Talk:Putin's Troll Factory

More sources
I asked for links to sources in an Finnish language Facebook group named "Russia's Troll Army". Unfortunately most of them are in Finnish.
 * https://www.facebook.com/groups/389891377829035/permalink/484395465045292/

Mark Ames has a good list of sources in English: -- Petri Krohn (talk) 08:41, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Kremlin’s comment trolls are real — as is the media’s amnesia about them - Mark Ames, Pando, April 2, 2015

Regimes and their Troll Factories
No clue whether those details are factually accurate;-but seems to be a generic problem affecting all media, not only the Putin trolls... --Resup (talk) 18:49, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

If it's as alleged, basically some Russian folks were paid moneys to make social media comments, and given some guidance by bosses how. How is that different from a Western media job? It's perhaps cruder (direct instruction instead of subtler conditioning). Also there may be a close link of those moneys and control to the government (either directly or via a commercial go-between). While in the West, those imposed narratives are not directly from the government, but rather from some fuzzy centers of actual power, self-organized to protect and promote themselves. Is it really all that different? More like us vs them, but from an individual moral perspective, both ways are wrong --Resup (talk) 17:45, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Media Wars
UK Army is setting up a new unit that will use psychological operations and social media to help fight wars "in the information age" BBC, 31.1.15

Around 20.3. 15, Europeans Agree to counter Russian Propaganda.... "The US government has taken similar steps to increase broadcasting". "Last October, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in collaboration with Voice of America, launched a news program “Current Time” aimed at countries bordering Russia" (with some paid social media  positions advertised -how is this different from trolling? ...). "The success of the West in the Cold War with truthful news and information to audiences behind the Iron Curtain shows the way forward"--that one, going to be a tough sell, -people once got excited about that sort of 'truthful news and information', and saw the huge collapse, and all that self-serving profit-taking opportunism that came on the heels of it...That was about a weapon, not about the truth... --Resup (talk) 23:14, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

[http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2134417.html Free Russia, Plan of information and psychological operation. Cassad, 10.4.15] --Resup (talk) 05:48, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

'Alt-med'

 * Clueless Aby Martin's RT gig (video), March 3, 2014
 * "In her comment Ms. Martin also noted that she does not possess a deep knowledge of reality of the situation in Crimea. As such we’ll be sending her to Crimea to give her an opportunity to make up her own mind from the epicentre of the story." 
 * Miss Martin however told the Telegraph: "I am not going to Crimea despite the statement RT has made." (stayed on at RT for a while)
 * --Resup (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Debunk
The "Putin trolls" story from West is completely fake !!

Exposed! > Here is original article + archive article, same person, different name, age etc. scroll down>> pays attention to Photo & Name(s) (same photo) was used, with a different name for East-Stories! His Wish is to get permanence Visa > Switzerland Source -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Der @tagesanzeiger stellt sich selbst ein Bein

Major 'Novaya Gazeta' ruckus, Oct. 2018
Noted. Those publications appeared in politically highly charged environment, in the West (mid-term elections, Mueller report in the USA), in UK (Skripal), Syria (chemical weapons allegations), and Russia (internal tensions build-up). On face value, claims contained in those publications are major, and involve allegations of (unspecified) poisons used on opponents (bloggers screen names provided)+ allegations of trials on innocents in Syria (names not provided), disappearance of the (named) source providing those allegations, and threats to Novaya Gazeta and the (named) reporter who published the story (head of a ram and funeral buckeye, delivered to the office by unknowns). I cannot really tell whether this is genuine. It might be, but also highly charged environment and easiness of fabrications (by third parties, say) should be taken into account; plus past eagerness of Novaya Gazeta to be at the very forefront of Western media campaigns targeting Russia. --Resup (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Dmitry Bykov poem, a dream about a ram (a mini-masterpiece), Novaya Gazeta, October 20, 2018
 * Повар любит поострее ('The cook likes its spicy'), by Denis Korotkov, Novaya Gazeta, October 20, 2018 (the allegations)
 * New threats to Novaya Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta, October 18, 2018 (with photo of the ram head)
 * Peskov: The Kremlin has seen an article about the structures of Prigogine, but the data from it are not confirmed -TASS, October 22, 2018

25 October. Key witness (Amelchenko), who according to Novaya Gazeta was kidnapped, turned up at a police station, asked to stop the search (started after the publication), and stated that no crime against him was committed (Fontanka). The rest of Fontanka article is providing support to the Novaya journalist who broke the story and is said to receive threats. In a different publication, a handwritten testimony said to be Amelchenko testimony to the police is published. In that handwritten document, Amelchenko appears to say that he agreed to give fake interviews in exchange for money, and that the journalist (Korotkov) supplied him with texts which he had to memorize and retell back to Korotkov. (No independent confirmation of the story is available) --Resup (talk) 12:44, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Romanian click-bait factories
It has long been established that much of the click-bait on the Internet comes from Romania and Bulgaria. Here is a blogpost from 2016, that claims that Italy is ruled by a hoaxocracy. It may be that Romanian click-bait factories first started producing click-bait in Italian and only later moved to English. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 09:40, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
 * When the Internet makes democracy a hoax - Vittorio Bertola, December 31, 2016