
I Was a Russian Facebook Troll Named Martha - rbanffy
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/telecom/internet/i-was-a-russian-facebook-troll-named-martha
======
forapurpose
People criticize Facebook (and others) about doing too little about Russian
and other propaganda. But if we want to think about why FB does that, we
should study the image in the mirror.

The same people are highly active and effective on HN. Every discussion of
Russia or China is dominated by the standard propaganda talking points:
'there's no evidence of X', for any X; and 'the U.S. does it too'.[0] As a
result, on certain issues HN discussions are propaganda (expressed civilly, to
stay within the rules) and no substantive discussion takes place on probably
the most important issue in the history of the IT industry. The purpose of
propaganda is exactly that - not to persuade but to paralyze.

HN's main response, AFAICT, is to ban users from saying that any comment fits
the propaganda profile; this rule perversely protects the propagandists and it
shuts down people who oppose them and want substantive discussion, all in the
name of keeping things 'civil'. It's capitulation to the power of the
propagandists - they won; just cede them the ground in order to avoid the
unpleasantness of a fight. Again, the outcome is propaganda expressed civilly
and no substantive discussion (and the discussion that exists is boring,
meaningless, and endlessly repetitive). I'm not saying it's an easy problem;
I'm saying we should look in the mirror in order to understand Facebook.

[0] For example, currently there are 4 top-level comments in this discussion,
all of which fit that profile.

EDIT: Some minor edits

~~~
conistonwater
I mostly agree, but there is a better justification for HN's rule, offered by
its mods:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturfing&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturfing&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0),
I think it's not as perverse as you think.

~~~
forapurpose
> there is a better justification for HN's rule

I'm aware of that. I wasn't talking about the justification but the outcome.
I'm certain dang and sctb don't want the propaganda here either; my point
regarding the HN rules is that the well-intentioned policy ends up protecting
propaganda. They have a real problem; the propagandists are gaming their
system of civility.

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ve55
It's pretty strange that the term used is 'Russian Troll', when there's next
to no evidence that Russians were involved, as well as no evidence that the
compromiser's goal was 'Trolling'. This article has basically no content and
just seems like clickbait.

~~~
zzzcpan
Except that this is a common behavior for "Russian Trolls". So common, that an
old account getting compromised and starting to engage with people in Russian
is very likely to start spreading Russian propaganda at some point.

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RobertRoberts
This is kind of amusing, but in the grand scale of things, does anyone think
that propaganda is a new thing? When I was a kid and Russia was the great red
threat, propaganda was par for the course. Why should it be any different now?

The amount of news on foreigners hacking US based companies is not surprising,
but based on the Snowden revelations, the US is doing it right back. Why does
it seem like everyone is up in arms over just Russia?

~~~
badlucklottery
>Why should it be any different now?

Right now propaganda is exploiting the edge between old media and new.
Apparently a lot of people have trouble telling if a news source or comments
from fellow citizens are real. They're used to a world where faking a news
story or getting a shill close to you took a lot of time and effort so 'trust
by default' made more sense.

>Why does it seem like everyone is up in arms over just Russia?

Because you're probably viewing western-based news sources? People tend to
focus on things that affect them and this is affecting the west right now
because that's who Russia is targeting. Nothing magical about it.

~~~
RobertRoberts
> _Apparently a lot of people have trouble telling if a news source or
> comments from fellow citizens are real._

Wouldn't that even apply to this news story?

> _Because you 're probably viewing western-based news sources?_

Years ago I started the habit of reading both CNN and Foxnews, and I try to do
the same with global news as well. Which is why the Syria fighting, the
immigration issues, Russia and elections all seem to be treated one sided no
matter which source you look at.

But despite this, CNN and Fox will make some odd changes lock-step, but not
international news in the same way. But you'd only notice this if you have a
habit of looking at all sides.

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kushti
"Russian" \+ "Facebook" in the title sounds like something about political
content, while there's nothing in the article about that.

------
efoto
TL;DR A dormant FB account gets highjacked, but the amateur thief forgets to
change the email associated with the account. This allows the owner to
deactivate the account.

I doubt the authors conclusion about russian troll though: a FB account
highjacked by somebody using Cyrillic can be utilised for various purposes.

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aw3c2
Author gets her ancient Facebook account hacked.

Person in control then sets new name, profile picture and makes two friends
("one in the Ukraine, one in Tanzania").

That's all.

There is nothing to suggest this being related to what the media stupidly
calls "Russian Trolls".

End of story.

In other words, total rubbish of a weak attempt of exploiting the TEH RUSSIANZ
boogieman by making up a story.

~~~
antidaily
^ Russian troll

