
One Professional Russian Troll Tells All - sbt
http://www.rferl.mobi/a/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html
======
osipov
It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board of
Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia.
Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the best
antidote to Russian propaganda. Instead, the government is complaining that
"broadcasters are not always in tune with U.S. foreign policy objectives."
Frankly, since I'm paying my taxes to US government, I want free and
independent journalism, not the one that is driven by advertisers, corporate
sponsors, or US foreign objectives. We used to have that before 1990s when
just 6 major media conglomerates ate up 90% of the media companies.
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/usa-
broadcasting-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/usa-broadcasting-
idUSL2N0WP23620150325)

~~~
wtbob
> It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board
> of Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia.
> Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the
> best antidote to Russian propaganda.

Is it though? I know that in a business context I've often been told that I
have an 'incredible ability to see both sides of a question'; that's actually
a problem, because at some point one has to _decide_ for one side or another
on a particular question.

Likewise, in real life there often _aren 't_ cut-and-dried issues: rather,
there are two (or more!) sides, each with valid perspectives, valid grudges,
and _they can 't all win_; indeed, in some cases compromise is simply
impossible. And yet people must decide between them.

Indeed, the more one learns the truth about an historical conflict, the less
obvious is the Right Thing to do in that situation. But what great masses of
people need is a clear, obvious Right Thing. You don't win WWII by emphasising
that the post-WWI plebiscites were fixed against Germany, or that Japan had
some valid grievances against the U.S.

~~~
pyre
> Japan had some valid grievances against the U.S.

I'm curious what Japan's valid grievances against the Chinese, Koreans, or
various Pacific island groups was...

~~~
emodendroket
Well, none (well I mean plenty if you want to go through thousands of years of
history, but realistically, none), but modernizing largely meant copying
Western ideas and that included having their own colonies and spheres of
influence, just like Western powers. It's not as though that is the reason the
US went to war with Japan.

~~~
pyre
> It's not as though that is the reason the US went to war with Japan.

I realize this, but WW2, for Japan, was mostly about taking over much of SE
Asia and that would have happened regardless of them going to war with the US.

~~~
emodendroket
I think the popular American image of the wartime Japanese doesn't have much
to do with that, although they certainly did brutalize the places they took
over.

------
Procedural
As a Russian, yep, I saw these people online, they're easy identifiable,
though...

Also, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are the motherlands for hackers of all
sorts, we have bots who post pro-Kremlin comments on social networks too.

My favorite example is this one:
[http://apikabu.ru/img_n/2012-02_4/5c7.jpg](http://apikabu.ru/img_n/2012-02_4/5c7.jpg)

The description says "DO NOT POST COMMENTS, who post a comment will be
banned", and underneath it different bot accounts post messages about how bad
it is to join protests and American government controls the opposition,
nonsense like that.

Don't worry about hacker news or other sites like this one — the government
thinks people don't know English to be on these sites. Partially it's true,
though, most people still are unaware of real situation because they don't
have internet connection (they get news from television, as here it's called
"ZomboTV" ("Зомбоящик"), you guys have it too, imagine if all the channels
were like CNN) and most of their time they spend on trying to survive in this
economic situation (google "dollar to ruble"), they have no time to protest or
find true information about their government and "president" (a mafioso Putin,
google "dacha consumer cooperative Ozero")

~~~
usaphp
Zombotv "Зомбоящик"?? You are obviously not from Russia, nobody is using such
words here, I bet you are from Ukraine

~~~
Procedural
I am from Russia, Moscow to be precise. And if your friends or people around
you doesn't use that word it doesn't mean nobody uses it.

~~~
mpclark
Surprised this post didn't come with a link to a picture.

------
ommunist
The other side does the same. Here is the story. I have a client - small
market research company, covering Russia. I made bilingual website for them.
When Ukrainian conflict started, their Russian contact form was heavily abused
by some pro-Ukrainian trolls, posting physical threats to company employees
(UK-based, by the way). I coded check against vocabulary, but it appeared,
trolls were restlessly trying to bypass my hidden rules for business
conversation. It took a week of polishing vocabulary rules. And I added math
captcha. In the end I won. They even wrote me a give up letter. Their IPs were
mostly Polish and French.

UPD: The hosting was US-based. So they were deliberately looking for Russian
forms.

~~~
ak1394
It's not quite the same though? I doubt there is a facility somewhere in
Ukraine where people are getting paid to peddle government propaganda on the
Internet.

~~~
M8
[http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm)

 _" Victoria Nuland Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of
Ukrainian, 'Democratic Institutions'"._

~~~
Paradigma11
Since 1992. I am also not sure that the described activities are within the
purvey of the peace corps, doctors without borders... that the $5B paid for.

------
cubano
Sure...propaganda generated for the direct purpose of trying to influence the
masses. It has been around forever and is used by everyone from governments to
multinationals to mom-and-pops up the road.

However, my question is this...is a "troll" just defined as someone who
disagrees with you?

For example, I am sure, as unpleasant as it may seem, that there are plenty of
people who sincerely think it's good that Russia invaded Ukraine...if these
people voice their support, are they "trolling"?

How are you supposed to tell the difference?

Is calling someone a "troll" just a way to try to quickly marginalize any POV
they may be trying to defend or promote? And if so, isn't it just a shortcut
to censorship of any ideas you may not agree with? Is that the way we want
discussions to work?

These are serious questions that I, personally, have about this issue. Am I
considered a "troll" for having these questions?

~~~
osipov
The problem you are describing is due to the fact that the word "troll" is a
semantic stop sign
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/)

People judge someone as a troll and immediately stop thinking about the
subject matter, e.g. "Russia invaded Ukraine" is that a fact or an opinion?

~~~
krapp
I believe this is one of the main reason people try to call out the presence
of trolls (particularly as government or corporate shills) on forums,
especially if they do it preemptively.

If you believe that an opposing point of view is objectively wrong and mostly
upheld by propagandists, you want to prevent people from actually considering
"the lie" for their own safety.

Of course, doing this usually leads to an argument and tea-leaf reading
session that creates a bigger distraction than the trolls (whether they exist
or not) probably could have managed.

------
sbt
For those who are using the argument that other countries do it too: No. Many
US news outlets (Fox News, Newsweek, Yahoo news, etc.) often post overtly
biased stories in favor of US interests. But they do it not because they are
instructed, but because it makes many Americans feel good. Although it's not
pretty, they do it for business reasons. You need only hang out a while on
/r/worldnews before you realize that completely valid pro-Russian arguments
are down voted for no reason, while 'Fuck Russia' posts are up voted. The same
with stories. But this is folly, not malice.

Russian news is of an entirely different nature. They were famous for
industrious propaganda during the cold war. They are now at it again in full
force. The troll factories are just one facet of it, but it encompasses nearly
all of Russian media.

~~~
jklinger410
>For those who are using the argument that other countries do it too: No.

>...valid pro-Russian arguments are down voted for no reason, while 'Fuck
Russia' posts are up voted. The same with stories. But this is folly, not
malice.

You can say this all you want but it's merely conjecture. You can see the
exact same trends you'll find with these Russian "trolls" (shills is a better
word) on almost every topic on the internet.

It is not a stretch to believe that the NSA and other organizations, private
and public, are waging a public/private war of popular opinion all over the
internet and media.

Remember when the NSA and DOD lied to American congress about collecting
American's cell phone data and stuff? If they're willing to BLATANTLY lie to
congress then what's a couple million of their hugely bloated budgets to pay
an office of trolls to throw smoke screens over any topic they please?

And if you're inferring that private corporations don't offer this
service...well...if that's true, I just found my next business.

------
jklinger410
I saw this all over reddit when that airplane was shot down over Ukraine.

Vote brigading and shill accounts corrupted reddit long ago. These tactics
have probably been in use since _before_ reddit even existed.

The internet is essentially a big propaganda machine and you can't till what
is what unless you are keen and aware.

~~~
borgia
>The internet is essentially a big propaganda machine and you can't till what
is what unless you are keen and aware.

Indeed.

Governments including those in the Five Eyes, Russia, China, Israel and more
have been shown to have massive operations - JTRIG for one - that seek to
disrupt and manipulate online discourse, create and spread false information,
etc.

PR firms run rampant across social media sites, forums, etc. and disrupt and
manipulate online discourse and the flow of information. Everything from the
largest companies in the world to small local restaurants engage in
manipulating how their company and its actions are perceived.

News entities, small and large, serve their corporate interests and promote
whatever they want promoted, or rally against whatever they want rallied
against.

And then people, with their inherent biases, buying into propaganda, toeing
the party line, etc. do their own part in the same, whether it's in spreading
purposely created disinformation that they believe to be true, trying to
silence those that disagree with them and more. One of the most toxic things
I've seen is the rise in very rapidly dismissing a statement that one
disagrees with as being that of "trolling" or "shilling" in order to shut down
the discussion.

With regards to Reddit, the fact that moderator accounts, accounts with large
numbers of upvotes, etc. can be readily bought online says more than needs to
be said about the bizarre behaviour on display on that site every day.

Wikipedia has been utterly bastardized.

And so it goes on.

It's a shame to see a tool that was created for sharing information being so
heavily corrupted. Widespread propaganda from all sides, mass surveillance,
the active actions of intelligence agencies such as the recent CIA attempt to
inspire an uprising in Cuba, etc.

It has become very hard to know what to trust online now. It's sad, but not
unexpected, and one can only wonder what the future holds for it.

------
fierycatnet
Ukrainian situation is a complex one and brings out the worst in people, at
least in post-Soviet countries. It's not uncommon for people to have different
view on this issue. I know families who fight over it, people breaking up over
it, it's pretty emotional subject. So with this in mind, I don't think there
is some sort of conspiratorial force at work to post pro-Kremlin position on
online. I don't doubt that there are paid people who spam forums but just
because someone is voicing their opinion in favor of Russian official stance
it doesn't mean automatic paid shill. I've been following this conflict since
2013 and I have to say that all involved sides are offenders of "their"
version of events in mass media.

~~~
dmschulman
I think the cause for skepticism in this circumstance was the heavy handed
pro-Russian voice that seemed to dominate the conversation online over the
situation in Ukraine.

That and the mountain of evidence which demonstrates how Russia makes a
concerted effort to command the media narrative of a story through online
comments.

~~~
geoka9
Just the other day Russia announced additional cuts in their annual budget.
Almost every expenditure was cut across the board, except for the military and
propaganda (e.g. Russia Today received a 5 bln increase).

------
tormeh
I think the Chinese government used to do this with The Economist's forums. I
think they've stopped, for some reason. I don't really read the comments there
much, though; it's all garbage.

~~~
cgh
The 50 Cent Army is still at it. I think newspapers have become a lot better
about filtering them out. The Globe and Mail (Canada) was absolutely overrun
for a while and they still pop up now and again.

~~~
MollyR
Could it be the "50 Cent Army" just got better ? They learned from their
mistakes, and are becoming more subversive ?

------
probably_wrong
I'm fairly sure someone smarter and with more time than me could trace an
interesting parallel between East and West policies when it comes to the
internet, comparing the leaks about GCHQ[1] and this post. Perhaps an
"infinite monkeys" vs "carefully targeted" approach?

Also, I may or may not be an employee who was told to come and disrupt the
discussion here. So there's that too.

[1] [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

~~~
xnull2guest
Here's a start for the US.

Incomplete list of domestic stuff:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218)
like "public opinion campaigns":
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewanted=all)

Incomplete list of international stuff:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709976)
like using social media to kindle revolutions:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-
effort-t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-to-
undermine-cuban-government-with-fake-twitter-another-anti-castro-
failure/2014/04/03/c0142cc0-bb75-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html)

Some things almost sound like science fiction, like the DoD program to predict
successful overseas propaganda by observing brain scans of test subjects:
[http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-
Lieberman.pdf](http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf)

------
sorincos
The Romanian independent press publishes from time to time inquiries
(sometimes undercover) about similar paid structures used by local parties
(PDL, PSD...) during electoral campaigns and not only. First time I've read
how they are organized and how much they get paid was like in 2009 (here the
Google Translate version
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.romanialibera.ro%2Fspecial%2Finvestigatii%2Fautodenunt
--doua-saptamani-i-am-haituit-pe-internet-pe-adversarii-lui-crin-
antonescu-170269&edit-text=&act=url)), but I'm sure the technique is in place
since long.

------
FreakyT
I find it interesting that they use a "villain" troll as a virtual strawman to
knock down -- I feel like that adds a layer of subtlety that wouldn't really
exist with _solely_ the pro-Russia content.

~~~
JonnieCache
The good guys are known to use much more in-depth techniques than that, see:
[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

especially: [https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-
uploads/sites/1/20...](https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-
uploads/sites/1/2014/02/deception_p12.png)

Based on the state of that powerpoint slide they're probably achieving fuck-
all in practice.

------
dreamweapon
Here's a link to the non-mobile version:

[http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-
trolling-t...](http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-
trolls/26919999.html)

------
breitling
It would be foolish to think our countries don't do this. The U.S., Canada,
Israel, they all have propaganda campaigns of their own.

~~~
Avalaxy
Source? Never heard of a US, Canadian or Israelian troll factory.

~~~
tete
Didn't Snowden release something?

[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

Way more professional.

Also Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been around for ages.

~~~
cromwellian
Radio Free/Voice of America/Al Arabiya/etc are not secret projects, they are
publicly acknowledged.

------
usaphp
This seems fishy about this article: He is making 45,000 rubles ($700) for a
12 hours shift in Saint Petersburg. With his English knowledge skills alone he
can easily make double that money just by working as a translator in a regular
8 hour job.

~~~
_dark_matter_
Did you read the article? He got the job purely to have the job, not for the
monetary compensation. He described it as "adventurism".

~~~
usaphp
Yeah sure, working two month in 12 hours shifts just for adventurism. Either
he is a spy or this story is a complete joke

~~~
Squarel
Its 2 on, 2 off.

2 months in 12h shifts working 4 days a week is not that bad.

~~~
usaphp
45,000 per month in Saint Petersburg is a low paying job salary, this job
however requires basic computer knowledge and from what I understand english
knowledge as well to post comments on western websites.

~~~
burger_moon
No, 45k ruble is for non-English speaking people to post on Russian
municipality websites.

~~~
usaphp
its still an underpaid position for somebody who knows basic computers in
Saint Petersburg

------
tobiasu
RFERL. Enough said.

~~~
JonnieCache
lol. Nice catch.

 _RFE /RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency
overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty)

 _And so we enter the wilderness of mirrors..._

(FWIW the radio in my kitchen is set to the BBC world service, which is funded
exclusively by the foreign office...)

~~~
dmschulman
You have to separate the medium and the message. Does the RFE/RL have self-
interest in disclosing a story that is critical of Russia? Probably.

Are the facts of the story in dispute because Radio Free Europe happened to
publish the interview? This I'm not so sure of.

Also writing a comment like this in the context of the linked article fills me
with a sense of dread. Am I merely emulating the villain troll perspective by
refuting your claim and (seemingly) suiting my biases? Will it be possible to
have discussions in the future without a subtext of having some covert motive?

~~~
JonnieCache
How do you think I feel? The first thing I did in this thread was link to an
image!

(For the record, I agree with your view. If you want to feel even more
confused about the issue, check out this video concerning Vladislav Surkov:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM))

We should start a pool on who and what is being funded by the russian govt.

    
    
        UKIP        10/1
        Pussy Riot  8/1
        Adam Curtis 9/2
        Uber        12/1
    

any takers?

~~~
dmschulman
Yeah that segment is incredibly insightful. Tactics of deliberate
misinformation and confusion reek of 1950s/1960s Cold War sentiment (on both
sides).

------
mehhhhhhh
If it is written, people believe it.

I think a general education in reasoning, criticism and logic, that would
happen along with the typical primary/secondary courses( math, english ) would
help not just in this case, but also in many other areas.

------
oskarth
Set up a straw man, then knock it down with graphics (pathos, "I've seen it")
and links (logos, "it's researched, and true"). Oh and ethos too, because it's
a response to a villain with "arguments", rather than being an unprovoked
attack.

Simple and beautiful. Just don't think it's only happening in Russia.

------
schandur
How is this different from Israel or China? Genuine question.

~~~
dmschulman
There is no difference procedure-wise. In execution however, Israel and China
aren't invading foreign nations and using the online peanut gallery to try and
sway public opinion on the matter.

Maybe you could make a case for Palestine or the Senkaku Islands dispute but I
don't think those examples would hold muster for a multitude of reasons.

~~~
aikah
> Israel and China aren't invading foreign nations

err Tibet ? hmm Palestine ?

~~~
dmschulman
No one disputes that those are occupations (well except for China and Israel
respectively) but in the context of propagandizing online comments to create a
false popular opinion on the matter, Tibet and Palestine are different than
Ukraine.

~~~
aikah
> Israel and China aren't invading foreign nations

Noone?

------
PhantomGremlin
Things are a lot more sophisticated nowadays.

Back in ancient times, around the beginnings of Eternal September, we had
Serdar Argic. He used to piss off half of Usenet with his repetitive denials
of the Armenian Genocide.[1]

We also had Canter and Siegel (who I affectionately referred to as Cancer and
Slime). They were the first massive commercial Usenet spammers.[2]

Ahh, good times. Such humble beginnings for the Information Superhighway.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sieg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel)

------
m_mueller
This is eerily close to what two of the main characters in Ender's Game are
doing in order to change events. Internet, the blogosphere, comments, trolls,
it was all predicted with quite a bit of detail in that book from 1985.

~~~
siegecraft
If I recall, that was a hilarious optimistic view of things, where there was
high level/scholarly debate online and people were persuaded by great
rhetoric.. quite a departure from the race to the bottom, cesspool of online
commentary as it exists today.

~~~
m_mueller
I agree. Also the impact today doesn't turn out to be _that_ big as described
in the book (although that might be because we haven't yet had someone like
the Wiggins family?). But still, the mechanism itself was all there.

------
pnathan
This particular operation is relatively crude. However, consider what it would
take to build a better operation. I always think about this when I am reading
Wikipedia on any contested subject where an organization with a PR arm is in
play.

There was a report of a similar operation in the US a few years ago (I lost
the link, can't find it, no PDF), where this kind of thing was done as a paid
service for political groups within the US. The author of that article had
worked there as part of some "pro-Isreal" group. It was better than this
Russian op - there was a relatively deeper briefing of the material at hand.

------
takeyears
I have been following politics since "Arab Spring" and I have always
experienced the online propaganda.

Pro-Putin propagandist: 1\. Sides with Iran/Assad 2\. Bash U.S/NATO 3\. Claim
USG is supporting terrorists and CIA is training them. 4\. Claim "Arab Spring"
is a conspiracy to destabilize the Middle East. 5\. Claim 9/11 was an inside
job. 6\. Everything bad happens is a conspiracy by USG to attack the
Democratic Putin. (lol)

If you want a look, check the comments of Reddit or Youtube topics about
Ukrine, Syria, Russian/Middle East related, etc...

------
tigrella
It's all about propaganda. Looks like not much has changed in Russian
government ideology over the last 25 years.

~~~
denom
Doesn't every well financed institution do similar things? I thought that was
the substance of public relations: getting your side of the story out there.
It even happens on a small scale e.g. Yelp reviews.

~~~
comex
No, every well financed institution does not hire people to role play hundreds
of sockpuppets to create a false impression of support for its message.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Actually the US has an entire (metaphorical) army of think tanks and other
propaganda outlets which do exactly that.

The sockpuppets tend to be more influential than drive-by commenters though.
Some of them actually pretend to be respectable journalists and opinion-
formers. The Church Committee in the 1970s blew the lid on this.

Operation Mockingbird is a famous historical example:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)

The National Endowment for Democracy is more recent:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democrac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy)

Given history, it would take someone with more faith in open government than I
have to believe there are no equivalent online operations today.

------
ibi7
The guy's english is too good to be from that region. Probably a script by the
Americans and their allies.

~~~
ak1394
The original story in Russian, here
[http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/26913247.html](http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/26913247.html)
This is a translation.

------
aulona
Could this be a good marketing tactic to acquire users for consumer facing
products?

~~~
ommunist
Absolutely. Compare this to effects of positive or negative reviews on Amazon.
I say - hire Russian troll if you are on the mass-market with review-based
reputation on product descriptions. Imagine you have +100 positive reviews
overnight. For a hundred bucks its a bargain!

------
Torgo
Funnily enough, I saw many comment trolls defending Toyota during the "rapid
acceleration" fiasco. I believe this is a very commonplace thing for both
governments and businesses with image problems.

------
trhway
they seemed to have increased salaries during last year - i guess in response
to falling ruble - various Russian sources were putting it at ~30K a year ago
:)

Not surprising that the major amount of propaganda is directed onto domestic
sites. And, yes, clear visible double standards applied by the major powers in
the world do make that propaganda work much more successful.

------
ShannonSofield
Truly fascinating. They should make these services for hire, there are some
brands that would kill for this kind of content farm.

~~~
emodendroket
Ah yes, until now no one has had the idea to abuse comment forms and Web
forums to promote products and services. You could become rich with this
unique idea.

------
dismal2
I'll wait for RT to write a retort and just ignore both of these government
mouth pieces.

------
MrClean
_Patiently waiting for villain troll, link troll and picture troll to work
this thread._

~~~
smtddr
That part freaked me out because that was one of the ways I thought I could
tell authentic from propaganda. I thought people in power didn't know how to
blend in naturally to forums and their comments always stood out, but it looks
like they do get it. Now I'm worried that my propaganda/astroturfing
indicators don't work as well as I thought they did.

~~~
Practicality
The article covers it quite well. The trolls generally don't really know what
they're talking about and often don't make sense.

So if you ignore the nonsensical people you will ignore the trolls too. It's a
pretty good rule to follow anyway.

~~~
colin_jack
At least in Guardian comments they make no sense, are intensely rude, and tend
not to reply to comments. As you say it makes them very easy to spot.

------
tech2000
I wonder if fox news has the same setup?

------
kazinator
The USSR/CCCP lives on.

