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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, espec

by 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.

by dimitar 11y ago

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

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.