20th+: Disruptive Trolling

Societal Manipulation

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American adversaries such as Russia and China are using cyber-enabled deception operations to spread divisive messages. In 2016, Houston’s Islamic Da’wah Center became the site of two dueling protests, both of which began in online communities formed by a Kremlin-backed organization. Discovering and calling out specific disinformation campaigns can be difficult, but by increasing awareness that our adversaries are actively trying to inflame divisions in our society, we can begin to counter these insidious efforts.

A troll farm or troll factory is an institutionalised group of internet trolls that seeks to interfere in political opinions and decision-making.

In Internet communication, a troll is defined as a person who provokes disputes, e.g. by raising controversial topics or attacking other participants. However, a troll factory is an entity conducting disinformation propaganda activities on the Internet. This activity is often concealed under an inconspicuous name, e.g. public relations agency, Internet research centre, etc. The operations of troll factories are usually focused on the political or economic sphere. The aim of the operations may be e.g. attacking political opponents, unfairly attacking a competing company or other action indicated by the ordering party. Troll factories achieve their goals using, among other things, fake news and hate speech.

One study showed that 30 governments worldwide (out of 65 covered by the study) paid keyboard armies to spread propaganda and attack critics. According to the report, these governments use paid commentators, trolls, and bots to harass journalists and erode trust in the media. Attempts were made to influence elections in 18 of the countries covered by the study.

The Russian web brigades, including Internet Research Agency, became known in the late 2010s for the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The Internet Research Agency has employed troll armies to spread propaganda, command Twitter trends, and sow fear and erode trust in American political and media institutions.

Russian “troll farms”—groups of organized online agitators—identify grievances in other countries and then insert themselves into those debates with the aim of inflaming them. Rather than promoting any one political ideology, professional Russian trolls instead focus on fanning Americans’ emotions around heated topics such as gun control or immigration, and then pitting Americans against Americans. The tactic is—literally—divide and conquer.

During the 2020 United States presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic, Turning Point USA and its affiliate Turning Point Action were described as troll farms for paying young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona, some of them minors with parental support, to post misinformation about the integrity of the electoral process and the threat of COVID-19. The payout included bonuses for posts that generated greater engagement. They used their own social media accounts or fake accounts without disclosing their relationship with Turning Point and were instructed by Turning Point to slightly alter and repost the modified messages a limited number of times to avoid automatic detection.

The Great Translation Movement (大翻译运动; Dà Fānyì Yùndòng) is an online anti-war movement launched during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seeks to expose perceived pro-Russian, anti-American, anti-Japanese, and anti-Western sentiment and Chinese irredentism over claimed territories such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as racially discriminatory sentiments in China, the life in cities under lockdown due to the zero-COVID policy and the policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by translating government propaganda and policies, anti-Western public opinion and postings on life in the cities during lockdown found on the Chinese internet and public announcements into other languages, including English, Japanese, French, Korean, and Spanish. The Guardian has pointed out that the Great Translation Movement has been a source for English-language speakers to understand the Chinese state media's reaction towards Russian invasion of Ukraine.

50 Cent Party, 50 Cent Army and wumao are terms for Internet commentators who are hired by the authorities of the People's Republic of China to manipulate public opinion and disseminate disinformation to the benefit of the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The name is derived from the allegation that such commentators are paid RMB¥0.50 for every post. It was created during the early phases of the Internet's rollout to the wider public in China.

Authors of a paper published in 2017 in the American Political Science Review estimate that the Chinese government fabricates 488 million social media posts per year. Research by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Diego indicated a "massive secretive operation" to fill China's Internet with propaganda, and has resulted in some 488 million posts written by fake social media accounts, representing about 0.6% of the 80 billion posts generated on Chinese social media. To maximize their influence, such pro-government comments are made largely during times of intense online debate, and when online protests have a possibility of transforming into real life actions. The colloquial term wumao has also been used by some English speakers outside of China as an insult against people with perceived pro-CCP bias

Media - (Dis)Information - Security - Troll Factories pdf

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, here: https://www.hoover.org/research/spies....

“Why Cyber Is Different,” https://www.policyed.org/intellection....

“How Cyber Attacks Threaten Our Security” https://www.policyed.org/intellection.... “Crowdsourcing and the Mobs,” https://www.hoover.org/research/crowd....

“Threats Never Sleep,” https://www.hoover.org/research/threa... .

Bibliography

Aro, J. (2016), The Cyberspace War: Propaganda and Trolling as Warfare Tools, European View, (15), 121–132.

Bernal, P. (2018), The Internet, Warts and All: Free Speech, Privacy and Truth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Lehto, M., Neittaanmäki, P. (Eds.) (2018), Cyber Security: Power and Technology, Springer, Cham.

Duskaeva, L.R., Konyaeva, L.R. (2016), Trolling in Russian Media, Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, (4), 58–67.

Karpan, A. (2018), Troll Factories: Russia’s Web Brigades, Greenhaven Publishing, New York.

Cliodynamic Analysis of History: End Times (2023) ..