Hacker News Reader

Comment by jablongo | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting that the accounts would be originating from Kosovo and (north) Macedonia. I assume these are just Russians routing thru Kosovar IPs for more deniability, or alternatively this could be tacitly sanctioned by Serbian govt. Anyhow, Kosovo relies heavily on the US, exists only because of a US bombing campaign, and is one of the only places in the world to have a 10ft statue of Bill Clinton in the capitol. I know less about (North) Macedonia, but it is a NATO member and also another state resulting from the dissolution of Yugoslavia; not sure if it is seen as a US puppet state in the same way as Kosovo is but there is some similarity. The origins of the accounts appear to be making a statement about American hegemony...

View on HN

Macedonian here. Its true what you said about Kosovo being a puppet state, and yes Macedonia being an EU and US puppet too, but not to such extent. The troll farms in this case are not government supported, theyre basically run by digital marketers, the govt probably cant even track them down without the help of some foreign intelligence agency.

In the 2016 election there was a lot of fake news sites originating from Macedonia, and this is because since late 2000s there has been lots of digital marketers making quick bucks with black hat methods. I used to be a part of the forums, lots and lots of people did this full time, which was way more lucrative than the average 300 USD salary. Heck, high schoolers were dropping out of school to do this full time.

So this has nothing to do with the government of Kosovo or Macedonia or Serbia. And it could be russians routing IPs but I would doubt it, its just digital marketers trying to make a buck

Thanks for this. Definitely wasn’t saying they were sanctioned by Kosovo or Macedonian gvt. This gives me a better perspective either way though. I still think at the very least Putin (and Serbian hard liners) sees this favorably and would like it to continue.

> It’s interesting that the accounts would be originating from Kosovo and (north) Macedonia.

As someone whose spent a bit of time in the Balkans can I just say that you can buy a Macedonian sim card with no ID for a few dollars and get perfect 4G signal from close to the border in 5 different countries without ever stepping foot in the place?

Not trying to defend what's happening here, but just saying, not all this stuff is as clearcut as it seems. Blaming these places seems a bit premature without understanding the region.

I’m not blaming those places. I’m suggesting they are being chosen deliberately by the actual perpetrators, (which is really just speculation I admit).

Albanians are quite entrepreneurial and this is the poorest part of the Europe. By far. And 30% of people living in Macedonia are Albanians. And in general they speak English very well.

It might be the some foreign government involved I this but I doubt they are running this. This is all about money. And this article validates these assumptions.

True, that theory seems plausible too. Though there are obviously many other places w/ high Albanian populations, such as Albania.

No, not really, they developed business in Macedonia mostly and now clearly Albanian gangs are joining in. It is quite lucrative to post about anything controversial and they specialize in that kind of business. Albanians do care about US, but as much as they can extract favors.

For example, Hillary was very popular (kind of not what you would expect) and they were able to make a lot on posting things about her for a long time, elections and after.

This is more like ice crem joke …

Question: Do you know why near every ice cream shop in Croatia is run by Albanians?

Answer: money

They do that well :) And you know, maybe if you get on their turf you disappear. So there is that part as well.

Oh man. I was just there, so true :) - Albanians are industrious af.

Simplifying down the history of the Balkans to a "US bombing campaign" is not only cynical but bad history.

Sorry, did not mean to be insensitive but just pointing out that Kosovo’s existence in it’s current form has a lot to do with the actions of the US in the 90s, hence the statues and streets named after Bill Clinton. Not trying to minimize all of the history preceding that, but just saying that I think it is viewed as a US puppet state by Russia and Serbia. Definitely not trying to reduce all of the balkans to that set of conflicts - just commenting on Kosovo.

>The report found that troll farms were reaching the same demographic groups singled out by the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the 2016 election, which had targeted Christians, Black Americans, and Native Americans. A 2018 BuzzFeed News investigation found that at least one member of the Russian IRA, indicted for alleged interference in the 2016 US election, had also visited Macedonia around the emergence of its first troll farms, though it didn’t find concrete evidence of a connection. (Facebook said its investigations hadn’t turned up a connection between the IRA and Macedonian troll farms either.)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook...

There were a number of Bud Light jets:

https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/bd5j-census.htm

Also remember despite Kosovo being a US puppet state, it was a top 10 source of sending fighters to ISIS and other terrorist groups

Reply on news.ycombinator.com