
Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation - brown9-2
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/europe/russia-finland-nato-trolls.html
======
dijit
In an effort to be entirely objective:

disagreeing with a person is not trolling, and Russians do not agree with
NATO- which makes sense given that NATO was orchestrated specifically against
Russia.

I can't help but pity them, it's like having a pit-bull in the corner that
nobody loves because it defended them before in a savage way, so they keep
putting up gates and fences and pushing it into solitude. I agree that Crimea
was not exactly an ideal scenario but I can see both sides of that too. And
neither side is as black as they're painted.

Realistically, with the exclusion of Crimea, Russia has done nothing that any
other large country hasn't done with regards to borders, the difference is
that when a British fighter jet comes close to France's border nobody cares
because we're allied. But we crucify them for it.

As a wise man once said. We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.

(The reason I'm talking about this is because of the recent advances of NATO
in putting US military installations in Poland to "combat ISIL", and Russians
complaining about it has been tagged as trolling somehow.)

~~~
cjensen
Crimea. Georgia. Transnistria. It's become a pattern for Russia to use
military force instead of diplomacy to resolve disputes.

The notion that "Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't
done" is entirely wrong.

~~~
qrendel
I'm not an expert on the history of Russian foreign policy, but there are a
lot of credible voices outside of the MSM that tell a different story than the
U.S. administration does. For example:

1\. [http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-
break-t...](http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-
silence-)

2\. [http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-
he...](http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-hersh-dishes-
saudi-oil-money-bribes-and-killing-osama-bin-laden)

Those focus largely on other topics, but both touch on how the attitude
towards Russia (and others) has been manipulated by U.S. media.

Given the U.S. administrations' track records for deceit in manipulating
foreign affairs, I'm not inclined to dismiss the alternative narratives
easily. Western governments do their fair share of astroturfing and media
manipulation as well (can give many sources on that, if necessary).

~~~
woodandsteel
So Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who plans to conquer Russia and turn
them into American colonies? Wow, you could have fooled me.

If he is pursuing such wildly aggressive foreign policy, then how come all the
hawks in this country continually condemn him for being a wimpy surrender-
monkey?

~~~
qrendel
The GOP criticizes Obama like he's the anti-christ for literally everything.
They've opposed their own bills _that they sponsored_ just because Obama later
made public remarks about them being good bills.

If you're referring to stuff like the "red line" fiasco in Syria, Hersh
explains that too. See: [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-
sarin](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin)

~~~
woodandsteel
So you do think that Obama is a blood-thirsty imperialist who spent his whole
eight years as president planning to invade and conquer Russia? Including
explaining to the American public why that would be a good idea?

------
bhouston
So both China, Russia and Israel have state sponsors social media presences
that are intended to uphold the state's perspective? I think the US does
similar things in Middle Eastern countries as well, although not aimed at
domestic audiences.

It this the direction we are headed for the rest of the world?

------
Balgair
The biggest elephant in the room is: Why pay _people_ to do this?

FB, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc could easily make astro-turf 'bots to do this
job for them, by a billion+ more, and with very good 'masking' that the 'bots
are useful idiots. Surely, these highly funded agencies could do at least a
tenth as well in terms of masking and the number of bots.

The real question is then, why pay people to do this for them? It is too fishy
for me to pay many people all that money and not to just take it themselves
with a shell company or some such thing.

There are things that are unseen or poorly understood in the West. Is this
just some glorified jobs program to pay people to scream at their screens and
not riot? Are they really all 'bots that are that good now and we are too dumb
to realize it?

Perhaps Occam's Razor is the right though, the simplest explanation is the
best: Trolls be trollin'.

~~~
zzzcpan
> Why pay people to do this?

At the moment bots cannot gain neither trust of the people nor reputation and
without that they cannot be effective.

------
yari_ashi_zero
hey Wow so I stumbled into a Natoist troll army barracks here right I guess.
No mention anywhere of the right of the population of Crimea to self
determination. They held a vote right ?

------
guard-of-terra
Russia's "Troll Army" probably doesn't speak Finnish.

We're talking about "Troll Special Task Force" at maximum.

~~~
ptaipale
They obviously have sections for various foreign languages, including (but not
limited to) Finnish.

Native Finnish-speakers have mostly been eliminated in Russia, except for some
old people who are not up to working in the troll army.

But some people there still do study Finnish, and moreover, the troll army can
direct volunteer trolls - e.g. people who were Communist sympathizers and hate
USA and NATO.

Their dream is gone but their hate is still there. You'll find the
"representative of Donetsk Republic" Johan Bäckman running in the elections
for the "Finnish Workers Party", a fringe leftist party that got about 0.03 %
of the popular vote. That doesn't stop him from representing "the Finnish
view" in Russian media.

------
xgndjsjsj
Some part of me wonders if these Russian astroturfers might be behind the
recent /pol/ Trump obsession, given that Trump and Putin are on friendly terms
with each other.

Edit: before Hillary shills jump on this, her astroturfing campaign on reddit
is just as deplorable.

~~~
tstactplsignore
I strongly also suspect that this might be the case- there are a couple of
other motives too: (1) They see Trump as destabilizing or disruptive to the US
and its international allies, and (2) they see Trump as ideologically aligned
with Putin's own highly nationalistic and oligarchial platform and worldview
(Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort has direct close ties to Putin's
oligarchy)

~~~
mc32
But it's not as though for example, people in Hillary's team don't have
connections to the nomenklatura. So I don't think those connections are
especially illustrative of anything extraordinary.

~~~
woodandsteel
Huh? You present that as something everyone knows, but I have never even heard
anyone make the accusation.

I may be wrong, but I am guessing you are following a standard Russian troll
tactic. This is when someone makes an accusation, accuse the West or someone
in it of the same thing. For instance, when someone says the Russian
government is immensely corrupt, say there is corruption in the West, too. The
goal is not to make people think well of Russia, that is simply not possible,
but to make everyone so cynical and discouraged they won't fight back.

~~~
kbenson
> I may be wrong, but I am guessing you are following a standard Russian troll
> tactic...

There are ways to word this paragraph that both don't accuse the parent of
trolling, and still get across the point that you don't think a specific bit
of evidence is as damning as may have been implied, or if just unsupported. Do
you really think accusations of trolling are really going to result in a more
useful discussion?

~~~
woodandsteel
Trolling does take place, and we need some way to defend against it. A key way
is to educate people so they can recognize it. Do you deny that Russian trolls
do regularly use this tactic?

>There are ways to word this paragraph...

Could you present an example of this?

You're right, though, that it was somewhat problematic for me to make a semi-
accusation against a particular comment. It makes me think what we need is a
page describing common Russian troll tactics, and it could be linked to
whenever there is a discussion of Russia, and people could decide for
themselves if any comment is a troll.

>Do you really think accusations of trolling are really going to result in a
more useful discussion?

It's awfully hard to have a useful discussion when trolls are trying to take
things over. I need to do some thinking on what might work.

~~~
kbenson
> Do you deny that Russian trolls do regularly use this tactic?

I don't have information either way, but attacking motives instead of
arguments never seems to lead anywhere useful, in my experience. The response
from a troll or an innocent is often the same; indignation. This often results
in confirmation bias taking over, and an argument from one side believing the
other is acting in bad faith, and the pother believing they are talking to
assholes.

> Could you present an example of this?

"First, while you've stated Clinton has a link to Russia, I'm unfamiliar with
the parties involved or the evidence, and you didn't substantiate your claim.
Can you point me towards resources where this is explained?

Secondly, while there may be a link with Clinton, a link, by itself, does not
mean anything. A link is not the same thing and _influence_. I am probably
linked to President Obama through a chain of three to four (or less) people. I
also likely have an almost zero chance to get a specific message to him, much
less exert influence. Not all links are equal, and I would be surprised if
most the career politicians didn't have links to people in almost all the
major nations, on _purpose_. If I was in that career, I would cultivate these
links and people with more of them, as those can be extremely useful in
communication. Do we all truly believe the Obama and Putin communicate purely
through speeches and official visits, and have no way to express specific
desires and sentiments through back-channels? What's a back-channel but a link
by another name?

The important thing to consider here is not whether there is a link, but what
type of link it is and what influence it may exert."

> It's awfully hard to have a useful discussion when trolls are trying to take
> things over.

Keep in mind that the purpose of trolling might well be to stir the pot enough
that normal discourse has no chance, not just to discredit a specific idea.
Who cares if a good discussion happens if nobody is around to see it as it's
lost in a sea of vitriol? There was even a moment prior to my original reply,
when I wondered where _you_ were trolling in this manner. I quickly discounted
it, but I imagine if I had acted on that thought, our conversation would be
much less useful to all involved.

------
guelo
I'm sure these comments will be filled with Russian propaganda operatives,
either the paid or "useful idiot" variety. I used to think the web would be an
engine for democracy and transparency but now that view just seems naive. With
powerful surveillance and propaganda tools the web is and will continue to be
a powerful force for state control. And states will increasingly use it to
exert power outside their borders.

~~~
zzzcpan
I'm pretty sure they were here long before you posted your comment. As usual
for subjects like this.

