Previously, they were hired to annoy the readers of opposition diaries. Now the cache of the troll is a reason to close the media, convicting it in extremism. "New" reveals the technology of the work of Internet muzors

Previously, they were hired to annoy the readers of opposition diaries. Now the cache of the troll is a reason to close the media, convicting it in extremism. "New" reveals the technology of the work of Internet muzors

It is believed that Internet trolls are harmless creatures. But this is a myth. Because their activities, which causes only irritation among the reading public, can actually seriously complicate the life of any media. The chain is as follows: an evil post with an extremism hint in the comments on the not very readable article on the newspaper website, which journalists may not notice. Step two: Roskomvyaznadzor finds this work of troller art and rolls out a claim. Indeed, according to new amendments to a variety of laws, the editors are now responsible for the opinions of readers, which the readers themselves posted on the official website of the publication. The way out - either close the forums, or - hire the staff of “troll hunters”, who would be engaged in the fact that they monitored reader activity. Both are problematic for any edition, but there is nowhere to go: a warning may follow from the supervisory authority, when repeated by the closing of the media.

True, the main purpose of the trolls is to create such a powerful ideological noise so that common sense is lost in it, and people not very versed in politics would understand it even less. Which, too, you see, is not perceived.

Some artifacts from the life of the trolls were at the disposal of the “New”, having analyzed which, firstly, to assume who pays them, and secondly, to understand what in recent years the main trend of the Internet is.

Actually, an experienced person can immediately recognize a frenzied rodent-they are usually given out by the “caplok”, numerous exclamation signs, vulgar pictures and demotivators. You can’t immediately see the experienced “hamsters” - on the contrary, the comments look absolutely adequately, as if they were written by ordinary readers, simply disagreeable with the opposition. We managed to talk with several pro garbage front, which talked about the scheme of their work. Our interlocutors wished to stay incognito (although the names are known for the editors), as they count on new orders - nothing personal, only business.

The widest mobilization of the trolls came, as one of our interlocutors says, at the beginning of 2012 - the peak of the rally activity, which had to be opposed due to the proximity of the presidential election.

The troll project was designed for two months and furnished in the style of espionage detectives. Near the Proletarskaya metro station they rented an inconspicuous room, laptops and flash drives were given to the coordinators (so that all the information was stored only on them, and at the end of the project they could be seized), work only in the office, where it was forbidden to carry their own devices. Real names colleagues-gryzes did not call each other, inventing fictional.

In the morning, tasks were distributed by the coordinator who defined trend topics, followed the posts of famous bloggers and articles in the media. During the day, “hamsters”, changing accounts, left up to 800 comments on the entire team. The accounts received wisely, unlike many other trolling campaigns-they were not started specifically (as a rule, “naked” pages on social networks arouse suspicion), but they bought from real people who already had some kind of history of records and photographs to look natural. (Many, by the way, are still active: in some places recently appeared posts criticizing the Rain TV channel-our interlocutor revealed these accounts to us.)

The main topics of the tasks of spring 2012: discrediting opposition rallies, ridicule of presidential candidates (well, except one, of course), criticism of Navalny, support for Putin ... Work was carried out on several fronts: on pro-government Internet sites, opposition and neutral.

The first group includes blogs of public figures, loyal authorities, such as, for example, a live magazine of the former commissar of the Nashi movement, Christina Podment or traditionally approved the initiative of the authorities of Tina Kandelaki. According to the terms, the trolls had to follow the general mood of the commentators, admire the current president, to assent and fiercely move on to those who disagree with the opinion of the author.

A typical example of such a work (taken from the blog of a dungeon): “People are used to seeing only bad ones, and no one notices how much good things are happening around! <...> Yes, there are jambs, but you just need to work on them! "

Famous opposition bloggers: Navalny, Yashin, Adagamov, Aleshkovsky ... From trolls for work in the "enemy environment" demanded thoughtfulness - it was important to impress adequate people who simply adhere to a different point of view. An example of a post from “hamsters” ( February 8, 2012 ) in Navalny LJ: “We will remain and we won’t surrender our positions. And if you dream with Leshka, so fall off the hamburgers to eat - and here the minds do not indulge. ”

But for trolling groups in social networks that united opposition activists, it was necessary to allow a little fury: their favorite chip-scabbling demotivators with the same Navalny, Sobchak, Yashin, Nemtsov ... Most of their VKontakte-because specialists worked on the trolling project: after all, this social network is popular among schoolchildren and students The first courses that needed to be available to explain that rallies are suck.

Demotivators, which, probably, many remember, the hamsters painted themselves. Here is one of them: Navalny with a poster - “I'm going! The march of disagreements! March "Moscow - Russian City"! Green march! PS I generally love marches. ” And the signature below: "I generally love when they pay me." Or - a collage from photographs of Navalny, Nemtsov, Zyuganov, Prokhorov and Chirikova. Signature: "We are so different, but they pay us from one pocket."

Typical comments on social networks: “What is the“ swamp ”? That's exactly that those who jumped in the swamp. Just in recent years, a lot has been done so that it is more convenient for people-and the queues in kindergartens and schools have become electronic to create less problems for people ... ”(from the Facebook account“ Echo of Moscow ”).

The third group includes mainly the media: “Kommersant”, “Lenta.ru”, “Vedomosti”, “Rain” ... The same category includes (surprisingly!) And automobile pages: Hampers managed for Putin’s owners of BMW and Volkswagen owners.

An example of a troll post from the account of the Kommersant website known to us: “Putin is now a responsible position, and he is unlikely to have free time to debate with the same Prokhorov. Or is Putin a vacation, or something, to take for a month, in order to participate in the election campaign completely? These debates are so funny to watch. ”

The project coordinators very quickly reacted to “top” posts in LJ and Internet publication, rapidly changing the direction of the main blow of their sabotage groups. For example, the Elephant portal publishes an interview with Alexander Lebedev, in which the businessman says: "Navalny is beneficial for the authorities, but she still did not understand this." The reaction of the troll: "Someone is beneficial, although Alexei only does that he is promoting himself." In Komsomolskaya Pravda, an article by Vladimir Putin is published - the trolls are immediately transferred to this front: “We need Putin. We will lie for him with bones. ” On the same day, Kommersant prints an article in which representatives of the Voter League criticize the coverage of the activities of candidates for the president’s post. For Vladimir Putin, who at that time did not get off the screens, the right “hamsters” stood up: “The duties of the prime minister are included in the country, through difficult regions. Do not confuse the election campaign with the daily duties of the prime minister. ” The trolls of the head of the CEC Vladimir Churov were also delighted: he then proposed to remove all the restrictions on the election campaign, which was written by Lente.ru. This idea delighted trolls: “Why are these restrictions are needed for? Too many prohibitions - too many problems with their introduction and punishment ”( unexpected thought! - approx. Ed. ).

At the end of the day, each hired troll made “screenshots” of his comments and sent a special person who brought them to a single reporting. Payment - weekly, in envelopes. And in the "Green", as our interlocutor says (the original decision for a project that criticized everything American). The troll could earn up to $ 500 a week. If we believe our source, which assures that the number of special teams was ten people, add the cost of renting an office, then a very solid amount came out a month - about 600 thousand rubles, and this is excluding payment for the work of coordinators and purchased office equipment.

Both our interlocutor and other trolls from this team that we managed to contact, suggest that the former journalist from Omsk - Kines Kiziyitov was responsible for the project - they pointed us to his photograph. If you believe open sources, for some time he wrote to RBC Daily, at present-the general director of the Apostle Media Group analytical agency, which, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, is related to the famous propagandist Tina Kandelaki.

We contacted Mr. Kiziytov, told him what we know. In response, he stated that “information is incorrect”: “I am interested in SMM only as a media analyst and a user of the blogosphere, alas.” Our source, however, insists on his own.

Troll St. Petersburg

It would be wrong to say that with a decline in rally activity, trolls also calm down. After almost two years, the scheme described by us continues to work, only the terms of technical buildings became more specifically.

In September last year, the correspondent of Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg managed to penetrate the real nest of trolls, for which the mansion near the Olgino railway station was removed. There, people littering on the Internet worked three shifts - the load of 100 comments per day.

The curators now not only outline the list of those that need to be affected, but also make sketches in the form of comment options so that the trolls better understand what thoughts should be promoted to the masses. At the end of last year, for example, they actively tried to “touch” the Syrian conflict. There were several basic messages: Putin - well done (“The world sighed in relief when he saw how decisively the Russian president acts in the Syrian question” ), the USA - the embodiment of universal evil (“ The USA today does not hide that they spend a large amount of money on the organization of revolutions in countries in which they would like to have a special influence” and separately: Obama, which coincided with an attempt to discredit the American presidential presidential At the summit in St. Petersburg ("New" wrote in detail about this, suggesting that the same PR restorers from Concord are behind the campaign).

Pussy Riot and Mikhail Khodorkovsky also bothered St. Petersburg trolls. When Nadezhda Tolokonnikova announced a hunger strike, the “hamsters” threw away such examples of comments: “Apparently, she or her husband had a new shocking plan. Just take and get out of prison - it’s so uninteresting, it is necessary to create a stir around your own person. ” And Mikhail Khodorkovsky, according to the plan of the leaders of trolling, was supposed to look like a person who periodically suffers from paranoia about the lack of attention to his person (the reason for these comments was Khodorkovsky’s letter to Tolokonnikova and Alekhina).

Now trolls not only comment on other people's articles and notes, but also lead blogs themselves. For the reporting and attracting attention of colleagues, who will then inflate the discussion on a particular resource, it is required to allocate keywords in each post with fat print, for example: “Putin”, “Syria”, “Opposition”, “Obama”, “Euromaidan”. In order not to burn, Troly bloggers must dilute their living magazines with entries about sports or culture.

The main topics of trolls-bloggers of the end of 2013: “The United States will break up in the same way as perestroika of the USSR”; "The USA in the pit of the political and economic crisis." Several quotes: “I practically did not have to wait for the United States to open its true face, because only the most lazy person could not notice the participation of the West in the events of Euromaidan, which are taking place in Ukraine.” Keywords - “Euromaidan”, “Association”, “Ukraine”, “Opposition Action” - are allocated fat for commentators.

Reports on the work of trolls are also drawn up daily. But unlike Moscow, not with screenshots, but with the help of extracts with links confirming the publication. A separate table summarizes: opposite the name of the troll name, the number of his comments per day is indicated. Sometimes-postscribes: “From them that do not correspond to the TK” (technical task)-so much. On average, the troll accounts for about 200 comments per week.

Thus, it can be assumed that the expenses of St. Petersburg Internet sabotage are comparable to Moscow, if they do not exceed them. And even if all this activity is a hobby of individual “patriots”, and not an order from any structure of the Presidential Administration, it is obvious that such a private initiative makes sense only if it can be converted under the expenditure article “Loyalty spending” into any business-officials. It's funny: someone is sitting on bayonets, someone on oil, and someone on trolls ...