. See:

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

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