Russian web brigades

The web brigades (Russian: Веб-бригады), also known as Russia's troll army (Армия троллей России), Russian bots (Русские боты), Putinbots, Kremlinbots (Путиноботы, кремлеботы),[1] troll factory (Фабрика троллей),[2][3] Lakhta trolls (Лахтинские тролли) or troll farms (Фермы троллей), are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets, social bots and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.[4][5][6][7] It has also been found that articles on Russian Wikipedia concerning the MH17 crash and the 2014 Ukraine conflict were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets.[8][9][10]

Background
See also: Internet Research Agency and State-sponsored Internet propaganda

State sponsored online sockpuppetry and manipulation of online views is practiced by several countries, in particular by United States,[11] Russia, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Vietnam, India, Serbia and Ukraine.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

The earliest documented allegations of the existence of "web brigades" appear to be in the April 2003 Vestnik Online article "The Virtual Eye of Big Brother" by French journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova[19]) and two other authors, Andrey Krivov and Ivan Lomako. The authors claim that up to 1998, contributions to forums on Russian Internet sites (Runet) predominantly reflected liberal and democratic values, but after 2000, the vast majority of contributions reflected totalitarian values. This sudden change was attributed to the appearance of teams of pro-Russian commenters who appeared to be organized by the Russian state security service.[20][21][22][23] According to the authors, about 70% of Russian Internet posters were of generally liberal views prior to 1998–1999, while a surge of "antidemocratic" posts (about 60–80%) suddenly occurred at many Russian forums in 2000. This could also be a reflection to the fact that access to Internet among the general Russian population soared during this time, which was until then accessible only to some sections of the society.

In January 2012, a hacktivist group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous published a massive collection of email allegedly belonging to former and present leaders of the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (including a number of government officials).[24] Journalists who investigated the leaked information found that the pro-Kremlin movement had engaged in a range of activities including paying commentators to post content and hijacking blog ratings in the fall of 2011.[25][26] The e-mails indicated that members of the "brigades" were paid 85 rubles (about US$3) or more per comment, depending on whether the comment received replies. Some were paid as much as 600,000 roubles (about US$21,000) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative press articles on the internet, and were presented with iPads. A number of high-profile bloggers were also mentioned as being paid for promoting Nashi and government activities. The Federal Youth Agency, whose head (and the former leader of Nashi) Vasily Yakemenko was the highest-ranking individual targeted by the leaks, refused to comment on the authenticity of the e-mails.[24][27]

In 2013, a Freedom House report stated that 22 of 60 countries examined have been using paid pro-government commentators to manipulate online discussions, and that Russia has been at the forefront of this practice for several years, along with China and Bahrain.[28][29] In the same year, Russian reporters investigated the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency, which employs at least 400 people. They found that the agency covertly hired young people as "Internet operators" paid to write pro-Kremlin postings and comments, smearing opposition leader Alexei Navalny and U.S. politics and culture.[30][31]

Each commenter was to write no less than 100 comments a day, while people in the other room were to write four postings a day, which then went to the other employees whose job was to post them on social networks as widely as possible.[30]

Protest against Donald Trump in New York City that was allegedly organized by Russians indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.[32]

Some Russian opposition journalists state that such practices create a chilling effect on the few independent media outlets remaining in the country.[29]

Further investigations were performed by Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Institute of Modern Russia in 2014–15, inspired by the peak of activity of the pro-Russian brigades during the Ukrainian conflict and assassination of Boris Nemtsov.[33][34][35][36] The effort of using "troll armies" to promote Putin's policies is reported to be a multimillion-dollar operation.[37] According to an investigation by the British Guardian newspaper, the flood of pro-Russian comments is part of a coordinated "informational-psychological war operation".[38] One Twitter bot network was documented to use more than 20,500 fake Twitter accounts to spam negative comments after the death of Boris Nemtsov and events related to the Ukrainian conflict.[39][40]

An article based on the original Polyanskaya article, authored by the Independent Customers' Association, was published in May 2008 at Expertiza.Ru. In this article the term web brigades is replaced by the term Team "G".[41][42]

During his presidency, Donald Trump retweeted a tweet from an account operated by Russians.[43]

Methods

Web brigades commentators sometimes leave hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers.[26][29][30][31][44][45] Commentators simultaneously react to discussions of "taboo" topics, including the historical role of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, political opposition, dissidents such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, murdered journalists, and cases of international conflict or rivalry (with countries such as Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine, but also with the foreign policies of the United States and the European Union).[26] Prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it. He states that they cannot censor information but can "trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours".[31]

To avert suspicions, the users sandwich political remarks between neutral articles on travelling, cooking and pets.[31] They overwhelm comment sections of media to render meaningful dialogue impossible.[46][47]

The effect created by such Internet trolls is not very big, but they manage to make certain forums meaningless because people stop commenting on the articles when these trolls sit there and constantly create an aggressive, hostile atmosphere toward those whom they don’t like. The trolls react to certain news with torrents of mud and abuse. This makes it meaningless for a reasonable person to comment on anything there.[30]

A collection of leaked documents, published by Moy Rayon, suggests that work at the "troll den" is strictly regulated by a set of guidelines. Any blog post written by an agency employee, according to the leaked files, must contain "no fewer than 700 characters" during day shifts and "no fewer than 1,000 characters" on night shifts. Use of graphics and keywords in the post's body and headline is also mandatory. In addition to general guidelines, bloggers are also provided with "technical tasks" – keywords and talking points on specific issues, such as Ukraine, Russia's internal opposition and relations with the West.[31] On an average working day, the workers are to post on news articles 50 times. Each blogger is to maintain six Facebook accounts publishing at least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice a day. By the end of the first month, they are expected to have won 500 subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter, the bloggers are expected to manage 10 accounts with up to 2,000 followers and tweet 50 times a day.[45]

In 2015, Lawrence Alexander disclosed a network of propaganda websites sharing the same Google Analytics identifier and domain registration details, allegedly run by Nikita Podgorny from Internet Research Agency. The websites were mostly meme repositories focused on attacking Ukraine, Euromaidan, Russian opposition and Western policies. Other websites from this cluster promoted president Putin and Russian nationalism, and spread alleged news from Syria presenting anti-Western and pro-Bashar al-Assad viewpoints.[48][49]

In August 2015, Russian researchers correlated Google search statistics of specific phrases with their geographic origin, observing increases in specific politically loaded phrases (such as "Poroshenko", "Maidan", "sanctions") starting from 2013 and originating from very small, peripheral locations in Russia, such as Olgino, which also happens to be the headquarters of the Internet Research Agency company.[50] The Internet Research Agency also appears to be the primary sponsor of an anti-Western exhibition Material Evidence.[51]

Since 2015, Finnish reporter Jessikka Aro has inquired into web brigades and Russian trolls.[52] In addition, Western journalists have referred to the phenomenon and have supported traditional media.[53][54]

In May 2019, it was reported that a study from the George Washington University found that Russian Twitter bots had tried to inflame the United States' anti-vaccination debate by posting opinions on both sides in 2018.[55]

In June 2019 a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the Russian-language Wikipedia.[56] In July 2019 two operatives of the Internet Research Agency were detained in Libya and charged with attempting to influence local elections.[57] They were reportedly employees of Alexander Malkevich, manager of USA Really, a propaganda website.[58]

In 2020, the research firm Graphika published a reported detailing one particular Russian disinformation group codenamed "Secondary Infektion" (alluding to 80's Operation Infektion) operating running since 2014. Over 6 years the group published over 2,500 items in seven languages and to over 300 platforms such as social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit) and discussion forums. The group specialized in highly divisive topics regarding immigration, environment, politics, international relations and frequently used fake images presented as "leaked documents".[59]

gollark: Much of the stuff surrounding why X DC thing happened is unfortunately very secret.
gollark: What's GPX, actually?
gollark: Wymsy is still around, you know.
gollark: Iframes? That's a weird way to do it.
gollark: and what ND science thing?

See also

References
  1. Higgins, Andrew (30 May 2016). "Effort to Expose Russia's 'Troll Army' Draws Vicious Retaliation". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  2. Tim Lister, Jim Sciutto and Mary Ilyushina. "Putin's 'chef,' the man behind the troll factory". cnn.com. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  3. "Russian troll factory paid US activists to help fund protests during election - World news - The Guardian". 26 November 2017. Archived from the original on 26 November 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  4. Shaun Walker. "Salutin' Putin: inside a Russian troll house". the Guardian.
  5. Paul Gallagher (27 March 2015). "Revealed: Putin's army of pro-Kremlin bloggers". The Independent.
  6. Daisy Sindelar. "The Kremlin's Troll Army". The Atlantic.
  7. Olga Khazan. "Russia's Online-Comment Propaganda Army". The Atlantic.
  8. Sorokanich, Robert. "A Tweetbot Caught the Russian Gov't Editing Flight MH17 Wikipedia Info". Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  9. Dewey, Caitlin (July 21, 2014). "Flight MH17's Wikipedia page edited by Russian government; An IP address associated with Vladimir Putin's office has made multiple edits to the Wikipedia page for the MH17 flight page". Toronto Star. The Washington Post. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  10. Zeveleva, Olga (6 August 2014). "Knowledge is power: why is the Russian government editing Wikipedia?". The Calvert Journal. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  11. "Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media". The Guardian. 17 March 2011.
  12. "GCHQ has tools to manipulate online information, leaked documents show". The Guardian. 14 July 2014.
  13. "Israeli propaganda war hits social media". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 July 2014.
  14. "China’s Paid Trolls: Meet the 50-Cent Party". New Statesman. 17 October 2012.
  15. "From Britain to Beijing: how governments manipulate the internet". The Guardian. 2 April 2015.
  16. Benedictus, Leo (6 November 2016). "Invasion of the troll armies: 'Social media where the war goes on'" – via www.theguardian.com.
  17. "ANALYSIS: Unveiling Iranian pro-government trolls and cyber-warriors". english.alarabiya.net.
  18. Chaturvedi, Swati (8 September 2017). "General Narendra Modi and His Troll Army'" – via www.thewire.com.
  19. (in Russian) "They are killing Galina Starovoitova for the second time", by Anna Polyansky
  20. (in Russian)Virtual Eye of the Big Brother by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003
  21. "Russian-American Russian Language biweekly magazine "Vestnik": Main Page [English]". Vestnik.com. Retrieved 2014-05-19.
  22. Vestnik online, April 30, 2003
  23. (in Russian) Eye for an eye by Grigory Svirsky and Vladimur Bagryansky, publication of the Russian Center for Extreme Journalism
  24. Miriam Elder. "Polishing Putin: hacked emails suggest dirty tricks by Russian youth group". the Guardian.
  25. (in Russian) "Kremlin's Blogshop" by Anastasia Karimova. Kommersant Dengi, February 13, 2012
  26. "Russia - Country report - Freedom on the Net - 2013". Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  27. (in Russian) "Kommersant Director General Files Complain against Nashi Spokesperson". Izvestia, February 9, 2012.
  29. Russia's Online-Comment Propaganda Army, The Atlantic, by Olga Khazan, 9 October 2013
  30. "Internet Troll Operation Uncovered in St. Petersburg", The St. Petersburg Times, by Sergey Chernov, 18, September,2013
  31. Ukraine conflict: Inside Russia's 'Kremlin troll army', BBC
  32. "Michael Moore participated in anti-Trump rally allegedly organized by Russians". Fox News. February 20, 2018
  33. "The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money". The Interpreter Magazine. 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2015-03-13.
  34. "Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America". BuzzFeed. 2014-07-08. Retrieved 2015-03-13.
  35. "Novaya Gazeta Publishes List of Kremlin Trolls, Finds Further Information About 'Troll Farm'". The Interpreter Magazine. 2015-03-06. Retrieved 2015-03-13.
  36. Dmitry Volchek, Daisy Sindelar (2015-03-26). "One Professional Russian Troll Tells All". Radio Liberty. Retrieved 2015-03-26.
  37. Sindelar, Daisy (12 August 2014). "The Kremlin's Troll Army". The Atlantic. United States: Atlantic Media. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
    Seddon, Max (2 June 2014). "Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
  38. Pomerantsev, Peter (2015-04-09). "Inside the Kremlin's hall of mirrors". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-04-11.
  39. Lawrence Alexander (April 2, 2015). "Social Network Analysis Reveals Full Scale of Kremlin's Twitter Bot Campaign". Global Voices Online. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  40. "#KremlinTrolls and Other Acquaintances of RU EMB Canada". kremlintrolls.com. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  41. Team "G" (How to unveil agents of siloviks at popular forums in the Internet), May 25, 2008
  42. "The Kremlin's virtual squad". openDemocracy.
  43. Correll, Diana Stancy. "Trump retweeted fake account run by Russians". Washington Examiner. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  44. "Russia - Country report - Freedom on the Net - 2014". Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  45. Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America, buzzfeed
  46. The readers' editor on… pro-Russia trolling below the line on Ukraine stories, the Guardian, 4 May 2014
  47. Putin's G20 Snub, The Moscow Times, Nov. 18 2014
  48. Entous, Adam; Nakashima, Ellen; Jaffe, Greg (25 December 2017). "Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  49. "Open-Source Information Reveals Pro-Kremlin Web Campaign". Global Voices. Retrieved 2015-07-19.
  50. "Google выдал логово кремлевских троллей". Retrieved 2015-08-20.
  51. "Emails Link Kremlin Troll Farm to Bizarre New York Photography Exhibit". StopFake.org. August 20, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  52. "Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro's inquiry into Russian trolls stirs up a hornet's nest". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  53. "Article December 2017".
  54. "Press association supports EL PAÍS official targeted by Russian smear campaign". EL PAÍS.
  55. O'Kane, Caitlin. "Russian trolls fueled anti-vaccination debate in U.S. by spreading misinformation on Twitter, study finds". CBS News. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  56. meduza.io https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/07/05/revenge-of-the-editors. Retrieved 2019-07-08. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  57. "Libya Uncovers Alleged Russian Plot to Meddle in African Votes".
  58. Mackinnon, Amy. "The Evolution of a Russian Troll". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2019-07-14.
  59. "Executive Summary". secondaryinfektion.org. Retrieved 2020-06-17.

Literature
  • Jolanta Darczewska: The Anatomy of Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation, a Case Study. Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2014, ISBN 978-83-62936-45-8 (PDF)
  • Peter Pomerantsev & Michael Weiss: The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money. The Institute of Modern Russia, New York 2014 (PDF)
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