One Professional Russian Troll Tells All

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ^ | March 15, 2015 | Dmitry Volchek

[Widget Jr]

This a 2015 interview by Radio Free Europe with a former professional Russian internet troll on online Russian disinformation operations.

Posted as food for thought.

[Travis McGee]

RFE = CIA since the 1950s. For good or not good, but let's be honest about it.

OTOH, thank goodness our own govt would NEVER weaponize deep state regime propaganda against Americans. NEVER!

[BenLurkin]

The enemy of your enemy is NOT always your friend.

[DannyTN]

I would really like to know how many of those trolls post on FR and who they are.

[ScottinVA]

There’s definitely a large number of them.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Very interesting. I didn’t know they had a “bad” troll who would say something negative - maybe a strawman type argument - and then a “good” troll would answer with nicely-worded propaganda. That’s kind of sophisticated.

That’s interesting how they are supposed to type certain names (like Putin’s) without using case endings. I would think that would cause them to have to write oddly-phrased sentences (in Russian) and that would be a good way to see if the post was done by a government troll. It would be interesting to read one of their forums and see if I can identify a propaganda troll by how they write sentences, but my Russian is probably not that good.

[Widget Jr]

#3. Given the mix of posters on the forum, telling the difference between professional trolls and just plain stubborn is a expert level challenge.

[Wilhelm Tell]

And their posts get more hysterical and abusive as their hero Putin is losing.

[McGruff]

*yawn*

[foundedonpurpose]

We definitely have “trolls” on FR. The mods surely are aware and know who they are. Not sure how Jim deals with them.

[NorthMountain]

It’s pretty obvious who they are ... sadly, some of them have old, established names. Between the panicked response to the Wuhan virus and the current pro-Soviet propaganda, this forum has lost a lot of credibility in the last two years.

[Widget Jr]

#6. This makes it hard to tell the troll from a legitimate poster, since in the "good" responses have a wide range of intentional and implied meanings.
Real posters can perform the troll's job for them without knowing it.

As if dealing with difficult people online wasn't hard enough.

[DannyTN]

Yes, It has lost some credibility.

I’m not surprised we were divided over Coronavirus. That was the perfect storm.

But after seeing the Putin pushers on here, I now look back and wonder how much division was foreign influence inspired.

[DannyTN]

Yes, It has lost some credibility.

I’m not surprised we were divided over Coronavirus. That was the perfect storm.

But after seeing the Putin pushers on here, I now look back and wonder how much division was foreign influence inspired.

[Jan_Sobieski]

1 Russian Troll vs Mockingbird Media (MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, REUTERS, AP, POLITICO, THE HILL, WSJ, FORBES, FOX, et. ETC. ETC. ETC.)

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Unfortunately, the Russian trolls can’t keep up with the Ukrainian Trolls of FR…

[atc23]

Obama is a black monkey. That’s his own people spreading that rumor

[PGR88]

I want to know who the paid CIA trolls are on FR

[Flick Lives]

I would really like to know how many of those trolls post on FR and who they are.

—

And then what?

[Wilhelm Tell]

I don’t know but I suspect QAnon was something to get people distracted in a rabbit trail of conspiracy theories - keep people distracted by that and fighting each other. Maybe it was a foreign intel trick.