Bewildered in recent years by all the vitriolic hatred directed toward the U.S. from foreigners? Turns out its not all real. The propaganda machine of the Kremlin during Russias communist era known as
Pravda has reinvented itself and is making a resurgence this time through Kremlin Trolls" who litter onine news sites and social media with Vladimir Putins agenda. Yesterday in a huge expose
The New York Times labeled it the biggest trolling operation in history … a highly coordinated disinformation campaign involving dozens of fake accounts that posted hundreds of tweets for hours targeting a list of figures precisely chosen to generate maximum attention."
Going by the innocuous sounding Internet Research Agency" the Troll Factory" is located in an
austere probably Soviet-era gray cement building in St. Petersburg a creepy throwback to the communist era. The shades on the windows are never opened. A video showing employees entering the building and sitting next to each other in the Troll Den" was leaked and posted to
YouTube.
Staffed by mostly young adults eager to make higher than average wages the trolls work in 12-hour shifts with quotas of 135 posts or so per shift. There are an estimated 400 employees. One department is completely devoted to posting on
LiveJournal which is popular in Russia; another one is dedicated to creating images and demotivators" images that denigrate their subject matter. One department deals entirely with Ukrainian propaganda other departments target
The New York Times the BBC and CNN. Even the conservative site
The Blaze has been targeted in its comments section. Popular social media sites trolled include Instagram Twitter and VKontakte which is Russias version of Facebook.
Read the rest of the article at Townhall
