Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.)
The word troll has evolved to encompass any sort of dishonest internet activity that is designed to manipulate the response and attitude of the larger audience, but I agree: the right term would be astroturfing.
> it's like having a pit-bull in the corner that nobody loves because it defended them before in a savage way
That hilariously fails to describe Russia in any way most people would recognize.
> Realistically, with the exclusion of Crimea, Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't done with regards to borders
That's a pretty big exclusion, but concerns about its borders and the threat of annexation - as elevated as it is compared to any other country - is not the main concern here.
>That hilariously fails to describe Russia in any way most people would recognize.
I agree. And that's a shame, Russia has always vied for peace and used force where peace was impossible. That's a trend we see all thoughout history (especially in Britain). We can't exactly crucify them for it.
>That's a pretty big exclusion, but concerns about its borders and the threat of annexation - as elevated as it is compared to any other country - is not the main concern here.
Sure. It's not but I was preempting someone else bringing it up.
And while it's a big exemption you have to at least try to understand Russia's position. Not only is it a military base falling into enemy hands, it's control of a southern region, it's potential troubles for its populace that live there in addition and finally they held a refferendum which is certainly the democratically preferred method of agreeing or disagreeing with political change. Just because we didn't send EU troops (who for all russia knows are the same folk who caused destabilisation in the Ukrainian country) to conduct it doesn't mean it was definitely rigged.
It doesn't necessarily mean it was free of corruption either of course but I'm playing devils advocate. Because the devil seems to need one.
What he doesn't get is that, thanks to nuclear weapons and modern industrialization, NATO is not interested in doing that for either reasons of security or wealth. That is why, when the Cold War ended, NATO nations drastically cut their arms budgets. NATO would like to basically leave Russia alone, but Russia's agressive actions are forcing it to respond.
Disclaimer: I'm from a country that is in Eastern Europe and borders with Russia. It also has very close relations with it. Russia affects internal politics and mass media. 80% are brain-washed.
That applies not only to Russia, but to pretty much everyone. Particularly, it applies to each of Russia's neighbours...
The notion that "Russia has done nothing that any other large country hasn't done" is entirely wrong.
Or, are you going to argue, that Russia did not annex Transistria and South Othetia because a country was created?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annex Simple Definition of annex : to add (an area or region) to a country, state, etc. : to take control of (a territory or place)
There is a big difference between separation and annexation.
In general, do we have many examples of countries changing borders forcibly after some time mid-last century? I certainly don't remember such a thing from G7. In this light, annexation of Crimea stands out as a regression to older - and less civilized by some standards - ways of doing things.
Even Crimea itself is an example of stolen territory. It was part of Russia, until (Ukrainian) Khrushchev moved it under administration of Ukrainian SSR in 1954. It was excused as being in the same country anyway. When USSR dissolved, the Crimean referendum about returning it back to Russia was ignored by the newly-formed government in Kiev.
Bismark knew 150 years ago not to try to cheat the Russians. They will always come and take back, what's theirs.
Trying to cheat them does not work in the long run.
(Source: a person a met who was born there. He told me that as Crimea is now under Russian control, the land registry is also moved to Russian system. If you want to ensure land ownership of your home, you have to re-register. It's not cheap, so many people cannot afford it. If you don't re-register, nothing happens - unless you happen to speak out against the new order. In that case someone will notice that you don't own your home, it actually belongs to some new friend of the new powers-that-be, and in fact your home is somewhere in Krasnoyarsk Oblast which is where your family was registered in 1942 or so).
If Scotland wanted to separate from the UK, would they need UK's approval? Of course not, its a referendum involving the Scots, people who actually live there, whether to stay or not.
To futher the matter Crimea is a military outpost, and was so for hundreds of years, since Russian Tsars took it from the Tartars, which themselves were part of the Golden Horde and the Turks. Messing with this kind of stuff brings realpolitik out real quick.
Not entirely true as it was not a single-handed decision, it has been voted by a council.
> When USSR dissolved, the Crimean referendum about returning it back to Russia was ignored by the newly-formed government in Kiev.
Could you precise which referendum are you referring to? There were only two of them if I remember correctly: 1. Referendum for independence of Ukraine: Crimea participated and voted "for". 2. Referendum to make Crimea an autonomous republic: was voted "for" and made Crimea and autonomous republic (as a part of Ukraine).
There were additional referendums, in 1992 and 1994, but they were asking questions with the reality of being part of Ukraine.
During the separation of republics from USSR, Crimea stayed as a part of Ukraine (and voted for the independence of Ukraine, btw) which was a logical move in terms of infrastructure.
1. http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-t...
2. http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-he...
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).
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?
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
For both Crimea and Transnistria they had their own referendums after the fall of USSR where they wanted to separate from Ukraine and Moldova respectively - neither of which were recognized by the larger countries. Its absurd to expect a region that wants to separate to get approval from everybody else. Ultimately it resulted in an armed conflict just as we see today. There is more to the story than MSM is feeding us.
Haha that's an absurd exclusion. You don't get to pick and choose which criteria are valid when judging the behaviour of a government.
Stop re-writing history.
Good point. Seems like we forget this.
This isn't a fair argument. Imagine, tomorrow USA fails, a lot of its former allies get current marginal opposition in power. They'll line up telling how USA occupied them, did this and that against their will. And they'll be partially right. Partially wrong.
The boundaries in Europe after WWII were determined by WWII. That's how it went.
There is yet another twist - even for USSR, it wasn't Russia itself. It was USSR, which was comprised of many more countries at the time. The units that were in Czechoslovakia were Ukrainians. And before there are arguments, that they were commanded from Moscow, the head honcho at the time was Brezhnev, from Ukraine.
The thing is, that communists in 1948 really did win the elections. The people at the time really wanted communism.
Just like in 1989 they wanted change for capitalism. Who knows, maybe in another 10-20-30 years they will want a change again. Should it be accompanied with a narrative, that the fall of Iron Curtain was a well orchestrated putsch to rob their countries?
Elections where the population was presented with a single list and where the police force and officials overseeing the election had been purged - both the army and police force were under Soviet-influenced Communist control. The only non-Communist minister, Jan Masaryk, was found defenestrated outside his office. (This was declared a suicide, but in 2004 Soviet archives indeed confirmed that he'd been thrown out of his window).
In simpler terms, this is called coup d'état.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3...
That's because these "representatives" were not representing the people of their countries. They were representing the interests of the USSR in those countries.
I'll give you an example of what it looks like when something does not happen against the will of a country.
In the 1960s, at the hight of the cold war, France asked NATO to leave its country and withdrew its own troups from NATO command. NATO left, and that was it.
In 1968, Albania withdrew from Warsaw pact. And that was it.
This in the world where China and Saudi Arabia are top players.
The fact that we accept undemocratic regimes as legal representatives of their countries for pragmatic reasons doesn't change that.
I guess what went wrong in this debate - and it was my fault as well - is that for a democratic country, we can often get away with using sloppy language that conflates "country" and "people". But for undemocratic regimes, that no longer works.
The Red Army PURGED the Polish elite, starting in Katyn.
What the fuck.
There were other representatives that wouldn't have signed, but they had literally had guns to their heads, and trigger pulled. Soviet occupation of much of Europe was by force, lots of it. It involved disappearances and executions of dissenters and even potential dissenters. This was done by USSR in perfect harmony and agreement with Nazi Germany. It really, really was against the will of Central European nations, such as the Poles.
Not everyone there, of course; you can always find honest ideological support, willful lackeys and stupid fellow travelers. But these countries stayed under Soviet influence very much due to literally having guns to the heads of people. Katyn, for instance.
Every country/nation did all kinds of nasty shit, it's just a matter of how far back you want to look.
EDIT: typo
Not that facts matter to you, but Poland attacked Soviets in 1920. Slovakia (Tiso regime) joined Hitler's forces on eastern front. They also attacked Poland and had a war with Hungary, both in 1939.
But given your attitude I'm pretty sure there won't be any meaningful discussion so I'll leave it at that.
the 1920 war was a result of that, Poles trying to reclaim territories in Ukraine - using the chaos of the Russian Revolution. but yeah, totally attacking Russia.
but all of that justifies the occupation by the Red Army from 1945 till 1989. yup.
And that man you quoted wasn't really all that wise since you have no need to make peace with your friends.
It's very simple. The country is ethnically split and no side is going to allow the other to conduct an ethnic cleansing without a serious fight.
I am not sure how Ukraine threatens Russia. Perhaps you can elucidate? I can't speak to the alleged hate though I might find it understandable, given that Russia is actively annexing parts of the country.
>Russians feel sympathy[...] send them support, even weapons and volunteers
I think you mean the Russian military is sending troops across the border as has been documented many times? Also, there's the issue of the BUK that shot down the Malaysian air-liner. Perhaps those victims might not cheer too loudly for that "sympathy?"
In addition, people in the West disapprove of Russia because of its highly oppressive human rights policies, including massive internet censorship, and also its fossil-fuels centered, crony-capitalism economics.
I feel sorry for the people of Russia. It seems to me that Putin has put them on a path that can't possibly succeed.
I don't see Russia being different in this regard, we just don't understand them and we understand the British.
And it is an official law, not some kind of recommendations or special cases or limited measures. "We don't like your site, we block it for good" - that's the law.
dijit, what is you position on this?
I believe the british government would try to get away with much more if it was in russias position. But that's my feeling and it's not founded in any facts.
But that is tied Russia's international history. When you need to be united against dangerous enemies, you need a strong-man ruler to suppress disagreement. And, going the other way, if domestic rule is having unpopular results like damaging the economy, then one way to get support is to tell the public the country is danger from abroad. So a paranoid view of the external world and an oppressive government are mutually reinforcing, and the Russian people, alas, have never known any other pattern.
Disclaimer: I am from Lithuania, which was occupied by SSRS almost by 50 years, my grandmother was deported in Siberia for 10+ years and my mother was born there.
My polish great-grandfather was likely too old to mention the numerous horrors of the Russians of today.
Of course he never actually met them so that may be why.
It this the direction we are headed for the rest of the world?
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'.
At the moment bots cannot gain neither trust of the people nor reputation and without that they cannot be effective.
We're talking about "Troll Special Task Force" at maximum.
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.
Edit: before Hillary shills jump on this, her astroturfing campaign on reddit is just as deplorable.
which im sure is because putin doesn't think trump is going to win, and he likes trump stirring things up. if trump actually wins, i bet he's going to have a change of heart.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/9/hillary-clint...
I mean, really. Sigh. This website.
Here's an article by Jeffrey Sachs, director of Earth Institute at Columbia University, on The Huffington Post (a left leaning site) saying the same thing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hillary-is-the-c...
[1] http://www.cato.org/blog/2016-presidential-candidate-interve...
[2] http://johnpilger.com/articles/silencing-america-as-it-prepa...
[3] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-mil...
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons...
[5] http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/clintons-haw...
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.
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?
>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.
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.
"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"
So the argument is, Trump's advisors have ties to Putin's advisors, that therefore proves the allegation that Putin's admin sees a possible Trump admin as some kind of natural or kindred allies. That proof is very thin. So I refute that by saying that lots of people have ties to the Kremlin and that does not prove any kind of "alliance".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_of_Trotskyist_Anti-Soviet...
wouldn't even regard it as an unusual tactic.
An 'does this benefit Russia in any way' filter on a lot of internet reporting/commenting/activity over the last couple of years can be fairly illuminating. What tends to trip them up is any historical references pre-WW2, which have to paper over some horrible cracks.