
My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet - ptaipale
http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/my-year-as-a-pro-russia-troll-magnet
======
ysilver
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
>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.

~~~
ysilver
> America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years.

Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic.
Take for example our most popular news network: Fox News. Do they kowtow to
the federal government? Russia + NK however, rely repressing dissent
internally to retain legitimacy.

~~~
exelius
Russia's media is also nominally pluralistic. They have been careful to permit
the existence of dissenting media -- if for no other reason than to have
something to discredit. The propaganda outlets are much better funded and
organized though, so they can largely drown out the voices pushing an agenda
that differs from the party line. The Russian masses (just like the masses
everywhere else, including the US) are largely uneducated, xenophobic and
easily influenced by nationalism. It's just far more effective to allow them
to exist and attack them in the media (as happened to the reporter in the
article) than it is to violently suppress them.

The difference in the US is that the propaganda comes not from the government,
but from the corporate/media machine -- which largely controls the government.
American corporations now have such an outsized influence on American
elections that it's hard to know who is the puppet and who is pulling the
strings. Sure, you can go on TV and say whatever you want to say, but our
system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism
(just look at our justice system's reaction to Snowden / Manning). They
distract the public over trivial social issues (abortion, gay marriage, legal
weed) while doing whatever they want. Or in other words, Obama gets to score
points with liberal voters by blocking the Keystone XL pipeline -- never mind
that he approved 6 other, similar pipelines in his last two terms. The
difference is that the media simply chose not to cover them, so the blowback
was limited.

~~~
ysilver
> ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative
> journalism...

The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality
remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well
be right but it's far from evident to me.

I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on
average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly after mass
media (the networks) monopolized a lot of what we call news but that period
was more of an exception to the rule (and it certainly had its own problems).

~~~
tremon
> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality
> remains on your side of the court

The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of
press freedom:

"Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule
of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too
often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national
security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices.
Investigative journalism often suffers as a result.

This has been the case in the United States (46th), which fell 13 places, one
of the most significant declines, amid increased efforts to track down
whistleblowers and the sources of leaks. The trial and conviction of Private
Bradley Manning and the pursuit of NSA analyst Edward Snowden were warnings to
all those thinking of assisting in the disclosure of sensitive information
that would clearly be in the public interest.

US journalists were stunned by the Department of Justice’s seizure of
Associated Press phone records without warning in order to identify the source
of a CIA leak. It served as a reminder of the urgent need for a “shield law”
to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources at the federal level.
The revival of the legislative process is little consolation for James Risen
of The New York Times, who is subject to a court order to testify against a
former CIA employee accused of leaking classified information. And less still
for Barrett Brown, a young freelance journalist facing 105 years in prison in
connection with the posting of information that hackers obtained from Statfor,
a private intelligence company with close ties to the federal government."

[http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php](http://rsf.org/index2014/en-
index2014.php)

~~~
ptaipale
That's not really proof that "there has been a degradation of information
quality". In a way, rather to the contrary - US ranking in this particular
ranking fell because new information emerged; the administration then reacted
against information leakers.

But if we look at that ranking, USA is still clearly in the top third of
countries of world.

Russia is clearly in the bottom third of countries of world.

It is sort of funny that when we speak about the problems of the bottom third,
and Russia in particular, it is somehow compulsory to see the comments "Look
at USA, it also has problems!"

~~~
tremon
But "there has been a degradation of information quality" was not the phrase
used by the initial poster. Maybe I should have quoted both the parent and
grandparent together to make it clear what I was responding to, but I figured
people would ignore the parent's attempt to rephrase the argument.

I also disagree that the US ranking fell because of the emergence of new
information: it fell because of how it responded to that information. If you
read the RSF quote, none of the reasons given are because of the contents of
Snowden's or Manning's leaks. Instead, they mention the legal response to
those and other cases, and they mention the lack of effective legal protection
for "disclosing information in the public interest".

------
dimitar
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.

~~~
benten10
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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~
icebraining
_Does it mean that if I think you 're trolling it also means I can label you
as an idiot?_

I think what was meant is that people saying idiotic things are not always
trolls (who are just trying to stir up an argument), they may actually be
idiots.

And yes, of course one may label others as idiots; it might be uncouth when
said or written publicly, but that's each person's call.

~~~
talmand
Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree that one can label another as an idiot. It's
just that I require a greater deal of proof than "that person disagrees with
me" to believe someone's label of another person they don't know.

------
sharetea
Russian trolls are fascinating. The trolls' messages are low class, hateful,
incoherent and always grammatically incorrect, yet they seem to be able to
infiltrate discussions on cnn, bloomberg, reddit, zerohedge (which is an anti-
western site anyways), and sometimes hacker news, and seem to have some
influences amongst uninformed and angry netizens. Case in point, a random
stock broker at my brokerage mentions to me that he read on zerohedge that US
is about to collapse, and is no match for Russia's might. Which is hilarious
because Russia's economy is tiny compared to US (and Russia's GDP fell 1/3
this year), and US army is at least 2 generations ahead of Russia (and China).

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

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

~~~
johnnydoebk
Corruption level is high in Russia, you're right here. But totalitarian
government? I'm afraid, you drink too much someone else's Kool-aid. And as for
the GDP fall. Could you please provide some references? Because mine show that
it's not even close to what you've written [1] [2]. I'd like to read more
about generations in the army and the aged military, too. Lack of any
references but very big conclusions. That's exactly how pro-Russian trolls'
messages look like.

[1]: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-
growth](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-growth) [2]:
[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp)

~~~
jonatanheyman
Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents,
persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states
etc, etc.

I don't know about you, but I think "totalitarian" draw a more correct
picture, than "corruption level is high".

~~~
ionised
> Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents,
> persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states
> etc, etc.

I'm no fan of Russia, but many of these things you mentioned could be applied
to the US and UK too.

~~~
jonatanheyman
Sure, neither totalitarianism nor democracy are binary things, and there are
no razor-sharp definitions. I'm sure you can find examples of those things in
many countries that are generally considered "democratic". However, in Putin's
Russia this is common practice and happens on a regular basis (with the
exceptions of invading other sovereign states I guess, which has only happened
a couple of times), which is why I don't think it's controversial to call
Russia "totalitarian".

------
ucaetano
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?_...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-
agency.html?_r=0)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_expl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_explosion_hoax)

------
TheLogothete
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
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-d...](http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-do-
jemenu-zmocnilo-agentu-cia-kteri-sestrelili-ruske-letadlo-v-egypte.html)

The worst thing is that my own father is forwarding me these propaganda
nonsense.

~~~
saiya-jin
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...

------
DanielBMarkham
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.

------
jqm
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
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
...

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

------
acqq
"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.

~~~
metafunctor
Here "crowdsourced" means that Jessikka Aro solicited for experiences from
members of the public who have been targeted by trolls. As far as I can tell,
any resulting articles have been written by journalists and have gone through
the usual journalistic process.

I haven't actually read many of her articles, but my assessment is that she is
not strongly biased. It is widely accepted as fact that pro-russian trolling
is rampant also on the Finnish web.

~~~
acqq
> As far as I can tell, any resulting articles have been written by
> journalists

So she didn't sign these articles? Why would then anybody direct some campaign
at her?

Something is missing in this story.

~~~
zorf
She wrote them. Take a look at one of her articles:
[http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-
propagan...](http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propaganda)

~~~
acqq
Thanks. But what's "crowdsourced" with it? That article looks like a real
investigation. Maybe the term was actually a loss in translation? That's why I
hoped to get all the info from somebody who understands Finnish (and maybe
even followed these news).

Edit: kaitai linked to an article that has a lot of opinions of other people.
It is a better example of what she would maybe call the "crowdsourced" article
(it has a bunch of quotes presented in a way to appear to support the message
she wants to convey).

~~~
kiiski
Basically the crowdsourcing here means that YLE published a article saying
(shortened): "Tell us what kind of web trolling you have been targeted by and
in what situations. We'll compile an article of peoples experiences"

The term "crowdsourcing" isn't really used in Finnish. Apparently there exists
a translation for it ("joukouttaminen"), but I haven't ever heard anyone use
it (not that I've looked too hard).

~~~
acqq
> The term "crowdsourcing" isn't really used in Finnish.

Thanks. Now it's clear. It was really "lost in translation" (in the
"appearing" sense).

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

~~~
theworstshill
I'd like to know where "here" is.

------
Balgair
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.

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

------
chiph
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_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act)

The law was amended in the 1960's so that people would get a warning before
being prosecuted under it.

~~~
Kristine1975
>so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it

What about free speech? This law strikes me as fundamentally "unamerican."

~~~
chiph
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".

------
unics
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.

