Troll Farm

[August]

Ever wonder who you're chatting with online?

From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/ma...ency.html?_r=0

[Buddahaid]

Must be like shooting fish in a barrel from what I observe.

[Torplexed]

Putinbots....Putinbots everywhere. Maybe even on this very forum.

I suggest we put out cookies in all the corridors as bait.



Here Trolly...trolly.

[August]

Personally I think it's brilliant.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by August

Personally I think it's brilliant.

Hmmm. I see.

August, have you now, or ever been a member of the Russian Troll Army?



See, the paranoia-sowing part is working already, tovarisch.

[Betonov]

Call the Norwegians. They have a profesional troll hunter

[Jimbuna]

[August]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

See, the paranoia-sowing part is working already, tovarisch.

You really think this is just disinformation? Seems to me that such a program, if it exists would be increasingly effective as more and more folks move away from traditional media news to twitter feeds and other internet sources.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by August

You really think this is just disinformation? Seems to me that such a program, if it exists would be increasingly effective as more and more folks move away from traditional media news to twitter feeds and other internet sources.

Do you guys remember that we've had a Russian member here who appeared just as the Crimea crisis swung into high gear, made over a thousand posts and then disappeared again without a trace as things settled?

[CCIP]

Now let's be fair - one of the dangerous things to assume is that anybody who espouses those opinions is necessarily a paid shill/troll. The issue is that there are a lot of people who actually genuinely have those views, and in many regards, that's a much more dangerous thing. And then there are still plenty of trolls will often troll for the sake of trolling.

Are there troll farms like this? Absolutely. But let's not put everything remotely pro-Russian into the troll farm bin now. That's a far more dangerous thing.

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.

[ExFishermanBob]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Call the Norwegians. They have a profesional troll hunter

Ah...TROLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

What a great film. I particularly liked the way it just got sillier and sillier but the hunter just played it so very deadpan.

Ringlefinch.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by ExFishermanBob

Ah...TROLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

What a great film. I particularly liked the way it just got sillier and sillier but the hunter just played it so very deadpan.

Ringlefinch.

I read half the cast, including the hunter, were proffesional Norwegian comedians. Deadpan delivery shouldn't be too hard for them

[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