Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2014/06/03/russias-army-of-paid-astrotu.html
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There was probably a fight over who got to be codename: The Ghost of Marius the Giraffe.
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Capitalism fail!
Russian workers find that it’s more profitable to get paid for doing thankless and mundane propaganda work, while anti-Russian commenters continue doing it for free and the greater good of their preferred ideology.
(I don’t even know which side of this discussion I’m trolling)
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Western Imperialist propaganda. Russian Motherland is glorious paradise on the Earth and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is valiant and sexy leader who wrestle bear for fun in spare time. Do your silly Obama have own comic strip?
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Meanwhile, the USA psyops to make pro-Russian commentators sound like Putin’s spies have been uncovered, just as we uncover the Russian psyops to make it look like Russian psyops leaks are USA psyops…
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Very convenient, all this.
So now everybody who speaks up against U.S. policies can neatly be labeled a paid Putin troll…
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Get used to it. Russia pays trolls to astroturf in their favor, Fox News pays trolls to do the same, businesses put fake reviews on Yelp!, and authors and musicians make fake users to write glowing reviews of their own products on amazon.
How does one believe anything? I guess use your brain.
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So, this article asks us to assume that anyone who expresses opinions that are at odds with the standard western media narrative with respect to Russia is a “Kremlin paid troll.” As if people all over the world are unable to see through the corporate media’s ongoing mission to disinform with its anti Russian bias.
Incredible codenames. That is all.
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I don’t think the article – or my writeup of it – does anything of the sort. I have family in Russia and correspondents in Ukraine and it’s trivially obvious that there are people in both countries who support both sides of the debate.
The article says that in addition to whatever natural, heartfelt comments exist online, there is also a massive quantity of psyops work being done by paid shills – just as we know the US and Chinese governments employ.
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Well, there is one guy quoted in the article, one Leonid Bershidsky of the Bloomberg View, who says something like “If it looks like Kremlin shit, and it stinks like Kremlin shit, then it is Kremlin shit.” But that’s a single quoted line out of a fairly lengthy article.
I think you just fed the trolls. 
At least the trolls are getting paid. Was voting today, finding out that one of the leading candidates for US Representatives is doing it for free: http://imgur.com/4i2NMzZ
How does one believe anything? I guess use your brain.
I think track records are important for me. When someone out of the blue pops into a forum and suddenly starts spouting one-sided shit, I get pretty suspicious.
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