11 ms·

My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

245 points by ptaipale 11y ago

ucaetano 11y ago
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_explosion_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_expl...
dimitar 11y ago
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 discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not.
- DasIch 11y ago
  Are you aware of reddit? Ever looked at the comment section of a news site? Trolling probably works very well.
  - bsder 11y ago
    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.
- xentronium 11y ago
  > I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. You greatly underestimate people's gullibility.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- drdaeman 11y ago
  It doesn't mean anything whenever people can identify trolls or not - a discussion can be harmed even if troll activities are obvious. On open platforms, where participation is not limited, they can hinder the discussion by intentional, completely retarded name-calling, swearing, utter off-topic and alike - and moderation isn't really effective as individual accounts are essentially a cannon fodder.
- joonoro 11y ago
  > I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. Yeah but the idea isn't to sponsor enough trolls to trick everyone, but more like turn all internet discussions into one big version of 4chan. Sure you might be able to pick out a few trolls, but it doesn't matter anymore because nobody is going to waste their time trying to have a serious conversation there anymore.
  - dimitar 11y ago
    Well, I think they are indeed trying to turn into 4chan, but they don't understand that 4chan users understand trolls and know how to filter them.
    - Kristine1975 11y ago
      From my experience 4chan users are the trolls. Of course they have to recognize them so they don't get trolled by their fellow "anons."
- benten10 11y ago
  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 reconsidered. What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views. I bring this often on HN, and I will do so again: such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet, and everything it has mostly stood up for. When every woman is threatened with rape and murder, and every person of minority is humiliated (often under the pretension of 1) irony, as in reddit, and 2) strictly unemotional data-based Vulcan objectivity (as is often the case here)) , the internet loses its most powerful component: the diverse group of people using it. I absolutely believe <500 low-paid shills with medium-level English can bring down sites like the likes of reddit. Bringing down does not mean putting them out of business -- that's rather incidental -- it means creating fear and terror amongst a large part of the users to convince them that the majority of the internet is against them -- the internet is not the place for them. It is not just threatening women or minorities, obviously -- it could also be pretending to be an extremist feminist, and suggesting men should be hanged, burned etc, provoking the other group, and causing conflicts. This is the issue why a lot of platforms have struggled with harassment and bullying issues, and it tickles me when the HN crowd --predominantly libertarian-- drones on about 'free speech at any cost' (suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship), not realizing that an absolute free-for-all arena is most likely to be used by the parties with the most available resource to shape the conversation easily. To put it differently, if Russian trolls can reshape (partly?) the conversation, so can the American government, and so can any agency, with enough resources. To reiterate, it is not necessary to completely change people's point of view -- just scare a targeted population away from a location, and identifying that is NOT as simple as 'calling out the trolls'. I'll offload something tangential too here. When women say 'there are issues for women in technology', fellow HN users, the least correct response is to offer 'well maybe if they worked harder instead of wasting time complaining, they'd have less issues'. That actually happened in one of the last few discussions about women in tech.
  - 11y ago
- acqq 11y ago
  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 own name on the Facebook. And we actually don't know what's behind the claim that she "puts all Finnish journalists to shame."
  - nabla9 11y ago
    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.
    - acqq 11y ago
      > 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, not a contribution to the discussion.
      - ptaipale 11y ago
        > And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament? No, not elected. A civil servant working at the Parliament.
        acqq 11y ago
        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.
- AndyMcConachie 11y ago
  You're not paranoid enough. How can you possibly know if the person you're conversing with online is genuine or paid to say what they say? You have undoubtably read something at some point that was planted to influence you. Call it advertising, trolling, or propaganda. Our opinions are being shaped by what we read online.
- exelius 11y ago
  > I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. Remember that Russia's masses (just like the masses of every country in the world) are almost by definition poor, uneducated and scared. The wealthy and educated are part of the system -- they don't believe the lies, but the lies work in their service so they don't have to.
- Sharlin 11y ago
  > I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. There is a Finnish-language web publication called "MV-lehti" (short for "Mitä vittua?! -lehti" meaning "What the Fuck Magazine"). It is an anti-West, anti-immigrant, anti-establishment disinformation site whose content is rumors at best and knowingly fabricated at worst. And a sizeable portion of the Finnish anti-immigration population take it as gospel.
TheLogothete 11y ago
Same type of thing happens in my Eastern European country, member of the EU and NATO. The pro-russian propaganda is rampant and honestly, is winning. The alternatives are only fascist organizations and people have nowhere to flock. US policy in recent years doesn't help at all. It is depressing.
- dvh 11y ago
  Just received this email this morning: "Russian plane flown to Yemen to capture CIA agents who helped shot down Russian civilian plane in Egypt" http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-do-jemenu-zmocnilo-agentu-cia-kteri-sestrelili-ruske-letadlo-v-egypte.html http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-d... The worst thing is that my own father is forwarding me these propaganda nonsense.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    you are probably in unique position to at least try to educate your father that just because there is keyword "free" in name of the server, it's nothing more than usual pro-russian propaganda. Not an easy task, depends on your father's mentality (if he was happy during russian occupation of czechoslovakia and after revolution all went south for him, that would be a hard nut to crack). I have generally only few rules for news from east - 1) never trust russians in politics, they have crude ways, and their goal is ultimately good old soviet days when their voice mattered more, with little care of anybody non-russian. 2) never trust russians in politics...
- potrebitel22 11y ago
  Granted we talk for the same country, I hardly can call that a winning. There are stupid and mentally challenged people everywhere and they are easy to manipulate. There always be people from ex-Soviet satellites who still think USSR is the best thing the world has seen, so they just want to be fed such information, regardless is it Putin or someone else. At one point the whole FB/Twitter agenda is made to spread news and events from "reliable" sources ( See how FB is used in USA's pee-presidential elections and its propaganda ). Russians, and not only them, the "creators" of social media exploit that opportunity for their gains. On one hand, Russia is trolling people, on the other, FB/Google/etc are forcing people to do stuff ( mainly to click on ads for revenue ) so can't blame one side or another for exploiting the system. Yes, one might say those are two different things, but at the end, the ordinary person is fed with a specific information, usually not wanted by him/her.
acqq 11y ago
"In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls" I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles written by the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic. I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try to estimate if Jessikka Aro's articles were strongly biased? Note: I definitely don't doubt that a lot of nasty internet communication was directed to her. The state of the internet is, you can be the saintest of the saints, once you're public enough, there will be (at least some) hate. I'm just trying to figure out how disproportional the reactions were, it's hard for me to get the idea reading only on this blog post.
- Drdrdrq 11y ago
  I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big... As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.
  - Kliment 11y ago
    Not paid for - sourced from. She asked people who had experienced such trolling to come forward and interviewed them. The work was funded by her employer.
    - acqq 11y ago
      And my question is if these people (who had experienced such trolling) were anonymous, and how biased the "series" was. From the view of somebody who understands Finnish. When we're at it, I also don't understand the story with the "Official of the Finnish Parliament Peter Saramo." Again, not enough details.
    - Drdrdrq 11y ago
      Thank you for clarification, I stand corrected. Still, not "written by" but "getting input from".
ousta 11y ago
every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web. She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through any means. Russians do not need to pay anyone to do this, people are patriotic enough to do it by themselves. To attack a one sided kind of people in their own realm with their own tools (the internet and social networks) is a foolish thing to do and this woman journalist learned this the hard way.people need to understand that the internet is a battlefield and wars cant be won by journalists but by warriors.
- nocsaer1 11y ago
  They indeed pay folks to do this. One Professional Russian Troll Tells All: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760 The rest of your comments is directing blame on the victim (the journalist).
  - ousta 11y ago
    western news saying russians pay trolls to spread pro-russian opinion on the web while russian news are saying exactly the same thing for western trolls. It just depends on which side you see it. if you look at the big picture she is not a victim but someone fighting an information war
    - distances 11y ago
      This is investigative journalism of a proven phenomenon (paid Russian troll factories), and claiming it to be part of "information war" frankly smacks of the very thing the journalist is investigating here.
    - kbart 11y ago
      That's exactly what Kremlin propaganda wants you to believe: "everybody is lying, we are no different". No it's not. There are, of course, dishonest journalists, paid articles, power play, political pressure in western journalism, but it's by no means comparable to mass, state-run propaganda machine Russia's so-called "journalism" is. Snowden's story is a perfect example of that - the wast amount of resources by the most powerful western states were put into efforts trying to stop the leaks to no avail.
kbart 11y ago
We have a saying here: "If something you did upsets Russia - you are moving to the right direction".
- theworstshill 11y ago
  I'd like to know where "here" is.
ysilver 11y ago
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 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 replaced. It's just a matter of time. 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. This is a heavy lift. Maybe they will succeed in this and maybe not. If so, they will have found a temporary reprieve but will no doubt find themselves encountering a similar issue in the future. The legitimacy of the Russian leadership will continually find itself teetering so long as it relies on propagandists to hold back a flood of disapproval. Compare this system to the inherent stability of responsive governments with rule of law: healthy democracies (ie. Western democracy), responsive authoritarian systems (Singapore, China). Both these systems have release valves. In the case of democracies, elections reassert legitimacy with election cycles. In the case of responsive authoritarian systems, the government relies on surveys and technocratic leadership. Russia has neither method of achieving stable equilibrium and so the propaganda will serve as a shaky dike holding back an ever growing force.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >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 control over information (NK) or a mix (China). The only reason it became 'unstable' in the Soviet Union was glasnost, which was deliberate government policy by Gorbachev. Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around.
  - 11y ago
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
I've been reading a great history book lately about the end of the Cold War. The author had the chance to interview folks on both sides of the conflict. The Russians were very, very good at establishing relationships with easily-influenced folks in the west, then using them to sway public opinion. Some were paid off, some were "useful idiots". I'm only guessing, but from what I've seen online in the last decade or so it looks like they've wholeheartedly taken those skills and applied them to internet trolling. Of course, I'm sure they're not alone. The internet has become just another battleground for nation-states. It would be very interesting to learn how much money is being spent on this kinda stuff worldwide. I bet it easily runs in the eight figures.
Gravityloss 11y ago
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.
sharetea 11y ago
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.
- talmand 11y ago
  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.
  - pm90 11y ago
    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 (unless you take pains to implement something like the Great Firewall). Ideas can have a powerful effect on people. The Bolsheviks believed that the world was ripe to adopt communism, forming an international union of communist countries, and this would happen not through war (necessarily) but by people's revolutions in each individual country. When you understand that plan, it makes sense why the US was so paranoid about communism on its own soil. I'm not saying its communism which will take grip of the imagination of people. But it might be some other radical idea. We need to understand that this is a very real possibility.
jqm 11y ago
I'm sure Russian trolls exist. I would guess pro-US trolls exist as well. That said, not everyone who disagrees with some aspects of US foreign policy is Russian troll. Some people in forums seem to get confused on this point. I've been accused of being a Russian troll simply because I don't support US attempts to overturn the current Syrian government and didn't care for US involvement in overturning the Ukrainian government. And I don't support Putin or Russian expansion. I just don't believe US policy is wise nor humane on these matters.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  Exactly. A few hours ago there was a thread on Guantanamo torture methods and people were unanimous that it's a shame and that it's no better than what the bad guys do. But tell them about the Russian trolls and somehow they forget everything and start to speak about the free world, democracy against those evil dictators ...
- theworstshill 11y ago
  Pretty much this. Having an independent opinion about Putin immediately gets you called a Putinbot nowadays. MSM and its followers demand conformity.
zorf 11y ago
Here is one her articles in English: http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propaganda http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propagan...
chiph 11y ago
If you know of someone in the US doing this, you should advise them to consider registering with the Justice Department. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac... The law was amended in the 1960's so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it.
- Kristine1975 11y ago
  >so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it What about free speech? This law strikes me as fundamentally "unamerican."
  - chiph 11y ago
    It seems to me to be one of the many laws we have which favor safety & security over the principles on which the country was founded. It doesn't help that it also seems to be one of the many laws we have which are enforced "sometimes".
Balgair 11y ago
I... I just don't know what exactly I was expecting coming into this comments section. This is some absurdist parody. Seems HN has gotten big enough to be noticed now.
unics 11y ago
The adage that a lie told enough times becomes fact comes to mind. Goebbels was a master and his methods are still being used today.

245 points by ptaipale 11y ago

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_explosion_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_expl...

dimitar 11y ago

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 discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not.

DasIch 11y ago
Are you aware of reddit? Ever looked at the comment section of a news site? Trolling probably works very well.
- bsder 11y ago
  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.
xentronium 11y ago
> I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. You greatly underestimate people's gullibility.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
drdaeman 11y ago
It doesn't mean anything whenever people can identify trolls or not - a discussion can be harmed even if troll activities are obvious. On open platforms, where participation is not limited, they can hinder the discussion by intentional, completely retarded name-calling, swearing, utter off-topic and alike - and moderation isn't really effective as individual accounts are essentially a cannon fodder.
joonoro 11y ago
> I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. Yeah but the idea isn't to sponsor enough trolls to trick everyone, but more like turn all internet discussions into one big version of 4chan. Sure you might be able to pick out a few trolls, but it doesn't matter anymore because nobody is going to waste their time trying to have a serious conversation there anymore.
- dimitar 11y ago
  Well, I think they are indeed trying to turn into 4chan, but they don't understand that 4chan users understand trolls and know how to filter them.
  - Kristine1975 11y ago
    From my experience 4chan users are the trolls. Of course they have to recognize them so they don't get trolled by their fellow "anons."
benten10 11y ago
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 reconsidered. What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views. I bring this often on HN, and I will do so again: such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet, and everything it has mostly stood up for. When every woman is threatened with rape and murder, and every person of minority is humiliated (often under the pretension of 1) irony, as in reddit, and 2) strictly unemotional data-based Vulcan objectivity (as is often the case here)) , the internet loses its most powerful component: the diverse group of people using it. I absolutely believe <500 low-paid shills with medium-level English can bring down sites like the likes of reddit. Bringing down does not mean putting them out of business -- that's rather incidental -- it means creating fear and terror amongst a large part of the users to convince them that the majority of the internet is against them -- the internet is not the place for them. It is not just threatening women or minorities, obviously -- it could also be pretending to be an extremist feminist, and suggesting men should be hanged, burned etc, provoking the other group, and causing conflicts. This is the issue why a lot of platforms have struggled with harassment and bullying issues, and it tickles me when the HN crowd --predominantly libertarian-- drones on about 'free speech at any cost' (suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship), not realizing that an absolute free-for-all arena is most likely to be used by the parties with the most available resource to shape the conversation easily. To put it differently, if Russian trolls can reshape (partly?) the conversation, so can the American government, and so can any agency, with enough resources. To reiterate, it is not necessary to completely change people's point of view -- just scare a targeted population away from a location, and identifying that is NOT as simple as 'calling out the trolls'. I'll offload something tangential too here. When women say 'there are issues for women in technology', fellow HN users, the least correct response is to offer 'well maybe if they worked harder instead of wasting time complaining, they'd have less issues'. That actually happened in one of the last few discussions about women in tech.
- 11y ago
acqq 11y ago
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 own name on the Facebook. And we actually don't know what's behind the claim that she "puts all Finnish journalists to shame."
- nabla9 11y ago
  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.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > 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, not a contribution to the discussion.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      > And as a member of that Society elected to the Parliament? No, not elected. A civil servant working at the Parliament.
      - acqq 11y ago
        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.
AndyMcConachie 11y ago
You're not paranoid enough. How can you possibly know if the person you're conversing with online is genuine or paid to say what they say? You have undoubtably read something at some point that was planted to influence you. Call it advertising, trolling, or propaganda. Our opinions are being shaped by what we read online.
exelius 11y ago
> I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. Remember that Russia's masses (just like the masses of every country in the world) are almost by definition poor, uneducated and scared. The wealthy and educated are part of the system -- they don't believe the lies, but the lies work in their service so they don't have to.
Sharlin 11y ago
> I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not. There is a Finnish-language web publication called "MV-lehti" (short for "Mitä vittua?! -lehti" meaning "What the Fuck Magazine"). It is an anti-West, anti-immigrant, anti-establishment disinformation site whose content is rumors at best and knowingly fabricated at worst. And a sizeable portion of the Finnish anti-immigration population take it as gospel.

TheLogothete 11y ago

Same type of thing happens in my Eastern European country, member of the EU and NATO. The pro-russian propaganda is rampant and honestly, is winning. The alternatives are only fascist organizations and people have nowhere to flock. US policy in recent years doesn't help at all. It is depressing.

dvh 11y ago
Just received this email this morning: "Russian plane flown to Yemen to capture CIA agents who helped shot down Russian civilian plane in Egypt" http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-do-jemenu-zmocnilo-agentu-cia-kteri-sestrelili-ruske-letadlo-v-egypte.html http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-d... The worst thing is that my own father is forwarding me these propaganda nonsense.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  you are probably in unique position to at least try to educate your father that just because there is keyword "free" in name of the server, it's nothing more than usual pro-russian propaganda. Not an easy task, depends on your father's mentality (if he was happy during russian occupation of czechoslovakia and after revolution all went south for him, that would be a hard nut to crack). I have generally only few rules for news from east - 1) never trust russians in politics, they have crude ways, and their goal is ultimately good old soviet days when their voice mattered more, with little care of anybody non-russian. 2) never trust russians in politics...
potrebitel22 11y ago
Granted we talk for the same country, I hardly can call that a winning. There are stupid and mentally challenged people everywhere and they are easy to manipulate. There always be people from ex-Soviet satellites who still think USSR is the best thing the world has seen, so they just want to be fed such information, regardless is it Putin or someone else. At one point the whole FB/Twitter agenda is made to spread news and events from "reliable" sources ( See how FB is used in USA's pee-presidential elections and its propaganda ). Russians, and not only them, the "creators" of social media exploit that opportunity for their gains. On one hand, Russia is trolling people, on the other, FB/Google/etc are forcing people to do stuff ( mainly to click on ads for revenue ) so can't blame one side or another for exploiting the system. Yes, one might say those are two different things, but at the end, the ordinary person is fed with a specific information, usually not wanted by him/her.

acqq 11y ago

"In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls" I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles written by the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic. I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try to estimate if Jessikka Aro's articles were strongly biased? Note: I definitely don't doubt that a lot of nasty internet communication was directed to her. The state of the internet is, you can be the saintest of the saints, once you're public enough, there will be (at least some) hate. I'm just trying to figure out how disproportional the reactions were, it's hard for me to get the idea reading only on this blog post.

Drdrdrq 11y ago
I don't speak finnish, but your interpretation doesn't make sense. "Crowdsourced" means "paid by multiple (ordinary) people". One could argue about the facts in the resulting articles (I have no clue about that), but a smear campaign shows that she probably touched something big... As far as bias goes, it would be difficult to judge without knowing the real facts.
- Kliment 11y ago
  Not paid for - sourced from. She asked people who had experienced such trolling to come forward and interviewed them. The work was funded by her employer.
  - acqq 11y ago
    And my question is if these people (who had experienced such trolling) were anonymous, and how biased the "series" was. From the view of somebody who understands Finnish. When we're at it, I also don't understand the story with the "Official of the Finnish Parliament Peter Saramo." Again, not enough details.
  - Drdrdrq 11y ago
    Thank you for clarification, I stand corrected. Still, not "written by" but "getting input from".

ousta 11y ago

every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web. She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through any means. Russians do not need to pay anyone to do this, people are patriotic enough to do it by themselves. To attack a one sided kind of people in their own realm with their own tools (the internet and social networks) is a foolish thing to do and this woman journalist learned this the hard way.people need to understand that the internet is a battlefield and wars cant be won by journalists but by warriors.

nocsaer1 11y ago
They indeed pay folks to do this. One Professional Russian Troll Tells All: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760 The rest of your comments is directing blame on the victim (the journalist).
- ousta 11y ago
  western news saying russians pay trolls to spread pro-russian opinion on the web while russian news are saying exactly the same thing for western trolls. It just depends on which side you see it. if you look at the big picture she is not a victim but someone fighting an information war
  - distances 11y ago
    This is investigative journalism of a proven phenomenon (paid Russian troll factories), and claiming it to be part of "information war" frankly smacks of the very thing the journalist is investigating here.
  - kbart 11y ago
    That's exactly what Kremlin propaganda wants you to believe: "everybody is lying, we are no different". No it's not. There are, of course, dishonest journalists, paid articles, power play, political pressure in western journalism, but it's by no means comparable to mass, state-run propaganda machine Russia's so-called "journalism" is. Snowden's story is a perfect example of that - the wast amount of resources by the most powerful western states were put into efforts trying to stop the leaks to no avail.

kbart 11y ago

We have a saying here: "If something you did upsets Russia - you are moving to the right direction".

theworstshill 11y ago
I'd like to know where "here" is.

ysilver 11y ago

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 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 replaced. It's just a matter of time. 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. This is a heavy lift. Maybe they will succeed in this and maybe not. If so, they will have found a temporary reprieve but will no doubt find themselves encountering a similar issue in the future. The legitimacy of the Russian leadership will continually find itself teetering so long as it relies on propagandists to hold back a flood of disapproval. Compare this system to the inherent stability of responsive governments with rule of law: healthy democracies (ie. Western democracy), responsive authoritarian systems (Singapore, China). Both these systems have release valves. In the case of democracies, elections reassert legitimacy with election cycles. In the case of responsive authoritarian systems, the government relies on surveys and technocratic leadership. Russia has neither method of achieving stable equilibrium and so the propaganda will serve as a shaky dike holding back an ever growing force.

crdoconnor 11y ago
>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 control over information (NK) or a mix (China). The only reason it became 'unstable' in the Soviet Union was glasnost, which was deliberate government policy by Gorbachev. Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around.
- 11y ago

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

I've been reading a great history book lately about the end of the Cold War. The author had the chance to interview folks on both sides of the conflict. The Russians were very, very good at establishing relationships with easily-influenced folks in the west, then using them to sway public opinion. Some were paid off, some were "useful idiots". I'm only guessing, but from what I've seen online in the last decade or so it looks like they've wholeheartedly taken those skills and applied them to internet trolling. Of course, I'm sure they're not alone. The internet has become just another battleground for nation-states. It would be very interesting to learn how much money is being spent on this kinda stuff worldwide. I bet it easily runs in the eight figures.

Gravityloss 11y ago

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.

sharetea 11y ago

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.

talmand 11y ago
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.
- pm90 11y ago
  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 (unless you take pains to implement something like the Great Firewall). Ideas can have a powerful effect on people. The Bolsheviks believed that the world was ripe to adopt communism, forming an international union of communist countries, and this would happen not through war (necessarily) but by people's revolutions in each individual country. When you understand that plan, it makes sense why the US was so paranoid about communism on its own soil. I'm not saying its communism which will take grip of the imagination of people. But it might be some other radical idea. We need to understand that this is a very real possibility.

jqm 11y ago

I'm sure Russian trolls exist. I would guess pro-US trolls exist as well. That said, not everyone who disagrees with some aspects of US foreign policy is Russian troll. Some people in forums seem to get confused on this point. I've been accused of being a Russian troll simply because I don't support US attempts to overturn the current Syrian government and didn't care for US involvement in overturning the Ukrainian government. And I don't support Putin or Russian expansion. I just don't believe US policy is wise nor humane on these matters.

jmnicolas 11y ago
Exactly. A few hours ago there was a thread on Guantanamo torture methods and people were unanimous that it's a shame and that it's no better than what the bad guys do. But tell them about the Russian trolls and somehow they forget everything and start to speak about the free world, democracy against those evil dictators ...
theworstshill 11y ago
Pretty much this. Having an independent opinion about Putin immediately gets you called a Putinbot nowadays. MSM and its followers demand conformity.

zorf 11y ago

Here is one her articles in English: http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propaganda http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propagan...

chiph 11y ago

If you know of someone in the US doing this, you should advise them to consider registering with the Justice Department. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac... The law was amended in the 1960's so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it.

Kristine1975 11y ago
>so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it What about free speech? This law strikes me as fundamentally "unamerican."
- chiph 11y ago
  It seems to me to be one of the many laws we have which favor safety & security over the principles on which the country was founded. It doesn't help that it also seems to be one of the many laws we have which are enforced "sometimes".

Balgair 11y ago

I... I just don't know what exactly I was expecting coming into this comments section. This is some absurdist parody. Seems HN has gotten big enough to be noticed now.

unics 11y ago

The adage that a lie told enough times becomes fact comes to mind. Goebbels was a master and his methods are still being used today.