Tuesday, April 04, 2017 12:59:37 AM
How Russian propaganda spreads online
"Something Stinks Here .. and guess what? go on Guess!"
James Neimeister—
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:36pm | Last updated Dec 11, 2015 at 10:40pm
[...]
Zero Hedge, a blog whose primary editor’s fascination with and use of the pseudonym Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club) accurately sums up its anarcho-capitalist editorial philosophy, has repeatedly posted about various incidents at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, alleging they were all far worse than the authorities will admit. Though rhetorically far-right, Zero Hedge generates most of its hits by churning out unconventional financial news. More often than not, its authors forecast economic doom, and its links are frequently shared on Twitter.
When it comes to the Ukrainian conflict, Zero Hedge tends to be bullish on narratives that make Russia look strong where Ukraine and its Western backers look weak. A post from last October on the “de-dollarizing” Russian economy suggested that the Russian economy was in fact quite healthy after paying down $58.2 billion dollars in foreign debt. The blog gave a fawning re-cap of Putin’s Valdai Speech. And in May, it posted a map of every Russian nationalist’s wet dream of a Russian protectorate stretching from Odessa and Transdnistria in the southwest to Luhansk in the east, asking “Is this what East Ukraine will soon look like?” The actual territory occupied by East Ukrainian rebels is in fact much smaller.
A reactionary blog like Zero Hedge would, at first glance, make for strange bedfellows with another outlet that has been circulating the Zaporizhia power plant rumor—the vaguely left-wing Canadian website known as Global Research. Led by Michel Chossudovsky, a former economics professor at the University of Ottawa whose work assails the IMF, World Bank, and NATO, the publication’s editorial policy generally opposes the neoliberal policies of globalization. But as so often seems to happen with a certain subset of the “anti-imperialist” Left, there comes a point where the circle squares and one becomes “so left-wing you’re right-wing,” to paraphrase Thomas Pynchon.
[...]
All of this was unusual enough to warrant further investigation into George Eliason’s online identity. A search for his name online turns up social media accounts on Twitter and VK, a popular social media website in Russia. The clunky phrasing of his English posts, especially in comparison to their pristine Russian, suggests that their author is a native Russian speaker. The only personally identifying information displayed on his VK profile asserts that at some point he attended the Middlesex School outside of Boston. When I asked if they had any record of him, Middlesex said they had none whatsoever.
I asked Aleksandra Garmazhapova, a correspondent for the venerable Russian paper Novaya Gazeta and expert on Runet trolls, to weigh in on what effect she thought such trolls might have on public discourse. “Of course, hundreds of identical tweets saying something like ‘Hey Obama, give us back Alaska!’ aren’t going to mold public opinion. But pro-Kremlin bots of a ‘high class’ like Kristina Potupchik, Anton Korobkov-Zemlyanskiy or Konstantin Rykov”—three very popular Russian bloggers —“wield significant influence over the Internet.” Perhaps “George Eliason” is just a middle-tier troll among them, slinging whatever he can.
The killing, destruction, and havoc reaped by the ground war that continues today in Ukraine horrify beyond belief—though many have already stopped paying attention. Of the casualties on truth inflicted in the global information conflict that is its counterpart, however, fewer still have taken note.
With links and more .. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/ukraine-nuclear-radiation-russia-propaganda/
===
Salutin' Putin: inside a Russian troll house
Former workers tell how hundreds of bloggers are paid to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin comments
55 Savushkina Street, St Petersburg, said to be the headquarters of Russia’s ‘troll
army’. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian
This article is 2 years old
Shaun Walker in St Petersburg
Thursday 2 April 2015 19.59 AEDT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house
"Something Stinks Here .. and guess what? go on Guess!"
James Neimeister—
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:36pm | Last updated Dec 11, 2015 at 10:40pm
[...]
Zero Hedge, a blog whose primary editor’s fascination with and use of the pseudonym Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club) accurately sums up its anarcho-capitalist editorial philosophy, has repeatedly posted about various incidents at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, alleging they were all far worse than the authorities will admit. Though rhetorically far-right, Zero Hedge generates most of its hits by churning out unconventional financial news. More often than not, its authors forecast economic doom, and its links are frequently shared on Twitter.
When it comes to the Ukrainian conflict, Zero Hedge tends to be bullish on narratives that make Russia look strong where Ukraine and its Western backers look weak. A post from last October on the “de-dollarizing” Russian economy suggested that the Russian economy was in fact quite healthy after paying down $58.2 billion dollars in foreign debt. The blog gave a fawning re-cap of Putin’s Valdai Speech. And in May, it posted a map of every Russian nationalist’s wet dream of a Russian protectorate stretching from Odessa and Transdnistria in the southwest to Luhansk in the east, asking “Is this what East Ukraine will soon look like?” The actual territory occupied by East Ukrainian rebels is in fact much smaller.
A reactionary blog like Zero Hedge would, at first glance, make for strange bedfellows with another outlet that has been circulating the Zaporizhia power plant rumor—the vaguely left-wing Canadian website known as Global Research. Led by Michel Chossudovsky, a former economics professor at the University of Ottawa whose work assails the IMF, World Bank, and NATO, the publication’s editorial policy generally opposes the neoliberal policies of globalization. But as so often seems to happen with a certain subset of the “anti-imperialist” Left, there comes a point where the circle squares and one becomes “so left-wing you’re right-wing,” to paraphrase Thomas Pynchon.
[...]
All of this was unusual enough to warrant further investigation into George Eliason’s online identity. A search for his name online turns up social media accounts on Twitter and VK, a popular social media website in Russia. The clunky phrasing of his English posts, especially in comparison to their pristine Russian, suggests that their author is a native Russian speaker. The only personally identifying information displayed on his VK profile asserts that at some point he attended the Middlesex School outside of Boston. When I asked if they had any record of him, Middlesex said they had none whatsoever.
I asked Aleksandra Garmazhapova, a correspondent for the venerable Russian paper Novaya Gazeta and expert on Runet trolls, to weigh in on what effect she thought such trolls might have on public discourse. “Of course, hundreds of identical tweets saying something like ‘Hey Obama, give us back Alaska!’ aren’t going to mold public opinion. But pro-Kremlin bots of a ‘high class’ like Kristina Potupchik, Anton Korobkov-Zemlyanskiy or Konstantin Rykov”—three very popular Russian bloggers —“wield significant influence over the Internet.” Perhaps “George Eliason” is just a middle-tier troll among them, slinging whatever he can.
The killing, destruction, and havoc reaped by the ground war that continues today in Ukraine horrify beyond belief—though many have already stopped paying attention. Of the casualties on truth inflicted in the global information conflict that is its counterpart, however, fewer still have taken note.
With links and more .. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/ukraine-nuclear-radiation-russia-propaganda/
===
Salutin' Putin: inside a Russian troll house
Former workers tell how hundreds of bloggers are paid to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin comments
55 Savushkina Street, St Petersburg, said to be the headquarters of Russia’s ‘troll
army’. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian
This article is 2 years old
Shaun Walker in St Petersburg
Thursday 2 April 2015 19.59 AEDT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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