I remember seeing people in comment sections in various news sites pointing out Russian trolls

[Quixote1818]

as far back as several years ago. DU seemed to be very aware of them too well before the election heated up. I would see people say "He's a Russian troll" and I never knew if they were just pulling that out of their ass or what. Thinking back tonight got me wondering how so many people on-line knew all these Russian trolls were out there several years ago. Well before Samantha Bee or other news organizations started to mention them. Were there other sources talking about this or were there US intelligence folks in the comment sections warning about the Russian trolls?

Anyone else remember seeing stuff like this several years ago?

On Edit: Youtube was also a hotbed for this! People would say "This video is Russian Propaganda and it's filled with Russian trolls." I will say that when I saw that I looked at the video's differently. I know Russia was majorly involved in Syria War propaganda and their "Fight" against ISIS. They won over a huge number of Republicans with their anti ISIS YouTube propaganda. Don't know how many times I saw people on those videos rip on Obama and talk about how amazing Putin was and how weak Obama was toward ISIS. I knew that shit was BS. It smelled to high heaven but Republicans were eating it up.

I found this video in 10 seconds and the comments are filled with people talking about how awesome Trump and Putin will be against ISIS:

Youtube propaganda to the actual news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/07/russia-airstrikes-syria-not-targetting-isis

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. I occasionally saw stuff on usenet places like alt.news.politics.x, but didn't think much of it then

Now, I look for subtle signs and point them out when I can. I look for arguments that seem slightly out of context, yet pronounced and aggressive. Sometimes, it's how combinations of words are constructed, or it's an adjective that modifies a noun in a way that doesn't fit with the tone of the sentence. Those kinds of "errors" are normally made by folks who use English as a second language and write accordingly. Some posters are really good at it.

[Quixote1818]

2. Maybe comment sections should give away the country of origin of your IP address?

Though I suppose they would figure out a way to get around that?

[ProudLib72]

5. They could cover their tracks

but from what I've been reading, they just don't care who knows. Probably because they realize we have no way of catching them. Plus, their targets, trump supporters, would never question the source of their news.

[L. Coyote]

8. They do. The first thing you do when logging in to work in the morning is mask your IP.

See my post below.

[BigmanPigman]

3. I never underestimate the intelligence

of the average American idiot and have always assumed that the negative replies I have read were from "red state" people and that I must be a close minded "blue state" elitist after all. Until recently I never even heard of the word "troll" except when it was used to describe the Wishnik/troll dolls I had as a kid in the 60s.

[applegrove]

4. I knew there were trolls on the DU in 2013. I just didn't know they were Russian.

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[L. Coyote]

10. There were trolls on DU in 2004, spinning against stolen election.

You could spot them by their misinformation pattern. They were misdirecting everyone's attention while seeming to be upset by the election theft. Political forums are like activist meetings, you can count on not everyone being there for the proper reason.

[herding cats]

13. They weren't all foreign plants.

Some were RWers who exploited the propaganda, others were people who swallowed it whole.

I've kept up with this here even before I understood the debth of the actual issue, and I'm comfortable in saying most weren't direct Putin trolls but a few were.

This is just IMO. It's based on some people I personally encountered using the same talking points verbatim, the same video links and the same lack of willingness to disagree intelligently on anything Putin related. It got weird and I started paying attention and begain connecting things when the Ukraine crisis was taking place.

[JonLP24]

17. Me personally I researched European conflicts going back hundreds of years

Ukraine changed borders so many times Crimea switched back-and-forth until the Soviet Union. Aside from there they are bitter feuds all over European. WW2 never really ended, just continued in all these other conflicts. Far right nationalists are a major force all over Europe including Ukraine which has a problem with discrimination against the ethnic Russian minority in the East & Crimea. Ukraine has been suffering under a Constitutional crisis since 1996, there are very little separation of powers and everything is centrally governed by Kiev. Much like Russia, organized crime have their hooks into their government. After the USSR those two countries were sold out to private interests and poverty, crime, and corruption went up. Politicians used their positions to profit, became billionaires. A judge and his family were beheaded, the contract killings are out of control.

I don't think Putin helps the situation but neither are the vast majority involved in Ukraine government where they want the industrial east. I don't think it's a situation that can be resolved easy particularly with the far right nationalists not just in Ukraine but all over Europe. That is one of the reasons why I'm glad I live here though I'd love to live in either Canada, Sweden, or Scotland (preferably if they split from the UK).

[L. Coyote]

7. NYT June 2015 - "The Factory"

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls”
has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities.

By ADRIAN CHEN JUNE 2, 2015

........... Every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same, Savchuk told me. The first thing employees did upon arriving at their desks was to switch on an Internet proxy service, which hid their I.P. addresses from the places they posted; those digital addresses can sometimes be used to reveal the real identity of the poster. Savchuk would be given a list of the opinions she was responsible for promulgating that day. Workers received a constant stream of “technical tasks” — point-by-point exegeses of the themes they were to address, all pegged to the latest news. Ukraine was always a major topic ............

[world wide wally]

9. If you see something, say something!

Don't let it slide

[MrPurple]

11. I've mainly noticed them in the last year in Youtube, Washpo comment threads

Embarrassed that I've spent much time in those comments sections, but the ones misusing tenses & clauses who clearly aren't native English speakers and arguing intensely all the Trump points have been easy to spot. There were a surprising number of them, but I didn't notice it until the last year.

[BadgerMom]

14. The Washington Post comments had been awful

They still aren't great, but there was a point in Dec or Jan when I read a blurb somewhere saying the Russian bots had been taken off the job. I actually noticed an improvement on some comments sections after that. Real or my perception?

Also, in Dec. the story about Rozneft and Flynn and all the ties were just taking shape. I commented on a DKos diary about Trump and Russia ties. Someone I'd never seen told me I was anti-Russian, stuck in the Cold War. I looked up the user. They were pretty new. They'd signed up in late 2015 or early 2016. All of their comments had been pro-Russia, although not as unmasked as the one to me. I'm not usually confrontational, but I did call out that user. They disappeared. I'm certain I called out a troll.

[herding cats]

12. I saw it, and they were here on DU, too.

Some lasted long enough their commments probably are still archived here on DU. I disagreed often with one long time propaganda troll here who I know finally was banned (before the election, to be clear) and I saw several others pass through during the primaries and the election periods. There was a rise in their joining here during the Ukraine conflict with Russia for sure, and during the primaries.

I'm not speaking of members who disagreed with me, but obvious propaganda trolls misleading people intentionally. It was so blatant it even stood out to me. We also had a recurring (and I believe now suddenly missing last I looked) pro Putin troll who goes back several years. They were active here, on Disqus, The Guardian and other sites I'd traced them to, who suddenly went MIA on the entire internet after the election. They may be active again now, I've not looked in a few months, but this person never took breaks for an extended period of time before. Even before the debth of the Putin propaganda became common knowledge this ones sudden absence struck me as odd.

[JonLP24]

15. I would hope to avoid another "McCarthyism"

Trump's administration ties to foreign intelligence is a legitimate issue (tough I think US has a bad history overall teaming up intelligence agencies much like Bandar Bush).

I just hope it doesn't descend into accusations of being agents. Everyone uses propoganda, and there is a huge perception bias from both sides primary because of the dirty tricks of spy agencies.

[MrPurple]

16. Check out this response

Youtube comments in the last week on a Sam Harris video.

&google_comment_id=z13et3phcpm4d3eij04cgdbxtv2dithq4cc

I'm Adam and just made a one off response and then look at the VERY long, detailed essay it elicited. Is this a brainwashed American supporting the Trump pro-Russian narrative, or a very well spoken, A-team Russian troll? He's very good. How many Americans invest this much in an essay in the Youtube comments section? I notice that many of the trolls adopt the avatar of African Americans (not that this couldn't actually be the person who is pictured).

Adam Gordon1 week ago
Better a neocon than an orange conman.

Ronnie O1 week ago (edited)
Adam Gordon I know its easy to just call Trump an Orange conman, but isn't it really about policy? There was a time when the left in this country would have thought that Neo Conservatism was something horrible (it was under BUSH), but since it was the same foreign policy that Barrack Obama, and Hillary Clinton followed to the letter, it became acceptable to them. It is the strangest thing in the world to see the LEFT banging a drum of war against the Russians. It is as if the world has turned upside down. Additionally, the left has been perfectly content to be in a war in the middle east (against ISIS) with no end, no strategic goal for winning, no plan at all to actually end the mess, and willing to vote for 4 more years with Hillary Clinton is amazing. The attempt to derail the Russian economy, ring them to their borders with NATO, abandonment of the ABM treaty unilaterally, installation of ABM systems presumably to defend against Iran? (a laughable joke), and finally coupled with McCain the idea of arming Ukraine...and recently claiming the hacking of the DNC, if true, is an act of war that should be dealt with in an aggressive manner as if we are really at war with Russia. This is what the left seems more then happy to condone and accept as foreign policy. So along comes the "Orange Conman" with an apparent idea to turn this policy around. Why? because Human rights in Russia should be secondary to building some kind of alliance against Islamic terror, and a potential real threat from the rising great power China currently exists. This all makes perfect sense to anyone with a basic understanding of realist foreign policy. Its about much more then simply labeling Trump an Orange conman. A war with Russia is something the USA does not need, from the most limited form, proxy form, or the most dangerous of direct confrontation even if on a limited battlefield.It would not be good, for the USA, Russia, or the entire world.

Adam Gordon1 hour ago
That's well written, but Obama didn't exactly continue Bush's global policies. He withdrew forces for Iraq and didn't put troops on the ground anywhere else for 8 years. Trump's the one that wants to massively increase military spending, which is a neocon policy. Vlad Putin is the richest man on earth, by a wide margin, through massive corruption in an economy that's less than half the size of California's. It's no improvement to alienate longstanding allies and adopt his interests rather than those of open democracies.

[DetlefK]

18. There was a guy here on DU...

He only posted stuff that made Russia look good and the US look bad and was all about whataboutism. And he refused to engage in discussions when confronted.
He stopped posting on that topic shortly before the election.



And a few years before that we had a guy who wanted to prove what a beautiful country Russia is... by posting night-flight videos over Moscow.