The notorious Kremlin-linked troll farm and the Russians trying to take it down
Source: MSN/Washington Post
SHUSHARY, Russia She rode into a pitch-black truck stop on a scooter, stepped out of the pouring rain into a gas station cafe on the outskirts of St. Petersburg and recounted her quest to bring down Russias infamous troll farm.
Lyudmila Savchuk is one of a disparate handful of Russian journalists, activists and legal experts who have tried to shed light on the shadowy operation that has become a focal point of U.S. investigations into Kremlin meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
And like most people who challenge the established order in todays Russia, Savchuk and the others are jousting against a nebulous entity with apparent Kremlin ties and evident protection from government and law-enforcement agencies. For them, this is a task that entails significant risks and little chance of success.
How much the trolls affected the outcome of the U.S. election is unclear. But their omnipresence is evident on Twitter, where one recent study suggested that trolling by pro-Putin bots trolling dominates political talk about Russia, and in the comments section of publications like The Washington Post, where trolls can be found criticizing the premises, lambasting other posters and accusing one another of being trolls.
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-notorious-kremlin-linked-%E2%80%98troll-farm%E2%80%99-and-the-russians-trying-to-take-it-down/ar-AAt4lop?li=BBnbcA1
We should not assume that they only targeted the right. Look at Ed Schultz on RT.
procon
(15,805 posts)are uniformly of a Republican bent. Dissenting opinions are instantly mobbed with the worst types of personal attacks and threats of violence.
Its all too similar and well spread to simply be unrelated random posts. How likely is that Russian bots are gaming the news websites to push Republican propaganda on millions of news consumers?
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Amazing how the trolls go after well meaning people and their comments.
So many message boards are ending up being negative Troll posts.
PSPS
(13,614 posts)The world is reminded on a daily basis just "how much the trolls affected the outcome of the U.S. election."
groundloop
(11,522 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)What we need to do is expose them for what they are to neutralize them. You can't make them go awayt entirely, but we can make sure people recognize them for what they are, dirty rotten trolls.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)The division goal of Putin is to get Dems arguing about unimportant stuff.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)They certainly target both the left AND the right.