Nice piece in the Washington Post about a Russian, former employee of a *troll factory* in St. Petersburg, Russia. The guy was an unemployed teacher who had taken the gig to make himself enough rubles to tide himself over until he got a teaching job. He speaks English but, not well enough to pass himself off as an American so, he worked the floor that concentrated on trolling local Russian sites. To make more money and work the American sites, one had to be better versed in American life than he was. You had to be able to speak American as an American would and be familiar with all things American to make the big money, influencing American elections.
It seems the Russians work sorta similar to how Topix trolls work. They worked the Russians in threes at least. One person would take a contrary stance and the other two would work to convince him of how wrong he was. After a number of posts, he'd be convinced of how wrong he was. A Moscow Miracle!
Topix trolls, though they do work in teams, were more streamlined and frugal than the Russians. On Topix it's usually one troll playing several roles. Yeah, basically one person talking to his or her selves, hoping someone else bites. They used to have teams- the original Chicago Regulars were an example of that- but, if that wasn't too expensive(?) it was a lot of trouble. I was invited to join the Yahoo group where they gathered to get their marching orders each day about what would be the topic of conversation but, I declined. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on then but, I knew I didn't want to be a part of any organization that would have a very thinly drawn out *therapist* as the head of it. I've got some writing talent and it's nice that folks notice that. I wasn't exactly honored to be nominated but, I definitely wasn't going to serve. Of course, someone wasn't happy about that.
I didn't know what they were trying to accomplish. With the Russians they were at least obviously trying to reinforce political harmony at home and sow discord in the US. Though Topix gets political and nearly every troll there is a misfit republican, there never seemed to be a political goal at all. Nothing clear. Even in it's heyday back up until '09, Topix never had that much of a following as to influence a good number of people. I can still only surmise that, in the case of the Chicago Regulars, the agenda was only to masturbate the *therapist*. Maybe help pad the post count for Topix itself. Not a very ambitious or even nefarious agenda. It's kinda like some of the celebrities who recently were caught buying Twitter followers. If you gotta cheat...
I haven't posted on Topix in like 14 months. I look at it from time to time though. It can move at the glacial pace of a soap opera. The same people are still fighting about the same stupid things they been fighting, some for more than ten years. As I mentioned previously, some are arguing with the voices in their head just as they always did. Mental illness is what keeps the lights on in that troll factory as the bulk of the very few posters there are decidedly mentally ill. I don't actually mean that malevolently like these people are school-shooters or anything like that. I just mean that they are idiots is all.
Topix was just not a good model for the Russians to follow. We can't even TROLL as good as our adversaries! Not even useful idiots...
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