How Russia’s “Troll Factory” Pumps out Pro-Putin Propaganda
While many countries have utilized social media to promote democracy and freedom of speech, one country has used the online medium to promote its controversial leader. More and more posts and commentaries on the Internet in Russia are generated by professional trolls, many of whom receive a higher-than-average salary for perpetuating a pro-Kremlin dialogue online.
Vladimir Putin has raised an army of professional trolls who run thousands of fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to flood social media with pro-Russia propaganda. These trolls are workers, hundreds of them, who are paid £500 a month to put out a collective 30,000 comments a day in hopes of showing Putin in a more favorable light. The job pays considerably more than what a professional journalist would make in the country.
Image courtesy of Flickr User Marco Gomes.
The trolls, based in St. Petersburg, often work in groups of three. One troll would play the villain, posting disagreeable, authority criticizing statements in the forum. This creates a feeling of authenticity. The other two then enter the conversation, promoting their pro-Russia beliefs and creating a debate. The goal is to create an illusion of actual activity on these forums.
This type of work seems absurd to the western world, but to Russia it seems almost necessary. Following the events in Crimea and the ongoing strife with Ukraine, Russia’s president, Putin, has become the topic of much controversy and his actions have been questioned. An article by Max Seddon of BuzzFeed reported that the Kremlin was spending millions of dollars to pay English-speaking Russians to promote President Vladimir Putin and his policies in U.S. media sources like Fox News broadcasting, The Huffington Post, and Politico news sites. However, a flood of pro-Kremlin trolls is unlikely to shift political sentiment in the United States, where views over adoption, LGBT rights, and most recently Ukraine have left many Americans with an unfavorable view of Russia.
Personally, I feel that Russia’s efforts to promote themselves in the West are ill-fated. Public opinion of Russia in the West, especially in the United States, is not doing so well right now. The idea of changing this view for $12 million just does not seem feasible. There is so much more that goes into how media forms public perception than a couple of troll comments. In all honesty these trolls are doing nothing more than driving away all discussion completely.
Featured image is taken as a screen grab from Buzzfeed.
Social Media@ NYUPraha 
I find it very interesting that Russia uses the internet to promote themselves; it shows how important the media is to reputations of countries. And they are not the first country to do this. China uses this tactic with their 50 Cent Party- paid internet commentators –to show support to their government.
I think there is much to be said about these trolls. One thing I wonder is are these trolls believable? Do people realizes that these are trolls or are they truly authentic looking, as if they were real comments by real pro-Russian people?
If they do look authentic looking they may pose a major threat to the manipulation of the public, because we believe a lot of what we see on the internet. If an uneducated person or maybe a person who is on the fence of what to believe sees these comments and debates it may change their mind on how they view Russia. This type of manipulation is no different than propaganda posters used during World War 2. And especially because there is no vast funding for “Anti-Russian trolls”, these debates truly are one sided. The viewer may never see the other side to the debate.
The author writes: “Personally, I feel that Russia’s efforts to promote themselves in the West are ill-fated. Public opinion of Russia in the West, especially in the United States, is not doing so well right now. The idea of changing this view for $12 million just does not seem feasible. There is so much more that goes into how media forms public perception than a couple of troll comments. In all honesty these trolls are doing nothing more than driving away all discussion completely”, which I’m not sure is so accurate.
Unfortunately, although many westerners can see the corruption Russia is causing, a lot of Russians don’t, and it may be due to these trolls (along with the country’s nationalistic pride). The same goes for Chinese internet users. They may see these comments and never know they are false comments, and completely change personal views they had before, to support the communist party.
However, if the viewer of these troll’s comments can see that it is false it could pose a threat to Russia and other countries deploying these comments. It could definitely make many people lose trust in their own government. But, I think it is unlikely. We want to believe in our country and believe that what our country is doing is right, even if what it is doing is wrong. And this applies to many countries, not just Russia and China. That being said, I think these internet comments do pose a major threat.
I’d like to believe that the trolls infiltrating Western media will get nowhere, but I don’t think we can say this with absolute confidence. Before coming to Prague, I thought communism something of an era that has since been completely eradicated. When I got to Prague, it was a big surprise to me to find out that the Communist Party is one of the most popular political parties in the Czech Republic. Moreover, many people have said that the Communist Party here has been gaining speed. If this can happen in a country that has already seen the faults of communism, then I feel like it’s possible that people in the US could be duped into believing in communism. However, I don’t think there will ever be enough of these people for communism to have a significant foothold in the West.
Now turning back to the trolls, I think that they can have much the same effect as I see with the Communist Party in the West. They’ll actually be able to convince some people, and not few enough that we can ignore them, but not enough that they’ll have any real weight in political conversation. We discussed in class how the percent acceptance goes up dramatically if only one person outside of the troll circle, which shows that people actually do follow them. In my experience, you don’t follow a random person for no reason. Usually, you actually like what that person has to say or post. If this holds true, then there are people in the West who believe what the trolls have to say.
Moving on, I don’t think it should ever be necessary to stage such internet scuffles in order to keep a government going. The government should exist on the trust of its citizens, not because it’s brainwashed or tricked its citizens. Another surprising fact is how much these trolls are paid. It seems like a complete waste of money, and I think that the Russian government should have better things to do with their money. Unfortunately, it seems that they do not.