Inside the Kremlin Troll Army Machine: Templates, Guidelines, and Paid Posts

It has long been an open secret that an army of paid Russian Internet commenters works out of a sleepy residential neighborhood in northern St. Petersburg. A new report from Moi Region and Novaya Gazeta provides an even more revealing view into the so-called “troll den” that allegedly produces thousands of pro-Kremlin posts and comments every day.

Andrei Soshnikov of the weekly St. Petersburg publication Moi Region secured a collection of documents and an interview from a former employee of the notorious Internet Research Agency, which employs over 400 people in a non-descript building located at 55 Savushkina str. in St. Petersburg.

The interview mostly confirms what many already know about the hundreds of employees who collectively manage thousand of social media accounts on LiveJournal, Twitter, and other platforms. These users produce pro-Kremlin posts, based on prepackaged talking points, and sandwich them between apolitical posts about photography, fashion, sports, and other trivial subjects. Aside from a rare, albeit brief, undercover video of the Internet commenters at work, the most interesting part of Soshnikov’s article is a revealing cache of documents that provides a partial list of LiveJournal accounts operated by employees, along with the talking points provided to employees following the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Because we should ALWAYS believe Obama-supporting, Soros-cabal funded websites!!

Among the many recipients of MacArthur Foundation grants over the years have been such groups as: the Alliance for Justice; the American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education; American Civil Liberties Union Foundation; the American Constitution Society, the American Federation of Teachers; Amnesty International; the Arms Control Association; the Aspen Institute; the Brookings Institution; Campaign for America’s Future; Catholics For Choice; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; the Center for Reproductive Rights; the Center for Women’s Policy Studies; the Children’s Defense Fund; the Coalition for the International Criminal Court; the Cornell University Peace Studies Program; the Earth Day Network; the Earth Island Institute; the EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund; the Economic Policy Institute; the Environmental Defense Fund; Environmental Media Services; the Environmental Working Group; the Fourth Freedom Forum; Friends of the Earth; Global Exchange; Grantmakers Without Borders; Greenpeace; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; the International Crisis Group; the Institute for America’s Future; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Institute for Women’s Policy Research; the League of Women Voters; Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the National Council of La Raza; the National Lawyers Guild; National Public Radio; the National Women’s Law Center; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Nature Conservancy; the Neighborhood Funders Group; Oxfam America; the People for the American Way Foundation; Physicians for Human Rights; the Physicians for Social Responsibility; Planned Parenthood; ProPublica; Public Broadcasting Service; the Public Citizen Global Tomorrow Coalition; the Rainforest Alliance; the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund; Sojourners; the Tides Center and the Tides Foundation; Trust for Public Land; the Union of Concerned Scientists; the United Nations Population Fund; the Urban Institute; the Urban League; the Wilderness Society; the Wildlife Conservation Society; the World Organization Against Torture; the World Resources Institute; the World Wildlife Fund; and the Worldwatch Institute.

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