SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Shaun Walker writes at The Guardian that that more and more posts and commentaries on the internet are generated by professional trolls in Russia who receive a salary for perpetuating a pro-Kremlin dialogue online. Many emanate from Russia's most famous "troll factory," the Internet Research center, an unassuming building on St. Petersburg's Savushkina Street, which runs on a 24-hour cycle with hundreds of people working there in grinding, 12-hour shifts in exchange for 40,000 rubles ($700) a month.
According to Walker the work environment is humorless and draconian, with fines for being a few minutes late or not reaching the required number of posts each day. Trolls worked in rooms of about 20 people, each controlled by three editors, who would check posts and impose fines if they found the words had been cut and pasted, or were ideologically deviant. "There are production quotas, and for meeting your quota you get 45,000," says Marat Burkhard, who spent two months working at the troll factory. "The quota is 135 comments per 12-hour shift." Burkhart says that every city and village in Russia has its own municipal website with its own comments forum and the task of workers at the troll factory is to comment on each site. Burkhard explains how the professional trolls work in teams of three:
One of us would be the "villain," the person who disagrees with the forum and criticizes the authorities, in order to bring a feeling of authenticity to what we're doing. The other two enter into a debate with him -- "No, you're not right; everything here is totally correct." One of them should provide some kind of graphic or image that fits in the context, and the other has to post a link to some content that supports his argument. You see? Villain, picture, link.
We covered a similar story from BBC in March.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday April 06 2015, @12:41PM
The US government keeps failing harder, it's getting entertaining in a very perverse manner.
Isn't this just the old one repeated and rewritten? Why would Russians bother doing it like this when they can hire Chinese, North Koreans, or at the very least Indians? It wouldn't need more than copy-pasting “approved” posts. Smells like fresh fine high grade fertilizer.
Oh and I hear the Russians aren't exactly lacking in programming skills either so there shouldn't be any need for human “cubicle enslavement” at all unless someone replies (and judging by most typical replies in internet discussions in general not even then. Present company excluded of course. Bot too :) ). That's some deep aroma the Guardian has got going there, I wonder what they ate to get the whiff of steampunk?
If the place exists at all maybe they're doing something more sensible, who knows, maybe they're writing deliberately poor US propaganda and selling it to the US government. Or maybe they're busy trolling the Guardian into writing about imaginary troll factories! :D
No, this story obviously didn't work the first time and is unlikely to work this second time, prepare yourselves for hearing it again in an even more embellished and fanciful version. Maybe they should add vampires? It's the old failure of petulant repetition that drives away readers one by one as they're fed up with the same bullshit over and over again. It's not like Ukraine is the only topic that gets this treatment.
Forget about the general public, even stupid European politicians must have had a clue about the US bullshit for a while. Why else is France and Germany cooperating with Russia and Belarus in forcing the whole OSCE observer thing onto Kiev in Ukraine? On the world stage not many besides the US government and the non-Aryan Nazis in leftover Ukrainia (soon to be even smaller by the sound of the infighting oligarchs) seem to actually buy into the US bullshit and the sanctions against Russia (another UN breach btw, likely a WTO breach too) have only scraped by on initial momentum. That's pretty pathetic: only the liars themselves believing their own lies.
Does anyone think the US Stryker battalion which recently drove a lame “victory parade” through parts of Eastern Europe along the Russian border didn't notice any of the ”Tanks, no thanks!” signs and signposts? It wasn't Russians who put those up and it was written in English for a reason. Does anyone think US ambassador Shapiro didn't get the message when the Check president told him to fuck off and stay away? Probably the only reason Shapiro wasn't kicked out was the knowledge of another equally idiotic and corrupt US crony taking his place: better to keep the one who already ought to realize he's derided.
Maybe the Guardian should be a bit less concerned about mending relations with Five Eyes after getting rid of Greenwald? When are they planning on reporting that the US is in constant breach of UN membership status on account of blocking UN access to investigating continued US torture and other severe US breaches of the UN Human Rights Charter like the whole global surveillance thing?
No they find such issues less important than insisting on “troll factories” so they can claim to have an alibi for removing anything that seems “pro-Russian”. The only result is that western “newspapers” become even more uninteresting and desolate echo-chambers than they already were (it's not like they haven't been doing this for years already).
And in case someone doesn't already know: I'm very pro-Novorussian. Feel free to call me a troll, I'll take that as a huge compliment.
P.S. Trolls are not and never were made in factories, trolls are made by fucking. Make Trolls, Not War? :3
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))