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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

#31

Post by FilterSweep »

distances wrote: post #29
FilterSweep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what alternate reality outside of a war zone is a journalist a victim?

Did you read the article? She has been personally harassed due to her profession. That by definition makes her a victim of harassment.

> She has been personally harassed due to her profession.

No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in.

There is credence to having a general distrust in journalism. This has been the case since Yellow Journalism of the 1920s. You're playing the fool if you don't think journalists, even independent ones, aren't promoting an agenda, often one that isn't tangible at that moment of your consumption.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#32

Post by Gravityloss »

When Johan Bäckman came to the scene a few years ago, he immediately reminded me of climate deniers. I guess similar tactics have existed throughout history. He doesn't have any kind of coherent consistent position, and contradicts himself constantly. It's just making a lot of noise and inventing the argument of the day.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#33

Post by nocsaer1 »

FilterSweep wrote: post #31
distances wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? She has been personally harassed due to her profession. That by definition makes her a victim of harassment.

> She has been personally harassed due to her profession. No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in. There is credence to having a general distrust in journalism. This has been the case since Yellow Journalism of the 1920s. You're playing the fool if you don't think journalists, even independent ones, aren't promoting an agenda, often one that isn't tangible at that moment of your consump…

>In what alternate reality outside of a war zone is a journalist a victim?

>No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in.

I'm glad you figured it out. The rest of your comment is a strawman.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#34

Post by ousta »

distances wrote: post #29
FilterSweep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what alternate reality outside of a war zone is a journalist a victim?

Did you read the article? She has been personally harassed due to her profession. That by definition makes her a victim of harassment.

well she personally harassed the poor russians internet trolls due to their profession as well. what makes it more moral? are you discriminating them because of their jobs? that is not really PC

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#35

Post by [deleted] »

FilterSweep wrote: post #31
distances wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? She has been personally harassed due to her profession. That by definition makes her a victim of harassment.

> She has been personally harassed due to her profession. No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in. There is credence to having a general distrust in journalism. This has been the case since Yellow Journalism of the 1920s. You're playing the fool if you don't think journalists, even independent ones, aren't promoting an agenda, often one that isn't tangible at that moment of your consump…

[deleted]

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#36

Post by FilterSweep »

nocsaer1 wrote: post #33
FilterSweep wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She has been personally harassed due to her profession. No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in. There is credence to having a general distrust in journalism. This has been the case since Yellow Journalism of the 1920s. You're playing the fool if you don't think journalists, even independent ones, aren't promoting an agenda, often one that isn't tangible at that moment of your consump…

>In what alternate reality outside of a war zone is a journalist a victim? >No, she has been personally harassed due to the area she is working in. I'm glad you figured it out. The rest of your comment is a strawman.

> The rest of your comment is a strawman

Tell me the logical fallacy for misattributing a logical fallacy to dismiss a comment.

I'll create one: "reductio ad latinam." The rest of your comment is a reductio ad latinam. A reduction to a latin phrase.

From parent, whose context you've neglected in your dismissal:

>ousta 34 minutes ago

>every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper.

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.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#37

Post by nabla9 »

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…

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.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#38

Post by metafunctor »

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…

She says that Peter Saramo has been affected by pro-russian propaganda, not that he would be directly involved in producing it. Saramo is of the opinion that Russian trolling does not exist, and that Aro is spreading unsubstantiated lies.

I can't easily find what the false information is that Aro claims Saramo has been spreading about her.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#39

Post by talmand »

benten10 wrote: post #19
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…

>> What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views.

It seems to me this statement is quite unfair. Does it mean that if I think you're trolling it also means I can label you as an idiot? It's not just that you disagree with them, you get to label them with whatever derogatory term you want as well?

>> such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet

No, they don't. What's threatening the internet as a bastion of free speech are people who don't understand the consequences of free speech and believe everything that they see on the internet. Then they feel the need to tell other people what they may or may not say based on their misguided notions of what free speech is.

>> suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship

It is censorship. It's almost literally the definition of censorship. I'm not saying censorship doesn't have it's place, but you are being misleading by suggesting that removing a person's comment is not censorship.

As for coordinated trolls attempting to remove a site from discussion; you are absolutely correct. It is a problem. But I don't understand how the solution to that problem is to discuss removing people's rights of free expression. If a site wants to remove people's comments, so be it, but your type of rhetoric eventually leads to people demanding laws. Those laws almost always turn out bad for everyone, people are just too short-sighted to see it.

Also, who are you to define the "least correct response" to anything when hardly anyone knows the other people here? I disagree with that statement, but I don't feel I have the right to tell them they can't make it.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#40

Post by sharetea »

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 that he read on zerohedge that US is about to collapse, and is no match for Russia's might. Which is hilarious because Russia's economy is tiny compared to US (and Russia's GDP fell 1/3 this year), and US army is at least 2 generations ahead of Russia (and China).

The Russian government is fascinating. It's a totalitarian government, and yet, because of it's paid propagandas, it has instilled some ideas amongst the educated that Putin is a great leader. A dictator that hoarded all the oil and gas riches for him and his cronies during Russia's more vibrant economy, invaded crimea and ukraine, and seeks to impose its military on the world, despite a tiny flailing economy and aged military. With only some power because it's backed by another totalitarian government, China, which itself is starting to be more aggressive in south east Asia.

In any case, it seems to be that the threat to democracy will come from these paid trolls that seek to influence the minds of the western citizens.

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