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The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

nytimes.com

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Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#51

Post by Canada »

mike_hearn wrote: post #43
lgieron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also spreading lies about Russians to non-Russians. See for example The Guardian online forums - these guys dominate conversations which have something do to with Putin's policies (say the Crimea situation etc).

Ugh, fail. The Guardian comments sections are a trashbag of political censorship and general idiocy, but I see no evidence that they are being trolled by the Kremlin. A whole lot of people THINK they are, and the Guardian has levelled such accusations (without presenting evidence) but my own experience is that I am routinely accused of working for the Kremlin there, based on no evidence at all. Their view is simply "…

I've found the CBC comment moderators like that as well. The moderation policy is essentially, "Don't be vulgar or threatening"

Yet comments that violate the policy but agree with CBC writers views are allowed while polite, ad-hominem free dissenting comments are removed.

When there's too much dissent comments are simply closed.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#52

Post by tptacek »

ISL wrote: post #21

This sort of thing has happened recently on HN, where trolls derailed the conversation so badly that it was flagged into oblivion. (dang brought it back to life after an email appeal). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9570202 What's the right way for a community to permit free and welcoming discourse and simultaneously blunt the ability of malicious actors intent on spreading disinformation? It's a hard problem.

Be careful. The notion that opinions we don't like are generated by organized trolling campaigns is toxic, and insidiously serves the objectives of the trolls.

If you feel like comments on a thread are coming from an organized trolling/shilling campaign, try to collect some evidence for it and then notify hn@ycombinator.com --- that's what they've asked you to do.

But don't start a conversation on the thread itself about how specific commenters, or even a particular style of comment, are being made in bad faith. It's the easiest criticism in the world for a troll to deflect: just start an argument that you're commenting in good faith and being persecuted for unpopular opinions. 100 comments later, the thread will seem to casual readers like nothing but litigation over who the commenters are. Mission accomplished.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#54

Post by tptacek »

I you haven't read to the end of the story, I highly recommend finishing it; it has a pretty great ending.

Also! The article outs a couple of US-facing troll operations, one of which, "Spread Your Wings", is an unintentionally hilarious satire of US partisan politics, and another highly recommended read if you're up enough on politics to be in on the joke:

https://www.facebook.com/actoftruth?fref=photo

(My current favorite Spread Your Wings propaganda: GOP Senator and Presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham: warmonger and Adversary Of The 2nd Amendment.)

(Moments later: NO WAIT, this inspirational uplifting quote clearly wins the Internet today: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4r7r7nvbpn2kp3h/Screenshot%202015-...)

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#56

Post by justin66 »

thomaskcr wrote: post #35
aselzer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are certain that trolls derailed the conversation? It could just as well be one person stating his opinions. His opinions are controversal, and therefore they generate lots of responses (derailing) and he is downvoted because they go against what most people here believe. Doesn't quite seem like an army of professional "trolls" manipulating the discussion (If he is a troll, he would probably have presented his st…

Shills and astroturfers are the future witches of the internet. I think the people concerned about these people will do more to derail conversation than the actual people being paid. On reddit it's really bad, many of them believe you literally can't have certain opinions without being paid to have them. Because of that, they literally won't even entertain opinions different from their own as sincere. It really shoul…

> your only argument is that someone is being paid, then maybe they're doing you a favor by challenging your belief. Disinformation only works if you're too lazy to research the reality.

On the contrary, an astroturfer might fail to persuade but still chalk their effort up as a success if they manage to derail a conversation. A bunch of people walking away from a stupid conversation failing to reach any conclusions is a win for something like, for example, Putin's govenrment.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#57

Post by serg_chernata »

tobiasu wrote: post #50
serg_chernata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool comment, what does it contribute?

It should give you a hint that you need to up your propaganda game. Even the funny defense minister of that great "nation" of yours doesn't spread the butter this thick. And that's saying something from someone that atomized entire Russian tank battalions and gets driven out of airports by tactical nukes.

I'm genuinely sorry you feel that way. What I offered was a first-hand experience of my family, not my government or some political garbage. Yet you chose to turn this into a discussion about our broken government and individuals within it.

If this at all helps, I've lived in US for over 10 years now. I am a citizen, I finished college here, got married and started my career. I'm never going back because I don't like the turmoil but nothing can invalidate my initial comment and the truth behind it.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#58

Post by sarciszewski »

tptacek wrote: post #52
ISL wrote: post #21

This sort of thing has happened recently on HN, where trolls derailed the conversation so badly that it was flagged into oblivion. (dang brought it back to life after an email appeal). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9570202 What's the right way for a community to permit free and welcoming discourse and simultaneously blunt the ability of malicious actors intent on spreading disinformation? It's a hard problem.

Be careful. The notion that opinions we don't like are generated by organized trolling campaigns is toxic, and insidiously serves the objectives of the trolls. If you feel like comments on a thread are coming from an organized trolling/shilling campaign, try to collect some evidence for it and then notify hn@ycombinator.com --- that's what they've asked you to do. But don't start a conversation on the thread itself a…

> Be careful. The notion that opinions we don't like are generated by organized trolling campaigns is toxic, and insidiously serves the objectives of the trolls.

Yep. See also: Sue Basko and the Rustle League. The more she claimed they were a FBI/CIA Psyop, the more they laughed and poked at her.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#59

Post by blazespin »

astral303 wrote: post #26

My dad claims that the level of brainwashing in Russia far far exceeds that of the Soviet regime, and the propaganda is by far worse (and worse than WWII Germany he says). Of course statements like that evoke Godwin's law and a hard to swallow. However, my dad grew up in Soviet Russia and trained troops on the use of artillery equipment during the Soviet Afghanistan conflict. He's been around the block and has seen f…

Well they didn't really need propaganda in Russia. They had communism. Believe it or not some people actually believed that Communism is better than capitalism, and arguably at one time capitalism kind of sucked.

Re: The Agency: An army of well-paid “trolls” in St. Petersburg

#60

Post by aikah »

frik wrote: post #23
sancha_ wrote: post #7

I am sure this is not only happening in Russia.

Some PR strategies are similar. A company hold an annual conference several weeks ago. The company was under represented in the HN user base. What was eye opening was that many new users joined HN in a short timeframe to write very pro-company comments - it looked like an concerted effort to polish the company reputation. Another example is related to a recent video game release. The marketing was in a gray area almo…

Do they really need a marketing department in the video game industry? because game news sites are just that, a outsourced marketing department, I mean just look at IGN,Polygon, GS and co, heavily pushing Batman these days with like 12 "articles" a day to build the hype,same thing with many games before. There is no criticism over the terrible commercial practices, the games riddled with bugs at launch, nothing. What the point of "reviewing" ? they are selling these games way before they launch and the reviews are published like one week after launch if not more ( like the order, and others ).

The game industry in collusion with "game journalists", succeeded in making people want less for their money. The dream of any big corp.

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