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Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

nytimes.com

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Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#61

Post by googletazer »

cjensen wrote: post #8
dijit wrote: post #4

In an effort to be entirely objective: disagreeing with a person is not trolling, and Russians do not agree with NATO- which makes sense given that NATO was orchestrated specifically against Russia. I can't help but pity them, it's like having a pit-bull in the corner that nobody loves because it defended them before in a savage way, so they keep putting up gates and fences and pushing it into solitude. I agree that…

Crimea. Georgia. Transnistria. It's become a pattern for Russia to use military force instead of diplomacy to resolve disputes. The notion that "Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't done" is entirely wrong.

Georgia is the only one of these that can cast Putin in a negative light - he let his personal ambition cloud his judgement. Could have stopped at the border of Ossetia, but decided to push on a bit to show Georgians who is the boss.

For both Crimea and Transnistria they had their own referendums after the fall of USSR where they wanted to separate from Ukraine and Moldova respectively - neither of which were recognized by the larger countries. Its absurd to expect a region that wants to separate to get approval from everybody else. Ultimately it resulted in an armed conflict just as we see today. There is more to the story than MSM is feeding us.

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#62

Post by guelo »

I'm sure these comments will be filled with Russian propaganda operatives, either the paid or "useful idiot" variety. I used to think the web would be an engine for democracy and transparency but now that view just seems naive. With powerful surveillance and propaganda tools the web is and will continue to be a powerful force for state control. And states will increasingly use it to exert power outside their borders.

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#63

Post by wavefunction »

DominikR wrote: post #43
wavefunction wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you exclude Crimea but what about Eastern Ukraine? I have no love lost for the scheming of Nuland and NATO and the rest of that cadre but Russia has some serious internal and foreign-facing issues. And that man you quoted wasn't really all that wise since you have no need to make peace with your friends.

Those people living in the Eastern Ukraine for generations identify themselves as Russians so of course they fight against a government that hates everything Russian and threatens them. On the other side of the border many Russians feel sympathy for them and send them all kinds of support, even weapons and volunteers. It's very simple. The country is ethnically split and no side is going to allow the other to conduct…

>hates everything Russian and threatens them.

I am not sure how Ukraine threatens Russia. Perhaps you can elucidate? I can't speak to the alleged hate though I might find it understandable, given that Russia is actively annexing parts of the country.

>Russians feel sympathy[...] send them support, even weapons and volunteers

I think you mean the Russian military is sending troops across the border as has been documented many times? Also, there's the issue of the BUK that shot down the Malaysian air-liner. Perhaps those victims might not cheer too loudly for that "sympathy?"

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#64

Post by googletazer »

vetinari wrote: post #53
avmich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annexation? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annex Simple Definition of annex : to add (an area or region) to a country, state, etc. : to take control of (a territory or place) There is a big difference between separation and annexation. In general, do we have many examples of countries changing borders forcibly after some time mid-last century? I certainly don't remember such a thing from G7. In this light,…

Does that change the fact, that NATO did forcibly take a territory from Serbia? That is supposed to be OK? For all intents and purposes, the Kosovo government will do whatever the US government wants. The terminus technicus is puppet government. Even Crimea itself is an example of stolen territory. It was part of Russia, until (Ukrainian) Khrushchev moved it under administration of Ukrainian SSR in 1954. It was excus…

I'm happy to see the mention of Crimean referendum after the collapse of USSR - seems like the will of the people who are actually living there is easily overlooked if it goes against what the West (mostly US) wants.

If Scotland wanted to separate from the UK, would they need UK's approval? Of course not, its a referendum involving the Scots, people who actually live there, whether to stay or not.

To futher the matter Crimea is a military outpost, and was so for hundreds of years, since Russian Tsars took it from the Tartars, which themselves were part of the Golden Horde and the Turks. Messing with this kind of stuff brings realpolitik out real quick.

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#65

Post by googletazer »

guelo wrote: post #62

I'm sure these comments will be filled with Russian propaganda operatives, either the paid or "useful idiot" variety. I used to think the web would be an engine for democracy and transparency but now that view just seems naive. With powerful surveillance and propaganda tools the web is and will continue to be a powerful force for state control. And states will increasingly use it to exert power outside their borders.

If you look for something hard enough, you'll see it eventually.

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#66

Post by fauigerzigerk »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #33
aaronchall wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia occupied half of Europe, against the will of the countries occupied, for nearly 50 years. Good point. Seems like we forget this.

How would you define "against their will"? I mean, their representatives signed the Warsaw Pact without gun to their heads (however I'm aware about Hungary'56 and Chezhoslovakia'68) This isn't a fair argument. Imagine, tomorrow USA fails, a lot of its former allies get current marginal opposition in power. They'll line up telling how USA occupied them, did this and that against their will. And they'll be partially ri…

>I mean, their representatives signed the Warsaw Pact without gun to their heads

That's because these "representatives" were not representing the people of their countries. They were representing the interests of the USSR in those countries.

I'll give you an example of what it looks like when something does not happen against the will of a country.

In the 1960s, at the hight of the cold war, France asked NATO to leave its country and withdrew its own troups from NATO command. NATO left, and that was it.

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#67

Post by pandaman »

krzyk wrote: post #37
pandaman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo#Declaration_of_independ...

It didn't annex it, they created a country out of it. And it still is a country. Can you say the same about Crimea?

How could they create a country out of a part of another country without an annexation taking place first?

Or, are you going to argue, that Russia did not annex Transistria and South Othetia because a country was created?

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#68

Post by woodandsteel »

qrendel wrote: post #51
woodandsteel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who plans to conquer Russia and turn them into American colonies? Wow, you could have fooled me. If he is pursuing such wildly aggressive foreign policy, then how come all the hawks in this country continually condemn him for being a wimpy surrender-monkey?

The GOP criticizes Obama like he's the anti-christ for literally everything. They've opposed their own bills that they sponsored just because Obama later made public remarks about them being good bills. If you're referring to stuff like the "red line" fiasco in Syria, Hersh explains that too. See: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

So you do think that Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who spent his whole eight years as president planning to invade and conquer Russia? Including explaining to the American public why that would be a good idea?

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#69

Post by valcker »

vetinari wrote: post #53
avmich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annexation? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annex Simple Definition of annex : to add (an area or region) to a country, state, etc. : to take control of (a territory or place) There is a big difference between separation and annexation. In general, do we have many examples of countries changing borders forcibly after some time mid-last century? I certainly don't remember such a thing from G7. In this light,…

Does that change the fact, that NATO did forcibly take a territory from Serbia? That is supposed to be OK? For all intents and purposes, the Kosovo government will do whatever the US government wants. The terminus technicus is puppet government. Even Crimea itself is an example of stolen territory. It was part of Russia, until (Ukrainian) Khrushchev moved it under administration of Ukrainian SSR in 1954. It was excus…

> Even Crimea itself is an example of stolen territory. It was part of Russia, until (Ukrainian) Khrushchev moved it under administration of Ukrainian SSR in 1954. It was excused as being in the same country anyway.

Not entirely true as it was not a single-handed decision, it has been voted by a council.

> When USSR dissolved, the Crimean referendum about returning it back to Russia was ignored by the newly-formed government in Kiev.

Could you precise which referendum are you referring to? There were only two of them if I remember correctly: 1. Referendum for independence of Ukraine: Crimea participated and voted "for". 2. Referendum to make Crimea an autonomous republic: was voted "for" and made Crimea and autonomous republic (as a part of Ukraine).

Re: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

#70

Post by Balgair »

The biggest elephant in the room is: Why pay people to do this?

FB, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc could easily make astro-turf 'bots to do this job for them, by a billion+ more, and with very good 'masking' that the 'bots are useful idiots. Surely, these highly funded agencies could do at least a tenth as well in terms of masking and the number of bots.

The real question is then, why pay people to do this for them? It is too fishy for me to pay many people all that money and not to just take it themselves with a shell company or some such thing.

There are things that are unseen or poorly understood in the West. Is this just some glorified jobs program to pay people to scream at their screens and not riot? Are they really all 'bots that are that good now and we are too dumb to realize it?

Perhaps Occam's Razor is the right though, the simplest explanation is the best: Trolls be trollin'.

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