Russian web brigades (also called Russian trolls, Russian bots, Kremlin Bots, Kremlins or Rustapar) are
state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and
trolls
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...
linked to the
Government of Russia.
Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international
political blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s and
Internet forums
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
using
sockpuppets,
social bot
A social bot, or also described as a social AI or social algorithm, is a software agent that communicates autonomously on social media. The messages (e.g. tweets) it distributes can be simple and operate in groups and various configurations wit ...
s and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-
Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
and pro-
Russian propaganda
The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government of Russia. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of m ...
.
Articles on the
Russian Wikipedia concerning the
MH17 crash and the
Russo-Ukrainian War
The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets.
In June 2019 a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the Russian-language Wikipedia.
During the war by
Russia against Ukraine in 2022, Kremlin trolls were still active on many social platforms and were spreading
disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...
related to the war events.
Kremlin trolls are closely tied to the
Internet Research Agency
The Internet Research Agency (IRA; russian: Агентство интернет-исследований, translit=Agentstvo internet-issledovaniy), also known as ''Glavset'' (russian: link=no, Главсеть) and known in Russian Internet sla ...
, a Saint Petersburg-based company run by
Yevgeny Prigozhin
Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (russian: link=no, Евгений Викторович Пригожин; born 1 June 1961) is a Russian oligarch and close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was called "Putin's chef" because h ...
, who is known to be a close ally to
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
.
Background
The earliest documented allegations of the existence of "web brigades" appear to be in the April 2003 Vestnik Online article "The Virtual Eye of
Big Brother" by
French journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
politician
Galina Starovoitova
Galina Vasilyevna Starovoitova (russian: Гали́на Васи́льевна Старово́йтова; 17 May 1946, in Chelyabinsk – 20 November 1998, in Saint Petersburg) was a Soviet dissident, Russian politician and ethnographer known ...
) and two other authors, Andrey Krivov and Ivan Lomako. The authors claim that up to 1998, contributions to forums on Russian Internet sites (
Runet
Runet (russian: Рунет), a portmanteau of ru (code for both the Russian language and Russia's top-level domain) and net/network, is the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. The term Runet was coined in Israel in the sp ...
) predominantly reflected
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
and
democratic values, but after 2000, the vast majority of contributions reflected
totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
values. This sudden change was attributed to the appearance of teams of pro-Russian commenters who appeared to be organized by the
Russian state security service.
[''Virtual Eye of the Big Brother''](_blank)
by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003[''Eye for an eye'']
by Grigory Svirsky and Vladimur Bagryansky, publication of the Russian Center for Extreme Journalis
/ref> According to the authors, about 70% of Russian Internet posters were of generally liberal views prior to 1998–1999, while a surge of "antidemocratic" posts (about 60–80%) suddenly occurred at many Russian forums in 2000. This could also be a reflection to the fact that access to Internet among the general Russian population soared during this time, which was until then accessible only to some sections of the society.
In January 2012, a hacktivist
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in h ...
group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous published a massive collection of email allegedly belonging to former and present leaders of the pro-Putin youth organization Nashi (including a number of government officials). Journalists who investigated the leaked information found that the pro-Putin movement had engaged in a range of activities including paying commentators to post content and hijacking blog ratings in the fall of 2011.["Kremlin's Blogshop"]
by Anastasia Karimova. Kommersant Dengi, February 13, 2012 The e-mails indicated that members of the "brigades" were paid 85 rubles (about US$3) or more per comment, depending on whether the comment received replies. Some were paid as much as 600,000 roubles (about US$21,000) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative press articles on the internet, and were presented with iPads. A number of high-profile bloggers were also mentioned as being paid for promoting Nashi and government activities. The Federal Youth Agency, whose head (and the former leader of Nashi) Vasily Yakemenko
Vasily Grigoryevich Yakemenko (russian: Василий Григорьевич Якеменко, born 1971 in Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union) is a Russian politician, creator and leader of several pro-government youth groups.
Career
From 1 ...
was the highest-ranking individual targeted by the leaks, refused to comment on the authenticity of the e-mails.
In 2013, a Freedom House report stated that 22 of 60 countries examined have been using paid pro-government commentators to manipulate online discussions, and that Russia has been at the forefront of this practice for several years, along with China and Bahrain.[Russia's Online-Comment Propaganda Army](_blank)
''The Atlantic'', by Olga Khazan, 9 October 2013 In the same year, Russian reporters investigated the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency
The Internet Research Agency (IRA; russian: Агентство интернет-исследований, translit=Agentstvo internet-issledovaniy), also known as ''Glavset'' (russian: link=no, Главсеть) and known in Russian Internet sla ...
(IRA), which employs at least 400 people. They found that the agency covertly hired young people as "Internet operators" paid to write pro-Russian postings and comments, smearing opposition leader Alexei Navalny
Alexei Anatolievich Navalny ( rus, links=no, Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, , ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ nɐˈvalʲnɨj; born 4 June 1976) is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption act ...
and U.S. politics and culture.["Internet Troll Operation Uncovered in St. Petersburg"](_blank)
''The St. Petersburg Times'', by Sergey Chernov, 18, September,2013[Ukraine conflict: Inside Russia's 'Kremlin troll army'](_blank)
BBC
Some Russian opposition journalists state that such practices create a chilling effect on the few independent media outlets remaining in the country.
Further investigations were performed by Russian opposition newspaper '' Novaya Gazeta'' and Institute of Modern Russia in 2014–15, inspired by the peak of activity of the pro-Russian brigades during the Russo-Ukrainian War
The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
and assassination of Boris Nemtsov. The effort of using "troll armies" to promote Putin's policies is reported to be a multimillion-dollar operation. According to an investigation by the British '' Guardian'' newspaper, the flood of pro-Russian comments is part of a coordinated " informational-psychological war operation". One Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
bot network was documented to use more than 20,500 fake Twitter accounts to spam negative comments after the death of Boris Nemtsov and events related to the Ukrainian conflict.
An article based on the original Polyanskaya article, authored by the Independent Customers' Association, was published in May 2008 at Expertiza.Ru. In this article the term ''web brigades'' is replaced by the term ''Team "G"''.
During his presidency, Donald Trump retweeted a tweet by a fake account operated by Russians. In 2017, he was among almost 40 celebrities and politicians, along with over 3,000 global news outlets, identified to have inadvertently shared content from Russian troll-farm accounts.
Methods
Web brigades commentators sometimes leave hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers.[Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America](_blank)
buzzfeed Commentators simultaneously react to discussions of "taboo" topics, including the historical role of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, political opposition, dissidents such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, murdered journalists, and cases of international conflict or rivalry (with countries such as Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, and Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, but also with the foreign policies of the United States and the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
). Prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev
Peter Pomerantsev (; born Pyotr Igorevich Pomerantsev, russian: Пётр Игоревич Померанцев, label=none; born 1977) is a Soviet-born British journalist, author and TV producer. He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global ...
believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it. He states that they cannot censor information but can "trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours".
To avert suspicions, the users sandwich political remarks between neutral articles on travelling, cooking and pets. They overwhelm comment sections of media to render meaningful dialogue impossible.
A collection of leaked documents, published by Moy Rayon, suggests that work at the "troll den" is strictly regulated by a set of guidelines. Any blog post written by an agency employee, according to the leaked files, must contain "no fewer than 700 characters" during day shifts and "no fewer than 1,000 characters" on night shifts. Use of graphics and keywords in the post's body and headline is also mandatory. In addition to general guidelines, bloggers are also provided with "technical tasks" – keywords and talking points on specific issues, such as Ukraine, Russia's internal opposition and relations with the West. On an average working day, the workers are to post on news articles 50 times. Each blogger is to maintain six Facebook accounts publishing at least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice a day. By the end of the first month, they are expected to have won 500 subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter, the bloggers are expected to manage 10 accounts with up to 2,000 followers and tweet 50 times a day.
Timeline
In 2015, Lawrence Alexander disclosed a network of propaganda websites sharing the same Google Analytics identifier and domain registration details, allegedly run by Nikita Podgorny from Internet Research Agency. The websites were mostly meme repositories focused on attacking Ukraine, Euromaidan, Russian opposition and Western policies. Other websites from this cluster promoted president Putin and Russian nationalism, and spread alleged news from Syria presenting anti-Western and pro- Bashar al-Assad viewpoints.
In August 2015, Russian researchers correlated Google search statistics of specific phrases with their geographic origin, observing increases in specific politically loaded phrases (such as "Poroshenko", "Maidan", "sanctions") starting from 2013 and originating from very small, peripheral locations in Russia, such as Olgino, which also happens to be the headquarters of the Internet Research Agency
The Internet Research Agency (IRA; russian: Агентство интернет-исследований, translit=Agentstvo internet-issledovaniy), also known as ''Glavset'' (russian: link=no, Главсеть) and known in Russian Internet sla ...
company. The Internet Research Agency also appears to be the primary sponsor of an anti-Western exhibition Material Evidence
''Material Evidence'' (Russian: Вещдоки) is an international exhibition first presented in Russia in 2013 by Vladislav Shurigin and Denis Tukmakov with direct financial support from ''Zhurnalistskaya Pravda'' (Journalistic Truth), a Moscow ...
.
Since 2015, Finnish reporter Jessikka Aro has inquired into web brigades and Russian trolls. In addition, Western journalists have referred to the phenomenon and have supported traditional media.
In May 2019, it was reported that a study from the George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...
found that Russian Twitter bots had tried to inflame the United States' anti-vaccination debate by posting opinions on both sides in 2018.
In June 2019 a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the Russian-language Wikipedia. In July 2019 two operatives of the Internet Research Agency were detained in Libya and charged with attempting to influence local elections. They were reportedly employees of Alexander Malkevich, manager of USA Really, a propaganda website.
In 2020, the research firm Graphika published a report detailing one particular Russian disinformation group codenamed "Secondary Infektion" (alluding to 80's Operation Infektion
Operation INFEKTION was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Historian ...
) operating running since 2014. Over 6 years the group published over 2,500 items in seven languages and to over 300 platforms such as social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit) and discussion forums. The group specialized in highly divisive topics regarding immigration, environment, politics, international relations and frequently used fake images presented as "leaked documents".
Starting in February 2022, a special attempt was made to back the Russian war in Ukraine. Particular effort was made to target Facebook and YouTube.
War in Ukraine 2022
In May 2022, during the Russian war with Ukraine the trolls allegedly hired by Internet Research Agency (IRA) had reportedly extended their foothold into TikTok, spreading misinformation on war events and attempting to question or sow doubt about the Ukraine war. Authentic-looking profiles had allegedly hundreds of thousands of followers. IRA was reported to be active across different platforms, including Instagram and Telegram.
See also
Similar operations in other countries
* 50 Cent Party
The 50 Cent Party, also known as the 50 Cent Army or ( ), are Internet commentators who are paid by the authorities of the People's Republic of China to spread the propaganda of the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was created durin ...
- China
* AK Trolls
AK Trolls ( tr, AK Trol, AK Troller) are state-sponsored anonymous political commentators and trolls on the internet, as well as recruited TUGVA (Turkey Youth Foundation) members by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the current government ...
– Turkey
* Hasbara – Israel
* Internet Water Army – China
* Jewish Internet Defense Force
The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) was an organization that used social media to mobilize support for campaigns against websites and Facebook groups that promote or praise what it described as Islamic terrorism or antisemitism. The group's ...
– Israel
* Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) is a unit of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British intelligence agency. The existence of JTRIG was revealed as part of the global surveillance disclosures in documents le ...
– United Kingdom
* Little Pink
Little Pink () or Pinkie is a term used to describe young jingoistic Chinese nationalists on the internet.
The term Little Pink originated on the website (), when a group of users kept strongly criticizing people who published posts containing n ...
– China
* Operation Earnest Voice – United States
* Public opinion brigades The public opinion brigades ( vi, Dư luận viên) is a state-sponsored web brigade of the Communist Party of Vietnam or linked to the Communist Government of Vietnam.
Similar to Russia's web brigades and China's 50 Cent Army, participants repo ...
– Vietnam
* Voluntary Agency Network of Korea
VANK (반크), an acronym for Voluntary Agency Network of Korea ( ko, 사이버 외교사절단), is an Internet-based South Korean organization funded by the Korean government and established in 1999, consisting of 120,000 South Korean members an ...
- South Korea
Related topics
* Active measures
* Cyberwarfare by Russia
Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of ...
* Fake news website
Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news websites) are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news— hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and ...
* Social media in the 2016 United States presidential election
Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events leading up to, during, and after the 2016 United States presidential election. It enabled people to have a greater interaction with the political climate, controversies, and n ...
* State-sponsored Internet propaganda State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state.
Asia-Pacific
*: The former government of Afghanistan used a state-sponsored Internet troll army to push their narrative and exaggerate Afgha ...
* Troll farm
A troll farm or troll factory is an institutionalised group of internet trolls that seeks to interfere in political opinions and decision-making.
One study showed that 30 governments worldwide (out of 65 covered by the study) paid keyboard armies ...
Notes
References
External links
I started Occupy Wall Street. Russia tried to co-opt me
Micah White, The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
.
Literature
* Jolanta Darczewska: ''The Anatomy of Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation, a Case Study''. Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2014,
PDF
* Peter Pomerantsev
Peter Pomerantsev (; born Pyotr Igorevich Pomerantsev, russian: Пётр Игоревич Померанцев, label=none; born 1977) is a Soviet-born British journalist, author and TV producer. He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global ...
& Michael Weiss: ''The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money''. The Institute of Modern Russia, New York 2014
PDF
{{DEFAULTSORT:Web Brigades
Internet manipulation and propaganda
Russian political websites
Public relations techniques
Psychological warfare techniques
Propaganda techniques by medium
Cyberwarfare
Disinformation operations
Federal Security Service
Internet trolling