Troll Farm

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by CCIP

And if you're talking about ikalugin, nah, I know him from other forums, both English and Russian. And if he's paid to do that, he's surprisingly good - and a troll of that quality would probably deployed somewhere a little more trafficked than Subsim or Battlefront forums.

I was.
However I wouldn't even call him a troll. I just found his timing of arrival and departure to be very convenient and I had at that time just heard reports about paid people who would wage a positive image war for Russia on social networks.

[August]

Well the article did happen to be about a Petersburg based troll farm but I certainly don't believe that the Russians are the only ones doing this. I would think that not only other nations, mine included, but corporations as well might find it useful to promote or hinder various agendas.

As we have talked about here many times people are more and more getting their news from other sources rather than from the traditional professional media outlets and I believe it is a situation that is increasingly ripe for such exploitation.

People of all nationalities need to understand that what they're reading online may be deliberate misinformation. The more controversial the subject the more likely that organizations will be actively trying to distort the picture to their own benefit and/or to damage their opponents.

[mapuc]

In such case it's god that ignore is at hand.

Markus

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by mapuc

In such case it's god that ignore is at hand.

Markus

I'm not getting the translation.

[Jimbuna]

My guess is that 'god' should read 'good'.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

My guess is that 'god' should read 'good'.

It was. A misspell by me

Markus

[Mr Quatro]

Maybe you (means we) shouldn't believe everything we read

Seems the person reporting may be a nut case.

The Russian source is like 250 times better than the European & US sources. They got video and documents.

Seems the lying whore might just be mixing things up instead or might be lost in translation.

http://www.mr7.ru/articles/112478/

and this: https://translate.google.com/transla...sts/67574.html

PS I liked ikalugin

[ikalugin]

I think for an external observer it would be intersting to see how opposition related people reduce and de humanise the pro Government posters by calling them putinbots and trolls (sure there are some such posters, but as the obvious math would work - most of them are simple supporters of the establishment and not payed to do it).

At the same time those same people show the pro goverment activities as evill/wrong, while they themselves conduct very same kinds of activities (which aided the protests back in 2011), in fact opposition pionered the usage of new media.

[CCIP]

Well, let's not forget the Arab spring either for example - which owed a lot to social media to get the momentum going, something that decades of attempted revolts had failed to do through conventional means. And then, of course, Islamists proved even more successful at capitalizing on the instability, using that same social media, and that was the end of the Arab Spring.

And for Russia this too is nothing new - in many ways, the Bolsheviks (who were politically among the weakest factions going into the revolution in 1917) succeeded thanks to their ability to leverage grass-roots media of the day and put agitators in the right places (military units, workers' organizations) - not many in number, but generating the right amount of noise at the right time to direct events. And when the right moment came, they proved best at leveraging that ability to agitate.

So the playbook on this matter is pretty old, just the technology is new. Everybody who can, does use it - because it's been shown to work, historically.

[XabbaRus]

I think the cyber trolls really target relatively few well frequented sites, e.g. Guardian comments section.

However I have noticed lately that accusing someone of being a troll or on Putin's pay role - if you disagree with the something concerning Russia and argue against some aspects of the western POV - is easier than engaging someone in debate. I have had it when I pointed out some quite blatant errors in someones message...was quite funny at first but then got nasty.

[ExFishermanBob]

Originally Posted by mapuc

In such case it's god that ignore is at hand.

Markus

On a few mailing lists that I administered, one could have a 'twit-list' to which abusive or trolling subscribers could be added: those on it could post and see their postings as usual, but others could not. What was interesting is that they would usually not notice that nobody was replying to them.

Hello...anyone there? (Ho ho)

[August]

The only problem with the ignore feature is that it's only applied to those who irritate you. I'd think a paid troll would be careful to avoid having it applied to him lest he loose access to the audience he is being paid to manipulate.

[Onkel Neal]

Yeah, you're right, August. If they get banned or shut down, they don't make any money.

[XabbaRus]

All sides are at it. Just some more blatant than others.
The article was interesting and enlightening but then, and I know this is superficial, but the way the photograph of the lady who accompanied him was posed, like for an advert in a hipster way, kind of ruined the tone.

Anyway like I said you can usually spot the trolls a mile away.
Saying that what about the likes of bellingcat? Any opinions...I'm still not convinced by him. Sure what he does looks good but there's just something odd about the speed he came about and the way he is worshiped by the press.