Bloomberg is covering a report from the Institute for the Future (IFTF) on an attempt to describe the phenomenon of state-sponsored trolling from a qualitative and quantitative standpoint. While partially conflating trolling with astroturfing in the body of the report, the IFTF defines online trolling as deliberately targeting an individual for "hate" and harassment. Since it is only occasionally possible to attribute the attacks, the IFTF's aim with the report is to empower individuals, researchers, and policy makers to spot the phenomenon in the wild and at least attempt to combat it.
The report itself is entitled, State-Sponsored Trolling: How Governments Are Deploying Disinformation as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns (warning for PDF)
Ed: How accurate does the report appear to be and are the suggested countermeasures harmful or helpful or both?
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Back in November 2020, the NATO Stratgic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga, Latvia published an analysis of the coordinated online harassment of Finnish government ministers. The conclusion is that the attacks and astroturfing are largely free from automated activity, aka bots. The report includes statistics, lots of analysis, and several illustrative graphs. The main topics triggering the online abuse were the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, immigration, EU relations, and social policies. Finland is not a NATO member but the lessons learned from studying the coordinated harrassment can be generalized to the alliance.
This report is informed by the findings of three recent Finnish studies, one of which investigated the extent and effects of online hate speech against politicians while the other two studied the use of bots to influence political discourse during the 2019 Finnish parliamentary eleections. The first study released by the research branch of the Finnish govenment in Novemeber 2019, found that a third of municipal decision-makers and nearly half of all membes of Finnish Parliament have been subjected to hate speech online.
[...] As social media platforms continue to grow in political importance, so does their use as a means for engaging with and criticising individual government officials with little or no consequences. An additional aim of our study was to determine the role, if any, bot accounts play in disseminating abusive messages, and whether such bot activity displayed characteristics of coordination. Based on previous Finnish studies analysing the impact of bots during election periods, we hypothesised that we would observe low levels of automation and coordination. Our findings confirmed this theory; our algorithm attributed less than 3% of abusive messages to bot-like accounts. However, the more significant finding was that over half of abusive messages were sent by anonymous accounts. Anonymity erases accountability online. This can have the effect of emboldening users to voice their dissatisfaction with ministers through unfiltered, abusive messages. It is possible for people to operate many anonymous accounts. However, our data do not show clear patterns indicating single users sending abusive messaging from multiple fake accounts. The unfortunate conclusion is that much of the offensive, sexually explicit, expletive-filled abuse targeting government officials is written and published by individuals.
(Score: 5, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:23AM (2 children)
(grabs popcorn)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:31PM (1 child)
I'll start: Trump sucks, Pence sucks, Obama sucks, Biden sucks, Clinton sucks, Clinton sucks, McConnell sucks, Ryan sucks, Pelosi sucks, Schumer sucks. Putin sucks, Kim Jong Un sucks, Angela Merkel sucks, Justin Trudeau sucks, Theresa May sucks, Xi Jinping sucks, Shinzo Abe sucks, Nikolas Sarkozy sucks.
Did I miss anyone important?
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:41PM
You're doing it wrong.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:26AM (22 children)
Well, how accurate can it be when they have a key term misdefined?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:18PM (9 children)
Which makes the poll itself a cleverly disguised rhetorical question, propaganda, misinformation, trickery, and therefor: troll.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:28PM (1 child)
Bootstrap levitation, nice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:27PM
It will work, I tell ya! I just need stronger straps and better attachments!
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:08PM (6 children)
A troll, or fake news? Propaganda, deliberate misinformation = fake news. Trolling is just playing on another's naivety and willingness to slap-fight over usenet.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:56PM (5 children)
I confess I was never fully clear on the definition of "troll". It seems fuzzy and the story struck me as ironically funny. Your definition is awesome, thanks! Yeah, some people are just argumentative for the sake of being abrasive. The problem with SN and other boards is that people get modded "troll" when they're just expressing their heart-felt passions and convictions. I got hit with it a few times when I was not trolling, so I rarely voice any kind of social or political views or opinions. So far the real-life voting places have not labeled me "troll". Maybe that will come someday...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:11PM (2 children)
0 to Godwinned in 60 seconds! Here we go!
Flamebait: Hitler was a great leader who freed Germany from the unfair treaty provisions imposed after defeat in WWI, and reined in the Jewish bankers. Wish we could have him back.
Troll: Why do you love Hitler and hate America?
To be effective flamebait, it should have a truthful veneer. The fact is, the things Hitler did arguably had such effects. But the means he chose to go about it were very evil. If he'd merely imprisoned those bankers and financiers within Germany's reach who had been unethical and caused economic ruin thereby, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, that'd be one thing. Instead, as is well known to all but the Holocaust deniers, he singled out the Jews, whether bankers or not, blamed them for basically everything (all too easy to do since there's been centuries of resentment and prejudice against Jews), and tried to murder them all, not bothering with any niceties like morals, facts, or principles.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
That's a great explanation, all of it, thanks. I fully agree.
Regarding troll example- you've made me realize I have many trolls in my life, sadly including my dear old dad. Sigh.
As I've stated elsewhere, ianal, but sometimes have to play one, and your troll example question reminds me of "objection your honor, question assumes facts which are not in evidence."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:53PM
As I've posted elsewhere in this discussion, effective trolling is about pushing the right buttons. If you feel offended and obligated to defend your honor to some rando associating you with Hitler and questioning your loyalty to the soil under your feet, you seem pretty easy to troll. Let me try it :>
Last night, I fucked your mom while wearing a swastika cape. Also I'm Mexican!!!11
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:56PM (1 child)
It's probably more accurate to call it trawling. As in trawling for reactions. As opposed to trolling as in being the troll under a bridge.
Unfortunately, people seem to think that bring peavish or insulting is trolling and it really isn't.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 27 2018, @01:48AM
Incorrect. Trawling uses a net. Trolling uses a single baited of lured hook for its phishing. Don't belabor the point, words have more than one meaning in English. Oh, the fine summary also manages to completely miss the point of the Bloomberg article, as well.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:30PM (11 children)
I don't know about accuracy in reporting. That metric was dropped long ago, probably near around the time that CNN came into being. What I do know is, if the lefties don't like being trolled, they shouldn't cry those little snowflake tears, while calling everyone else filthy names, like "fascist". I've never really looked into it, but I suspect that Texas law might excuse a guy shooting some liberal for calling him a fascist. Self defense, right?
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:49PM (2 children)
Get more fiber in your diet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:53PM (1 child)
There's no fiber in snowflake tears?
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @01:49AM
Eat hay, Runaway!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:26PM (4 children)
...they shouldn't cry those little snowflake tears...
You mean snowflakes like Donald Trump. Who melted because a reporter asked a question and then demanded she be censored?
A CNN reporter has been barred from a White House event for asking Donald Trump "inappropriate" questions. [bbc.com]
Remember how triggered the right wing was when Obama merely contemplated the idea, but didn't actually ban anyone?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:58PM (2 children)
Donnie's tears are the wrong flavor for me. Those are entitled rich boy tears. I suppose they're alright for some people, but they just don't taste good to me. All I've ever wanted to do with Trump was to punch him in the nose for being such an arrogant cocksucker.
Liberal tears are tasty, tasty, tasty!
As for banning a reporter - well - I'm banned from the White House. Based on my history of letters to the White House, neither Obama's nor Trump's administration would have been willing to allow me to question the president - on ANY subject.
But, neither Obama nor Trump are the first to ban a particular reporter from the White House.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/09/17/big-ben/c4229dac-f60b-402a-8262-e8d2514a0947/ [washingtonpost.com]
I could probably find more, if I tried.
Additionally, reporters are banned from my property. There's nothing I can do about them taking photos from the highway, but they can't come on my property. Since I actually "own" half of the county dirt road coming off of the highway, I'll file trespass charges against any reporter who drives all the way down here to my house. Unless, of course, I actually invite a reporter to come visit.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:51PM
So the only two presidents to ever ban a reporter were Conservatives. I thought you said those were the pro-free-speech people?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:53PM
Yes, Runaway, war is peace and "don't be a fascist" is a fascist slogan.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:06PM
I thought it was only liberals who modded down things they disagree with.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:15PM
Reading the Wikipedia article on the Fairness Doctrine, it was removed by Mr. Reagan in 1987, and he threatened to veto any attempt by Congress to try to enact it into law.
CNN was founded in 1980, so would have had to live with it for at least those years.
It is unlikely Mr. Reagan actually made any decisions about the Fairness Doctrine during 1987 however, due to his Alzheimer's.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I think you're wrong about Mr. Reagan being a leftist.
He was however very sensitive to criticism, so maybe he was one (by your standards, anyway).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:01PM
Er...snow = white, as in your Lilly white ass. Flak = out of wack, as in in your mind is totally wracked like you take too many drugs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:13PM
I hope you wipe your mouth after spewing bullshit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
Facts more harmful than CNN. Ban facts!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:04PM
Wow, is that a fact?
Well fuck, now we can't use it. :-/
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:08PM (15 children)
It conflates not just trolling and astroturfing, but tries to paint actual, voluntarily and autonomously acting trolls into the same corner as the for-profit gang stalkers hired by politicians and regimes.
Doing this seems to stem from a popular misconception that can be especially well observed in those who in modern times hijacked the "liberal" label to mean suppression of opposing opinions. Because for one, it makes it easy to dismiss one's own failings, which is why genuine trolling works:
Well-executed trolling is about pushing someone's buttons and making themselves look ridiculous by eliciting a stereotypical reaction "for the lulz". The US left-wing (especially, but not limited to them) has become a target for trolls because they are in a permanent state of self-betrayal. There is no "liberty" in these so called libererals, they are slaves to authority. Most are even too dumb to realize they're following authoritarian dogmas, unable to think for themselves or stand up for their convictions. They religiously follow what is being put in their heads by the priests of their echo chambers and react butthurt when their ideas are challenged because they're shit. That's the button. Pushing it is funny, because it exposes their hypocrisy.
The alt-right keeps pushing it, but instead of self-reflection, looking at the reason this keeps working, these so-called liberals are only screaming louder for authority to make the "hateful" people go away.
This "study" seems to be a new (and rather cheap) angle for trying to get authority to do their bidding: conflate alt-right trolls with state sponsored harassment and disinfo campaigns and you get the vibe that probably Vladimir Puting is paying out of his own pocket for trolls like Milo Yani-whatever. Something something election meddling and collusion. Traitors! Censor!!! Incarcerate!!!!11 *frothing at mouth*
I'd point and laugh and remark that you Muricans have a funny political culture, but you keep exporting that shit (especially your version of "liberals") and I don't want it. Please keep them. They're polluting my old-school left convictions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:40PM (2 children)
"Old school left" or "fascism" as the modern left calls it. Didn't get the memo?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:14PM (1 child)
Dammit, man. I read what you wrote, and immediately thought something like, "Big dummy - it's the left calling the right fascists!" Took a second to soak in. Yesterday's left are fascists to today's left. That's just crazy, isn't it? Sorry for thinking you were the dummy. The dummies are the ones marching to nowhere, while they shout fascist slogans against fascists.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:52PM
Get trolled genius!
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:41PM (3 children)
Oh, what has come with this world! I tell yea, the noble pure art of trolling is no more, the politicians and corporation raped it and discarded it dishevelled on the side of the road.
Nobody recognizes anymore the value of genuine, sincere trolling and, thus, conflates paid-for mercenary trolls with the useful idiots!
(grin - an unpoliticised trollish one)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:15PM (1 child)
Did you say "Embrace, extend, extinguish"?
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:49PM
Oh, please don't bring Microsoft into this mess!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:07PM
I only provide the finest never-frozen organic artisan small-batches fair-trade non-GMO trolling, but I can't compete against the industrial-grade high-output stuff we often see around here.
I have long deserted markets that were overtaken, and where the consumer seems to lack a proper discriminatory palate.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:03PM (1 child)
Wait, you think conservatives don't do this? Because this literally sounds like church going conservatives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:04PM
Well yeah, that's why the word I used is "religiously". Progs used to be about leaving bullshit beliefs behind and improving the status quo - "progressing". The observed behaviour is a regression.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:06PM
Troll or troll not. There is no reason.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:06PM (4 children)
I thought it was the lefties that were supposed to be the perpetually whining victims. Guess not...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:47PM (1 child)
Remember, the ones ranting the most loudly about something are ranting about their secret selves
- Constantly ranting about homos being unnatural = bottoms at least once a week for worst of the group W bench father rapers
- Constantly ranting about family values = has at least 2 mistress and probably 1 kid out of wedlock
- Constantly ranting about SJW being snowflakes = cracks at the slightest adversity
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:03PM
So whining about racial/sexist prejudice means they secretly, uh, what now?
Just saying that rule doesn't always work, but it is amusing.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:11PM (1 child)
Which TV network is constantly riling up their rabid viewers with yet another new War On $thing_of_the_day ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:15PM
Oh, I know (hand up)---It's Faux News!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:09PM
So not trolling at all?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:25PM (4 children)
We've heard this before, from Snowden, how the NSA and their British counterparts politically troll targets. There is a whole series of training documents in his disclosures that talk about how to do it.
Maybe before these characters worry about what other governments are doing to them they should worry about what their own government is doing to them. Yes, the government they want to keep expanding and paying ever more taxes to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:44PM (1 child)
It's okay when they do it. [puppetstringnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:48PM
Communications were detected the year before between Russian individuals and members of the Trump campaign. You don't think that's worthy of investigation?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:46PM
To borrow from the raw-diamond, Albert Doolittle-type philosopher Soylentnews resident that MDC is: "You say it like it's a bad thing"
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:12PM
No they're not. JTRIG is not about trolling at all. They're all about disinfo, character assassination and entrapment.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:56PM (1 child)
The paper talks about mechanized propanda in conjunction with actual prosecution of journalists for exercising free speech, and to the credit of the authors, they don't presume to offer a solution.
Unfortunately you can't have fully anonymous free speech without suffering the din of trolling. From a technical viewpoint, people will fall into camps declaring that what they are seeing is either a client-side or server-side problem.
Client side solutions leverage the population and computational differential between state and public, while server side solutions don't. Which is to say, that industrial interests and state interests will largely declare that server-side solutions are the most appropriate. This will come in the form of declarations such as: "Face book should fix it!", or "Such and such a company has a new solution to preventing fake news!". Which inevitably will just aggregate the administative authority of the abusive entities even more. People who actually understand the technical limitations of digital interpersonal communications (few and far between) will look to re-engineering the protocol stack to make freedom integral to EVERY communication. These people will be focused on future evolutions of TCP/IP and technologies like TOR, and Freenet to solve the problem.
The 80/20 solution to the problem is determinate, and most of the science is already done. There are some projects that have been working on engineering a solution. Some of them are very hush hush right now, and we don't really know if they are "the one". But sufficed to say, that the nerd version of John Adams is out there right now. He is pissed off of and madly programming in some dungeon somewhere. And with a little luck, we will recognize what we are looking at when he or she, emerges into the light.
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Friday July 27 2018, @12:46AM
I don't really see any state sponsored trolling from the United States. Looks like Trump was being a dick, but that's all. (I mean, maybe he's trolling, but I wouldn't call it "state-sponsored" just because he's the president.)
And here's my problem with the lefties bitching about this, we have bigger problems and there is NOTHING we can do about this because of the First Amendment. Which, mind you, I don't support repealing. There is no non-Orwellian solution to this problem, so we should trash this stupid conversation about "fake news" already.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:43PM (1 child)
Transgenderism: forced on all government employees by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2013, then on all businesses with government contracts like the big tech companies, then all schools, and all employees of these institutions.
"The occupation": Israel stopped occupying all arguable Arab land in the 1990s and stopped having anything to do with the Arabs unless the Arabs were attacking them. Everything you read to the contrary is fake news from the Arab governments.
J Street: is a Qatari disinformation operation targeting liberal Jews.
"Feminism" at Tor Books: run by people who have done PR for the Taliban at a time when Tor's major business partner Microsoft had Suhail Khan on board.
The Womens' March: run by a Hamas operative as a Muslim evangelical revival.
Black Lives Matter: leaders travel to the West Bank to take instructions and are inserting Hamas operatives into tech companies.
Anita Sarkeesian: run by Emirati and Qatari intelligence, reputation-laundered through British intelligence on the payroll of George Soros. Overseen by Jacob Rothschild.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:22PM
Now that's some serious trolling there. Yep, alternate facts it is.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:46PM
That fake news not promoted by themselves is much worse than their own fake news. Their own fake news should be allowed to flourish, but other sources of fake news must be stamped out. These non-corporate sourced fake news are like terrorism, and we have a war on terrorism right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @12:37AM
Ve must stop ze right-wing extremists from tak'inggg ovarrr our democricee!
Zey must be stopt at aull costz!
Ve must troll them by saying vey are trolling usz! Vey will not zee it comin'g!
Burn ze U.S.A. capitalistz to ze ground, vey are all trollz! All ze dumbazz right-wing nutz arrr just botz anyvey! HAH!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @02:01PM
Like all sports eventually states get involved and they start competing at the olympic level. While 80% of the world regards this as douchebag behavior, 80% of the world has probably also done it at least once. Many years ago somebody wrote a web page (before javascript fucked up the web) about the greatest trolls ever. It was celebratory, and funny as hell. We used to deal with this on Usenet with kill files. Web forums is what turned that feature off. The solution is quite simple: Go back to usenet. Extra points if you use usenet over TOR.