Russian trolls' goal: Make internet sites unusable by flooding with unnecessary debate and spam [View all]

[sharedvalues]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/iexplorer/the-weird-and-shockingly-lucrative-world-of-people-who-are-p

From Buzzfeed, now several years ago:

But (Russian trolling) might not need to work. Chen thinks the whole practice is less about actually convincing users to vote for Putin and more about muddying the waters and making the internet harder to navigate and trust.
“The opposition in Russia grew up on the internet and by making it dirty and unusable, it will silence those guys,” Chen said.

Edit: Wait, I found the article I was thinking of - from the New Yorker. It says it slightly better.

The real effect, the Russian activists told me, was not to brainwash readers but to overwhelm social media with a flood of fake content, seeding doubt and paranoia, and destroying the possibility of using the Internet as a democratic space.

Think about this when you like or comment repeatedly on Bernie debate posts we've been flooded with lately. Bernie is one guy, with one set of views (his Senate Democratic Outreach chair is limited to a Senate role and it's not a big deal). Let's focus on Bernie's ideas on economics and focus on others who are promoting women's rights issues. Together we can produce a Democratic party that does both those things.