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My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

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Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#131

Post by 13thLetter »

ionised wrote: post #109
jonatanheyman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I missed out on the news about the US and UK, so please fill me in. What free speech has been limited? What political opposition has been banned? Which dissidents have been arrested? Who has been persecuted for their sexuality? Which neighboring countries have been invaded?

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#132

Post by unics »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #56
alendit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now the Kremlin is likely undergoing an intense debate on how to spin the downing of the recent Russian flight as something other than a reaction to the Russian air war in Syria. They can always claim that ISIS hates Russia's freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PKRHgmHzK0 .

Sorry, but "they hate our freedom" has been patented by the US government for their propaganda. Also isn't Syria one of the bad guys right now, so waging war against them is a-ok? I'm getting a bit confused sometimes whether we're at war with Eurasia or Eastasia.

I'm having trouble keeping up. I thought the current narrative was "they don't have jobs" and that's why they hate us. Silly me.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#133

Post by JupiterMoon »

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…

Interestingly the Russian paid trolls apparently come in two forms. (1) the obvious pro-Russia loudmouths and (2) apparently anti-Russia posters. The second category are paid to post because Putin's Russia needs controversy and a sense of confrontation. Essentially they are paid to feed to Trolls..

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#134

Post by acqq »

kaitai wrote: post #124
acqq wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Many of the tweets are in English and they're not hard to find. See https://twitter.com/PSaramo/status/613739897552281600 In addition, each tweet does have a "view translation" button; useful since many of the tweets are also in Swedish or Russian. I have to say I don't understand your comment. I was quite careful in my original comment to simply answer the grandparent factually, saying Saramo is too smart to say thi…

I don't know what you understand that I "imply."

I asked for any proof that this guy is "spreading lies" about her which are the words that journalist, Jessikka Aro, actually used in her article we all comment to. I see just somebody who disagrees with her own views.

I don't have "translate" button on Twitter, I guess I'd have to be logged in for that, and I don't have an account. The twit you link to is just "Read it. Strong claims, but where was the investigation?" and it's a comment to the article you previously linked to. Is that supposed to be a propaganda tweet?

The second link you gave is in Finish, and, now that you mention that you gave "more links," (I've read only one that was in English) I've tried Google translate on it, and the only thing I see is his own review of some book with the similar subject as the Jessikka Aro's article you linked to, and his claim is more or less also "Strong claims, but where's the support that it's anything more than the communication she quotes is anything else but opinion of real Finns?" Of course, I haven't read the book, but if it has similarity to the article, I understand his criticism.

So this is really getting boring, so much claims, so little of anything more than "he said she said." Sad.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#135

Post by tremon »

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…

> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court

The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom:

"Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices. Investigative journalism often suffers as a result.

This has been the case in the United States (46th), which fell 13 places, one of the most significant declines, amid increased efforts to track down whistleblowers and the sources of leaks. The trial and conviction of Private Bradley Manning and the pursuit of NSA analyst Edward Snowden were warnings to all those thinking of assisting in the disclosure of sensitive information that would clearly be in the public interest.

US journalists were stunned by the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press phone records without warning in order to identify the source of a CIA leak. It served as a reminder of the urgent need for a “shield law” to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources at the federal level. The revival of the legislative process is little consolation for James Risen of The New York Times, who is subject to a court order to testify against a former CIA employee accused of leaking classified information. And less still for Barrett Brown, a young freelance journalist facing 105 years in prison in connection with the posting of information that hackers obtained from Statfor, a private intelligence company with close ties to the federal government."

http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#136

Post by geoka9 »

exelius wrote: post #53
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 repl…

Since the oil prices dropped, Russia has lost a third of its reserves. How do you think they are going to keep it together for as long as two more decades?

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#137

Post by ysilver »

tremon wrote: post #135
ysilver wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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…

> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom: "Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation…

History may show that we are digesting something akin to McCarthyism right now.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#138

Post by geoka9 »

alendit wrote: post #96
jonatanheyman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 This accusation is very vague and it could mean anything. It's surely more limited than, say, in Sweden. It way less limited than in Saudi Arabia. > banning political opposition Russian parliament consists of 4 parties, 3 of those are oppositional. I'm sure there is a number of banned NGOs, but totalitarian countries usually don't have this kind of political plurality. > arresting dissidents No…

> This accusation is very vague and it could mean anything.

Oh, it's pretty bad. Basically all television is state-controlled. All major papers as well. Any opposition site that becomes prominent is quickly banned. Unsanctioned street protests are banned even if they are as few as two people with banners. Lone opposition protesters are routinely attacked by pro-Kremlin "activist" crews which are promptly released even if they are ever detained by the police.

> Russian parliament consists of 4 parties, 3 of those are oppositional.

Those 3 "oppositional" parties have been tamed and groomed by Putin's administration since he came to power. They never criticize Putin, they vote for every law introduced by his administration, they never stage any protests against him. The true opposition leaders, in the meantime, are either spending their time in jail or exiled/dead.

> Notice they don't arrest people for being a political dissident?

Of course they don't, but that doesn't make them democrats. They sentence political prisoners on made up charges all the time - see Navalny, Savchenko, Murtazalieva and hundreds of others across Russia.

> Russian government's policy right now is as progressive on LGBT rights as possible in Russia

This is not true. Homophobia of its people is the cornerstone of the Russian government's anti-Western propaganda (especially anti-EU).

> ... that Russia is a ' state [which] holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.

Not yet, but they are getting there, or at least trying to. Russia is still an authoritarian state which is rapidly transforming into a totalitarian one.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#139

Post by Kristine1975 »

ysilver wrote: post #137
tremon wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom: "Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation…

History may show that we are digesting something akin to McCarthyism right now.

If that's the case, it's much more subtle: No HUAC, no blacklisting, no "are you or have you ever been a member of...?"

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#140

Post by bsder »

DasIch wrote: post #5
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…

Are you aware of reddit? Ever looked at the comment section of a news site? Trolling probably works very well.

Yeah, any Ukraine/Crimea thread on Reddit is quickly overwhelmed by trolls.

You can identify the trolls quite easily, but they still overwhelm the discussion posts with sheer numbers.

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