Posted on 04/06/2015 3:13:04 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
Ever wonder where the droves of Russian-language Internet trolls get those satirical graphics they deploy to smear Western and Ukrainian leaders? Turns out there's a website with a vast archive of images helping them pepper their posts with visual invective.
Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on April 2 that the website with the Cyrillic address[...]translates from Russian as "in the headquarters") hosts thousands of these ready-made images for use by hundreds of paid trolls working for a secretive organization in St. Petersburg.
The images -- mainly crude mash-ups or regular photographs touched up with sarcastic and juvenile captions -- are largely aimed at heaping abuse on Western and Ukrainian officials or portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin as a suave alpha male of the international scene.
Many have racist overtones, like those that portray U.S. President Barack Obama as a monkey (bananas are a consistent motif in these images). Others show Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dressed in women's clothing or wielding sex toys.
[....]
Guardian journalist Shaun Walker linked the website to the St. Petersburg troll factory based on an interview with a man identified as Marat, who says he worked there for two months before leaving what he described as demeaning working conditions, including fines for tardiness or veering from the pro-Kremlin and anti-West messaging dictated by the bosses.
In an interview with RFE/RL last month, Marat alluded to the role that these satirical graphics -- known as demotivators -- play in the St. Petersburg troll farm. "There's a LiveJournal department, a news department, a department where they create all sorts of images and demotivators," he said.
[....]
One online database, however, shows that it was registered on March 29, 2014, less than two weeks after Russia's takeover of Ukraine's
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
I’m not sure you should post that here. We’ve a few ideological, unpaid pro-Putin posters who will now inundate us with the crude commintern/Putinstan propaganda.
Well, F’m if they can’t take a joke.
This so-called vast library of insulting images does not seem to be any worse than the library of insulting images held by the new york times and other left wing outlets here in the USA. I consider the NY Times caricatures of GW Bush to be even more adolescent.
Sounds like an attempt to link usage of caricatures of our dear leader to soviet style disinformation/manipulation. Always accuse the other side of what you are doing yourself.
Funny thing is the Guardian newspaper is left-wing/liberal in political orientation.
Speaking of Russian trolls.....
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Weird.
Didn’t realize this was about the United States. Well, I’ve never seen a person make that mistake before. (sarcasm)
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