How Professional Russian Trolls Operate 269
New submitter SecState writes: Hundreds of full-time, well-paid trolls operate thousands of fake accounts to fill social media sites and comments threads with pro-Kremlin propaganda. A St. Petersburg blogger spent two months working 12-hour shifts in a "troll factory," targeting forums of Russian municipal websites. In an interview, he describes how he worked in teams with two other trolls to create false "debates" about Russian and international politics, with pro-Putin views always scoring the winning point. Of course, with the U.S. government invoking "state secrets" to dismiss a defamation case against the supposedly independent advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran, Americans also need to be asking how far is too far when it comes to masked government propaganda.
Enders Game (Score:2)
It's like Valentine and Peter in real life.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:here its just media. (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree here.
I believe that a majority of people thing the major news media outlets are full of shills for one side or the other. I also believe that most of people in America, quite frankly, don't give a crap.
As long as they have food for the day, can download porn, and watch the latest celebrity scoop, they don't care.
Never underestimate the power of apathy.
Fully agree (Score:4, Informative)
I find that most people I talk to don't trust US media. They don't do anything about it, but they don't believe what they are told any longer. Apathy works for a while, but historically this can not last. Corruption and abuse will get to a point where there has to be some form of revolution (not always bloody) and then the cycle will start over again.
To be in line with TFA's point, sure the Russian's have paid shills and trolls. Their play books are the same as our own Government's. Whistle blowers have demonstrated that most large US companies have paid shills and trolls, the US Government pays shills and trolls, as does just every "Western" Government including the UK and Canada. Snowden's leaks give us a nice powerpoint view of the play book, no need for anecdote and hearsay trying to vilify "those other guys". Nobody likes a hypocrite..
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I have a simple question - Why do liberals only acknowledge the bias of Fox news or other such outlets, and never the more extreme bias of MSNBC or CNN? Why is this? Why? Look at CNN and how desperate and parasitic their content and clickbait titles are for views and clicks. They have nothing going for them except public memory of a former titan brand. I think I could study something like astrophysics and be less confused. How are people so dumb? I call myself a moderate
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Astroturfing (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Exactly. Can we stop calling everybody who posts something bad on the internet a 'troll'?
It's bad enough that the luddites are doing it, but Slashdot should keep true to the meaning of the word 'trolling'.
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As opposed to American Trolls? (Score:3, Insightful)
On various news sites, I see what are obviously paid Republican Trolls, Paid Pro-Koch Brothers Trolls, they come in day after day under various identities but having the same writing style, and post comment after comment (sometimes the same comment multiple times on multiple sites).
So exactly what's the difference...
Re:As opposed to American Trolls? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't think there are democratic trolls/astroturfers, you're kidding yourself. It depends on the issue, but both sides have corporations paying for Dark-PR.
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Difference is about 1/3 Americans actually believe far right wing news.
Whereas a significant majority of Russians approve of Putin.
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See it on CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
Go to any major news site and click on an Ukraine story?
90% of the posters are about those American backed Nazi's out to destroy the freedom fighters who had enough of American backed oppression. It is stated so many times it is true that Ukraine is a puppet of the Nato and the US.
Really? How can anyone believe this. It is obvious Russian trolls. Also Crimea is a place with tons of political censorship and political prisoners now. All the comments say it is propaganda and paradise now under Putin. Uh yeah
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"90% of the posters are about those American backed Nazi's out to destroy the freedom fighters who had enough of American backed oppression."
What a bunch of bulls*. 90% is people trying to convince people about Russian equipment and/or soldiers in Ukraine. What these people fail to notice is 100% of the people they are telling that to go "yeah I know". I don't think this is the desired reaction because they keep doing it over and over. Maybe those posting these comments and threads in forums and social
This isn't a surprise. (Score:4, Informative)
So we have evidence of a government doing it, but can we get a whistleblower from the lobbyists/PR/Corps? In just a recent example, the amount of comments on many websites' (particularly right-wing websites, but even on some more mainstream sites) articles about Net Neutrality and Title II far exceeded the normal levels, and most of the comments were negative and looked to me like they were scraped from other sites or autogenerated, plus there were large groups of trolls that were using every trick in the book to drown-out or malign anyone who posted pro-NN/T2 comments. Aside from the rampant astroturfing, there were fake 'grassroots' websites and social media accounts that spouted the same anti-NN talking points.
I'm far less worried about government propaganda right now when the corporations and lobby groups are undertaking orwellian large-scale psyops to sway public opinion.
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Fox News is the largest Psyops campaign ever run on the american people. You have an entire channel (actually several) whose news and stories are being scripted by one of the political parties.
It's amazing to me how many people aren't horrified by this. The old FCC regulation about fairness wouldn't have allowed that, but it was sunk years ago, and rather deliberately.
Meanwhile in China... (Score:5, Informative)
This has been going on a long time in China, though there [wikipedia.org] the troll workplaces are decentralized and the pay's a lot lower.
And on slashdot as well (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, this happens on Slash too, so apparently the Chinese astroturfing squad seems to lurk here as well. For example, in regards to cheating exams:
You have this guy [slashdot.org] mentioning that cheating test scores is also a big problem in China, followed by some more detailed posts as to why.
Then you have a response [slashdot.org] by an AC who basically says "oh it's just Westerners trying to make China look bad. We don't do that anymore! Look, I'm in the US now so I'm believable. Despite posting AC and having stereotypical Chinese grammatical mistakes common to non-landed Chinese astroturfers, modded +1
I point out [slashdot.org] that the previous response is an obvious astroturfer (aforementioned grammatical errors etc), and am modded down twice rather readily. But seriously, read the astroturfer's post out with a bad accent and it will sound like a Chinese villain from an old movie. The linguistic keys make it pretty clear the guy isn't somebody who's been living in the west for any length of time.
For the record, I have plenty of Chinese friends etc whom I've worked on language skills with. Missing pronouns is usually a fairly basic thing that gets fixed earlier on, as is the use of infinite verbs ("keep to spread" instead of "spreading"). So unless the poster had been living in Chinatown for the last few years, one would expect those language'isms to have cleared up by now.
Also, "flied lice", though attributed to a Chinese restaurateur in Lethal Weapon and added for humour, would be more of a Japanese/Korean language issue as they lack distinct "L" and "R" sounds in their language (or rather, "L" and "R" exist as single character/sound). Chinese don't really seem to have issues with consonant swaps in English.
The Hypnotoad (Score:2)
more trolls! (Score:2)
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Targeting forums (Score:2)
Good one! - like anybody actually pays attention to comments posted to online forums...
How propaganda decides wars (Score:4, Interesting)
Compare our invasion of Korea with that of Vietnam only a few years later. Before you say "Korea was UN-approved" — no, that's a lame excuse. Stalin boycotted UN at the time action on Korea was decided, but by the time of Vietnam USSR has changed its approach. That's all.
In both cases American military was sent to fight in remote lands against people, who didn't threaten America directly in any way — for fear of the domino effect of Communism [history.com]. In both cases the fighting was heavy and numerous war-crimes have taken place.
And yet, there was no domestic opposition to the Korean war — virtually none. No protests against the draft, no accusations of returning soldiers being "baby-killers" [wikipedia.org]. John Kerry, for example, has gained more political capital for opposing the war (and returning his medals [go.com]), than for fighting in it (for an entire 4 months).
Vietnam was widely considered a national shame long before the war was lost. Meanwhile the only source of any negativity about the Korean war in mass culture was the M*A*S*H series.
Why was the domestic reaction to the two wars so drastically different? The theory of propagandists controlled and funded (with or without their own knowledge) by the USSR [wikipedia.org] would explain the known facts.
Re:How propaganda decides wars (Score:4, Insightful)
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Where is the "question authority" sentiment now
it's there but when you speak out, you will get flamed for it as unpatriotic terrist commie pinko. or you get ignored. Getting back to media, nobody knows what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. Information is out there but difficult find. i.e. nobody in US knows the difference between a Sunni and a Shia. Or how did ISIS become so strong so quick. Information is out there but many articles either veer toward putting blame on someone (i.e. Obama's or Bush's fault). Or article is very long and very esoteric,
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Compare our invasion of Korea with that of Vietnam only a few years later. Before you say "Korea was UN-approved" — no, that's a lame excuse. Stalin boycotted UN at the time action on Korea was decided, but by the time of Vietnam USSR has changed its approach. That's all.
So what? You're talking about the public perception of the war, UN approval forms part of that public perception.
In both cases American military was sent to fight in remote lands against people, who didn't threaten America directly in any way — for fear of the domino effect of Communism [history.com]. In both cases the fighting was heavy and numerous war-crimes have taken place.
And yet, there was no domestic opposition to the Korean war — virtually none. No protests against the draft, no accusations of returning soldiers being "baby-killers" [wikipedia.org]. John Kerry, for example, has gained more political capital for opposing the war (and returning his medals [go.com]), than for fighting in it (for an entire 4 months).
Vietnam was widely considered a national shame long before the war was lost. Meanwhile the only source of any negativity about the Korean war in mass culture was the M*A*S*H series.
Why was the domestic reaction to the two wars so drastically different? The theory of propagandists controlled and funded (with or without their own knowledge) by the USSR [wikipedia.org] would explain the known facts.
It's possible, but a far more likely factor is the fact they were very different wars at very different times.
The Korean war was over in 3 years. In Vietnam the US stepped into a long running conflict which ran a lot longer.
The US was also coming straight out of WWII, so the idea that you should deal with belligerent countries pro-actively sounded like a really good idea and provided a great narr
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I'm not mining quotes from 60 years ago but it certainly would have affected the perception. Korean was very much a multinational mission, Vietnam was not.
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It was vastly different political era.
There was a lot of paranoia about Communist conspiracies. The Rosenberg trials. Joe McCarthy was making headlines "exposing" Communists. In some sense, there was some legitimate fear of Communist actions -- the Soviets had blockaded West Berlin, leading to the Berlin airlift in 1948.
Not only was the political climate dangerous for anyone opposing fighting Communist expansion in Korea, it wasn't irrational to believe that expansionist communism was a real threat, espe
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Is it really "paranoia" (a mental disease involving ungrounded fears) if the fear is substantiated? Rosenbergs [wikipedia.org] really were Communist-spies, you know, who helped USSR obtain nuclear weapons sooner.
Well, it didn't stop being a real threat — as Budapest in 1956 [wikipedia.org] and Prague in 1968 [wikipedia.org] kept proving. But, somehow, that clear and present danger of Communism
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Is it really "paranoia" (a mental disease involving ungrounded fears) if the fear is substantiated?
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?
I'd say the number of non-threats who were actively and vigorously blackballed might call into question as to where the boundary between legitimate fear and paranoia fear is on this topic.
But, somehow, that clear and present danger of Communism no longer played the role it played during Korea War. Why?
Probably no one single answer. I don't think the early years of Viet Nam faced that much ideological opposition. I do think that the political-based mismanagement of the war led to "conventional" opposition to it. Then add in civil rights discontent, th
Those are not trolls, those are sockpuppets. (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are not trolls, those are sockpuppets; there's a difference.
It's not just Russia (Score:2, Informative)
It's usually pretty obvious to see who is paid to troll.
Comments that are responded to by paid trolls are usually peppered with words and phrases such as "the Liberal government...", "what a conservative thing to do", "If the republicans were in power", "blame Obama", "Harpercrytes", "the far right", "leftist", etc. - which is very telling.
The same is true of any criticism of Israel regarding the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine. Anyone who di
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How's the weather in Herzliya?
How ALL professional trolls operate (Score:3)
FTFY
Social media trolls have been with us for years. On the good side, they're trivial to spot and ignore - a fact completely lost on their employers.
Epic fail (Score:3)
Matryoshka Trolls (Score:3)
Inside each Russian troll is another, slightly smaller Russian troll.
See how trolls operate in any NSA thread on /. (Score:2)
Well, that's capitalism (Score:2)
You'd think people on /. would be smarter than mainstream-fed USians and actually think more than 1/2 move ahead, but to do so risks "talking like a fag", as a certain Mike Judge movie once labeled it, so it's not done.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Funny)
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You totally blew that. (Score:2)
You totally blew that. As third post, there was supposed to be a picture demonstrating the first posters point.
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At least he reads the articles...
Re:US Government Trolls (Score:4, Funny)
Oh no, the USA would *never* do anything like that. To flood forums with US propaganda? The US are *so* above that. Evil Russians indeed are the only people evil enough to do that and evil enough to spy on their own people and evil enough to wage war on other countries to increase their hegemony over the rest of the world and evil enough to export their debts to the rest of the world through confiscatory taxation through inflation by holding the world's reserve currency. Only Russia would do that.
Parent Post Semantic Content: Null (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only those damn Russians are doing this, all other countries are saint.
Yeah, because that makes it all OK then.
Your comment is designed to distract from the issue at hand, shut down intelligent conversation on the topic, and imply the wrongdoer is just fine because, by implication, "everybody else does it, too" (no evidence to said implication provided, certainly not proven, and probably not true), all without contributing a single creative or new thought to the discussion at all.
Nice job, (Russian?) troll.
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No, he/she is pointing out that it is dishonest to throw dirt on the Russians and do like we do no evil. However, if the poster would have read the whole /. teaser he/she would have found the necessary question also at the end of the text. So his/her post is largely redundant. Anyway, it is important to point out that issue and it is also important to point out that the wrong doing of one is not making the thing acceptable for others. Lying is not a nice thing to do (in most cases). The old Jews already kne
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No, he/she is pointing out that it is dishonest to throw dirt on the Russians and do like we do no evil.
Someone clearly didn't read TFS --
Of course, with the U.S. government invoking "state secrets" to dismiss a defamation case against the supposedly independent advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran, Americans also need to be asking how far is too far when it comes to masked government propaganda.
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Every major government does it. It's still evil, and only by educating the public about the foreign agents subverting public discourse can we avoid the consequences of a malign deception. Education without which democracy fails.
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Yeah, if I had a dime for every time some mouth breather who was lauding snowden whilst posting dick pics to 4chan called me a shill for pointing out their idiocy...
sorry to ruin your fantasy, but the US government does not need to pay people just to be honest in discussion forums
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This ^ mod 5 informative
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Actually when I read that comment, I thought: "it IS good to consider that this is not solely a Russian problem". I didn't necessarily see an appeal to the bandwagon approach to "morality". The person could have meant that, too, but since it was not specified, we don't actually know that.
But this is Slashdot, where assuming you know the poster's intent (through some sort of psychic powers, I guess) is somehow not considered arrogant.
And on Slashdot? (Score:3)
I've often wondered how much astroturfing goes on at Slashdot.
Certain news stories come up, and people make the most twisted arguments imaginable to deflect, downplay, or show shades of grey. Sometimes it's from long-term users with varied post histories - are these well-crafted astroturfers, carefully building up a false history to deflect suspicion?
My last remembered example was the one about home solar installations: The panels give unused power to the grid during the day, and the users take power from t
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Consider: Do you really care about being unfair to the huge corporate energy conglomerate? And do you think that they would be fair to you in return?
Actually, I want to be especially fair to those I oppose, and their behavior is irrelevant.
Otherwise it's just a bunch of Hatfield's vs. McCoy's, and why should anyone prefer my Hatfield to the opposing McCoy?
Sadly. you've made it clear in your post that
(1) there can be no true information against your base premise
(2)
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"What Muggles have learned is that there is a power in the truth, in all the pieces of the truth which interact with each other, which you can only find by discovering as many truths as possible. To do that you can't defend false beliefs in any way, not even by saying the false belief is useful." (source [hpmor.com])
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Look, rooftop solar is a good thing. I'm not arguing with your facts, I'm arguing with your approach. The topic is irrelevant.
However, if it helps, let me put this out there. I'm cognizant of the fact that while my electrical bill is by use, the fairly obvious reality is that a connection to the utility and the maintenance of the utility has a very high fixed cost, which doesn't go away even if my net use is zero.
A cost-based scheme might be to bill every house $100/month for connection to the grid, and
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A cost-based scheme might be to bill every house $100/month for connection to the grid, and then substantially drop the price we pay (and are paid) for solar, but that hits the poor too heavily. Also, I think we can make a case that we *want* more solar than is optimal in an strictly economic sense.
That is an informed position, I have no problem with it.
You said that you're arguing with my approach, but I was only pointing out how their approach used psychological trickery to circumvent rational analysis. I realize that there are tradeoffs, and I come to this site specifically to see the tradeoffs and all sides of the story.
It isn't about the tradeoffs, it's about the trickery.
(And for the record, paying an access fee to store energy on the grid seems logical and reasonable. I 'kinda agree with it. Ke
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Sometimes it's from long-term users with varied post histories - are these well-crafted astroturfers, carefully building up a false history to deflect suspicion?
Extremely unlikely. The point of astroturfing is not to look impeccable to someone who researches the poster for hours. A paid astroturfers time is thousands of times more valuable if spent finding more forums to make a couple astroturfing posts on, compared to wasting hours writing good posts on other topics.
Those posters may, however, have veste
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On high-value matters, building up that sort of record is an extremely valuable bolster to one's credibility. e.g. bipolarbear0's well-documented editorial prerogative ensuring blue-team hegemony over at Reddit. Captured or willing is a worthy question, though.
Who needs astroturfing (Score:2)
when a corporate talent search firm owns the thing? You must not have noticed the shift over the past decade or so, in the slavish adherence to conventional wisdom and mainstream narratives.
For that matter, most conspiracy theory can be explained by good old high-school conformism and a shared culture among those whom we are allowed to endorse to run the place.
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I have wondered if there was a market for unused accounts with low UIDs, whether from the site owner or or just people skilled at social engineering
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From my experience the Russians are not exactly inventive country in the regard of international politics or even that good at it. I would not call them as "leading the pack" in almost any regard. Which leads me to believe that if the Russians are doing it now, the Brits and Americans had been doing it already 50 years ago.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Excluded middle much? Other countries may be doing this — or planning to catch-up [washingtontimes.com] — but Russia has been doing this on massive scale for many years [theatlantic.com] — all the while, in a classic fit of projection [wikipedia.org], accusing others [livejournal.com] of it.
Another difference is, the US, for example, may consider such propaganda a war-fighting tool to be used outside, but Putin's regime — according to TFA — is happy to use it to prop the government domestically.
Then, I suppose, for knuckle-dragging simpletons happy to equate Joe McCarthy with Lavrenty Beria, none of the above makes any difference...
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
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Citations?
Re:Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
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NSA's domestic spying is highly secretive and covert.
They run away from any sunlight and do not engage in propaganda, which would've blown their secrets.
They supply information to other branches of government, but don't do anything with it themselves. Had they done anything of the kind, you've would've heard plenty about it from Snowden's fans...
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That was a covert operation, which is a direct opposite of propaganda.
Hoover was running FBI — federal police — not military. Countering foreign agents and spies is openly and officially within the scope of such establishments in all countries and infiltration is a perfectly legitimate tactics.
"Interesting" my butt.
Many were USSR-controlled [slate.com] (knowingly or not), in all likelihood. Some
Militia Acts, etc. (Score:2)
The Militia Acts of the 1790s are fair examples. Think of the larger pattern this way: when has the US not been bipolar and schizophrenic in its social order? When has it not had some Other into which to schizophrenically split off its less Exceptional parts?
Maskirovka (Score:2)
So much so that they even have a name for it: Maskirovka [wikipedia.org]. The term was originally used just for camouflage, and the uses of it seem entirely in keeping with ordinary warfare. The disinformation campaign around D-Day would have been a brilliant example of maskirovka.
But the Russians do it before a war, and even during active hostilities as a way to demand that they be treated as if they were non-combatants. It's going on right now, pretending that they aren't engaging in war against Ukraine. It's so traditio
Re:Sure (Score:4, Informative)
So anybody who interrupts the anti-American, anti-West circlejerk is a shill?
Cold Fjord isn't interrupting any anit-American or anti-West discussion. He is disrupting discussions where someone mentions that we shouldn't hand Snowden and instead should hold people who work against the US population responsible.
That is Cold Fjord is anti-American and anti-West. He actively works against the things that makes the American and western values worth fighting for.
And no, anyone who takes that position isn't a shill, some of them are just retards.
The things that separates Cold Fjord from those people is that he only shows up in NSA related threads on Slashdot and he is so obvious that the only way he isn't a shill for NSA would be if he is a shill for some other nation that is trying really hard to make the US government look bad.
Either way, the result of his actions is that things get worse for the American public.
Get over yourself, infant (Score:2)
You pathetic, whimpering, pietous, arrogant, Exceptional tool. People like you who are willing to die for some gorram BEDTIME STORY ought to do so posthaste.
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Wrap yourself in the flag much?
Playing the patriot does not make you right
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sure (Score:5, Funny)
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That would explain the quality of some comments...
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"It's only those damn Russians are doing this, all other countries are saint."
I can assure you that I'm not getting paid for my trolling.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what Fox News is except the biggest, most well known right wing troll on planet Earth. Russia just doesn't quite get how to do it properly.
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You forgot the entire Republican Party. If you really believe the trappings of intellectualism or anti-intellectualism are not just the designated irreconcilable tribal grunts, you are probably too naïve to understand politics.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
In Russia it is a small government based operation involving couple hundred people. In US it is a wide scale, industrial operation, otherwise referred to as mainstream media and involves hundreds of thousands of people. In Russia the product is comments under articles, in US the product are the articles themselves. I don't think that we, in the US, are exactly qualified to complain about what the Russians are doing.
Just as one example, look at articles from 2008 to 2013 about Russia in the US mainstream media. It reads like hit job. There is not a single article published without a mention of some perceived problem in Russia, be it with Putin himself, so called human rights violations, free speech violations or corruption. Not a single article that would not spend at least several paragraphs on bad mouthing Russia.
And even if you say, those are justified, compare it to articles from 2008 to 2013 on Saudi Arabia, which has much worse record in every single regard. You will see the stark difference.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course we are saints. We are the good guys. When we deceive the enemy with lies that this is only a tactic to prevent evil. When the Russians do it, it is to undermine freedom and democracy. Welcome back in the eighties, well maybe it is already the sixties. Those old top honchos in the US, UK and the rest of the west have secured another round with Russia with their special inferiority complex based politics. Both sides have hoped to get back to that. For a short time, they thought Islam might be a suitable evil, but that does not work very well when one half of the Muslims tries to kill the other half over things we do not really understand. True, I do not understand why we had that 30 years war in Europe over religion and power.
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In America, cooperations do this.
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Amen, Brother.
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Not only country governments do that but even municipals do it. Often using trolls that ridicules those willing to raise the questions about high-risk projects.
Looking at Västlänken, Gothenburg, Sweden you will see a local debate that's quite heated.
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Sure, and just think if he wasn't a far-right hugging nationalist idiot. He could've hit 500% by now because Russia has massive amounts of land, the largest natural resource reserves in the world, and a decent sized population that can, if it wants to, be quite innovative.
Instead it seems Russian pride is more important than actually contributing anything worthwhile to the world and so yep, you're stuck at 66% growth (and shrinking) from a low point. How pathetic.
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And he increased the chocolate ration to 20 grams per week!
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But Putin is sending expert to learn from US and A [youtube.com] to better their health system.
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By reducing the value of the Ruble 66%, the Ruble value of the Russian economy increased 66%. 50% of which went to pay for his Sochii boondogle, harem of gymnasts, assassinations of journalists and advocates of justice, etc.
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actually, they get paid by the numbers, bonus if they go over the required x number of posts. last word for them = more vodka money.
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No that is not true at all. In this case the reality is they get fully funded by the government and their activities are only reviewed annually at budget time. Also they incorporate already full time career, paid staff, with university educations.
That's right radio free Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] is owned by the US government, the worlds staunchest defender of the truth, bwa hah hah hah. You guys so funny, it's like you're not even trying any more. Here read this, https://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]
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Sorry for expressing my opinion then you fucking asshole, I guess the community here has become so bitter this is what Slashdot comments simply are now. A bunch of shitposters and crybaby perfectionists like yourself. Fuck you
I accept your apology. Have a nice day!
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I'm pretty sure that this does not happen in Vanuatu.
+1, Insightful (Score:2)
The act of deflection is on the part of those who are posting this ZOMG RUSSIA propaganda in the MSM. But without victim blaming, it is impossible to have American Exceptionalism, a not-too-distant offshoot of Protestantism, as the secular religion, so what then? I for one will happily pee on the grave of American Exceptionalism once it is buried.