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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. A 2017 report from Freedom House 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 commentors, 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. Governments Israel A global influence campaign funded by the Israeli government had a $1.1 million budget in 2018. Act.IL says it has offices in three countries and an online army of more than 15,000. In its annual report, from January, Act.IL says its goal is to “influence foreign publics” and “battle” BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights. The app directs comments towards news websites in support of Israeli war ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troll (slang)
In slang, a troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, an online video game) or who performs similar behaviors in real life. The methods and motivations of trolls can range from benign to sadistic. These messages can be inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic, and may have the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others' perceptions, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur. The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people. Trolling behaviors involve tactical aggression to incite emotional responses, which can adversely affect the target's well-being. In this context, the noun and the verb forms of "troll" are frequently associated with Internet discourse. Recently, media ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Web Brigades
Russian web brigades, also called Russian trolls, Russian bots, RUbots, Kremlinbots, or Kremlin trolls are State-sponsored Internet propaganda, state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and Internet troll, trolls linked to the Government of Russia, Russian government. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using Sockpuppet (Internet), sockpuppets, social bots, and large-scale orchestrated trolling and Russian disinformation, disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Vladimir Putin, Putin and pro-Russian propaganda. Kremlin trolls are closely tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Saint Petersburg-based company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was a close ally to Putin and head of the mercenary Wagner Group before his death in 2023. Articles on the Russian Wikipedia concerning the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, MH17 crash and the Russo-Ukrainian Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity In The United States
Christianity is the predominant religion in the United States though sources disagree on the numbers. A Gallup survey from 2023 indicates that, of the entire U.S. population (332 million), about 67% is Christian (224 million). The categories used are Protestant, Christian (nonspecific), Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Other, None, and No answer A plurality of Christians in the US identify as Protestant (33% of Americans), the next largest grouping is Roman Catholics (22%), 1% identify as Latter Day Saints, and 11% chose Christian. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2020 United States Elections
Elections in the United States, Elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party's nominee, former Vice presidents of the United States, vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican Party (United States), Republican president Donald Trump in 2020 United States presidential election, the presidential election. Despite losing seats in the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, Democrats retained control of the House and very narrowly gained control of the United States Senate, Senate. As a result, the Democrats obtained a government trifecta, the first time since the elections in 2008 United States elections, 2008 that the party gained unified control of United States Congress, Congress and the presidency. With Trump losing his bid for re-election, he became the first president to have seen his party lose the President of the United States, presidency and control of both the Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Macedonia
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical Macedonia (region), region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians (ethnic group), Macedonians, a South Slavs, South Slavic people. Albanians in North Macedonia, Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks in North Macedonia, Turks, Romani people in North Macedonia, Roma, Serbs in North Macedonia, Serbs, Bosniaks in North Macedonia, Bosniaks, Aromanians in North Macedonia, Aromanians and a few other minorities. The region's history begins with the Paeonia (kingdom), kingdom of Paeonia. In the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age requirement is 14 years. , Facebook claimed almost 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide. , Facebook ranked as the List of most-visited websites, third-most-visited website in the world, with 23% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ihor Kolomoyskyi
Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi (; ; born 13 February 1963) is a Ukrainian-born Israeli billionaire businessman, once considered the leading oligarch in Ukraine. Already an entrepreneur in the last years of Soviet Ukraine, in 2010 Kolomoyskyi was rated as the second richest person in Ukraine, and as one of the country's most influential oligarchs. In 1992, he had co-founded PrivatBank and its informal stable of companies, Privat Group. He subsequently acquired extensive media holdings. Between 2014 and 2016, Kolomoyskyi served as Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast until his dismissal by President Petro Poroshenko. That year, his undercapitalised bank was declared a threat to Ukraine's financial security and taken into state ownership. In 2019, Kolomoyskyi's media power and funding supported Volodymyr Zelenskyy's successful presidential campaign to unseat Poroshenko. In 2020, he was indicted in the United States on charges related to large-scale bank fraud. In 2021, the U.S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rinat Akhmetov
Rinat Leonidovych Akhmetov (born 21 September 1966) is a Ukrainian billionaire and businessman. He is the founder and president of international investment group System Capital Management (SCM), and is the wealthiest man in Ukraine. Akhmetov is the owner and president of the Ukrainian football club FC Shakhtar Donetsk. As of June 2024, he was listed as the 785th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$4 billion. Since 2014, the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has provided 13 million food kits to the residents of Ukraine, and aid has reached more than 18 million people. SCM businesses, the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, and Shakhtar Football Club have collectively provided $315 million (UAH 11.3 billion) to aid the country, its military, and civilians during three years of war. From 2006 to 2007 and 2007–2012, Akhmetov was a member of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament) for the Party of Regions. Early life Rinat Akhmetov was born in Donetsk, Ukrainian SSR, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL operates 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff, 1,300 freelancers, and 680 employees. Nicola Careem serves as the editor-in-chief. Founded during the Cold War, RFE began in 1949 targeting Soviet empire, Soviet satellite states, while RL, established in 1951, focused on the Soviet Union. Initially funded covertly by the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA until 1972, the two merged in 1976. RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich from 1949 to 1995, with additional broadcasts from Portugal's Glória do Ribatejo until 1996. Soviet authorities jammed their signals, and Second World, communist regimes often infiltrated their operations. Today, RFE/RL is a private 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the United States Agency for Global Media, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukrainian Oligarchs
Ukrainian oligarchs () are business oligarchs who emerged on the economic and political scene of Ukraine after the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum. This period saw Ukraine transitioning to a market economy, with the rapid privatization of state-owned assets. Those developments mirrored those of the neighboring post-Soviet states after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Pro-Western sources have criticised Ukraine’s lack of political reform or action against corruption, and the influence of Ukrainian oligarchs on domestic and regional politics, particularly their links to Russia. In 2008, the combined wealth of Ukraine's 50 richest oligarchs was equal to 85% of Ukraine's GDP. In November 2013, this number was 45% (of GDP). Ukrainian GDP fell by 7% in 2014, and shrank 12% in 2015. By 2015, due to the Russo-Ukrainian War, the total net worth of the five richest and most influential Ukrainians at that time ( Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Henadiy Boholyub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AK Trolls
AK Trolls () are anonymous political commentators and trolls on the internet, taking part in Internet manipulation in favor of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey. The youth wing of the Justice and Development Party () is presumed responsible for heading the web brigade, while TÜGVA (Turkey Youth Foundation) members are also recruited. In 2020, X, formerly known as Twitter Safety suspended and archived 7,340 accounts, including fake and compromised accounts tied to the group which pushed pro-AKP narratives, notably advocating for domestic support for the Turkish intervention in Syria as well as narratives critical of opposition parties CHP, the Good Party and HDP. Background AK Trolls came to existence in 2013 after the Gezi Park protests where protesters used social media to organize and publicize protests against the government and the authoritarian tendencies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As a reaction, the AKP recruited 6,000 people to a new social media te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
