Russian web brigades

The web brigades (Russian: Веб-бригады), commonly known in English media as the troll army, are state-sponsored Internet sockpuppetry groups linked to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. They are purported to be teams of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.

Background

The earliest documented allegations of the existence of "web brigades" appear to be in the April 2003 Vestnik Online article "The Virtual Eye of Big Brother" by a French journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova) and two other authors, Andrey Krivov and Ivan Lomako. The authors claim that up to 1998, contributions to forums on Russian Internet sites (Runet) predominantly reflected liberal and democratic values, but after 2000, the vast majority of contributions reflected totalitarian values. This sudden change was attributed to the appearance of teams of pro-Russian commenters who seem to be organized by the Russian state security service. According to authors, about 70% of audience of Russian Internet were people of generally liberal views prior to 1998–1999, however sudden surge (about 60–80%) of "antidemocratic" posts suddenly occurred at many Russian forums in 2000.

In January 2012, a hacktivist group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous have published a massive collection of email allegedly belonging to former and present leaders of the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (including a number of government officials). Journalists investigation into the leaked information found that the pro-Kremlin movement had been engaging in all kinds of digital activities, including paying commentators to post content and hijacking blog ratings in the fall of 2011. The e-mails indicate that members of the "brigades" were paid 85 rubles (about 3 US dollars) or more per comment, depending on whether the comment received replies; some were paid as much as 600,000 roubles (£12,694) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative press articles on the internet; and were presented with iPads. A number of high-profile bloggers were also mentioned as being paid for promoting Nashi's and government activities. The Federal Youth Agency whose head (and the former leader of Nashi) Vasily Yakemenko was the highest-ranking individual targeted by the leaks refused to comment on authenticity of the e-mails.

In 2013, a Freedom House report stated that Russia has been using paid pro-government commentators to manipulate online discussions and has been at the forefront of this practice for several years.

In 2013, Russian reporters' investigation into the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency, which employs at least 400 people, that covertly hired young people as "Internet operators" that are being paid to write pro-Kremlin postings and comments on the Internet, smearing opposition leader Alexei Navalny and U.S. politics and culture.

Each commenter was to write no less than 100 comments a day, while people in the other room were to write four postings a day, which then went to the other employees whose job was to post them on social networks as widely as possible.

Some Russian opposition journalists point out that such practices creates a chilling effect on the few independent media outlets that remain in the country.

Further investigations were performed by Novaya Gazeta and Institute of Modern Russia in 2014–15, inspired by the peak of activity of the pro-Russian brigades during war in Donbass and assassination of Boris Nemtsov. The effort of using "troll armies" to promote Putin's policies is a multi-million dollar operation. According to The Guardian investigation the flood of pro-Russian comments is part of a coordinated "informational-psychological war operation". One Twitter bots network was documented to use over 20'500 fake Twitter accounts to spam hateful comments after assassination of Boris Nemtsov and events related to the war in Donbass.

Team "G"

An article based upon the original Polyanskaya article, authored by the Independent Customers' Association, was published in May 2008 at Expertiza.Ru. In this article the term web brigades is replaced by the term Team "G".

Methods

Web brigades are government affiliated teams of commentators, for organised web postings and attacks on opponents, used to promote pro-Russian propaganda in political blogs and Internet forums.

Paid Pro-government commentators are used to manipulate online discussions, commentators sometimes leave hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers.

Propagandist commentators simultaneously react to discussions of "taboo" topics, including the historical role of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, political opposition, dissidents like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, murdered journalists, and cases of international conflict or rivalry (with countries such as Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine, but also with the foreign policies of the United States and the European Union). Prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev, believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it. Its a reverse censorship", they cannot censor the information space, but can "trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours", he argues.

Typical troll accounts, Moy Rayon noted, were operated by people posing as "housewives" and "disappointed US citizens". To avert suspicions, the fake users sandwich political remarks between neutral articles on travelling, cooking and pets. These trolls overwhelm comments sections of media to render meaningful dialogue impossible.

The effect created by such Internet trolls is not very big, but they manage to make certain forums meaningless because people stop commenting on the articles when these trolls sit there and constantly create an aggressive, hostile atmosphere toward those whom they don’t like. The trolls react to certain news with torrents of mud and abuse. This makes it meaningless for a reasonable person to comment on anything there.

A collection of leaked documents, published by Moy Rayon, suggests that work at the "troll den" is strictly regulated by a set of guidelines. Any blog post written by an agency employee, according to the leaked files, must contain "no fewer than 700 characters" during day shifts and "no fewer than 1,000 characters" on night shifts. Use of graphics and keywords in the post's body and headline is also mandatory. In addition to general guidelines, bloggers are also provided with "technical tasks" - keywords and talking points on specific issues, such as Ukraine, Russia's opposition and relations with the West. On an average working day, the workers are to post on news articles 50 times. Each blogger is to maintain six Facebook accounts publishing at least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice a day. By the end of the first month, they are expected to have won 500 subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter, the bloggers are expected to manage 10 accounts with up to 2,000 followers and tweet 50 times a day.

In 2015 a researcher Lawrence Alexander disclosed a network of propaganda websites sharing the same Google Analytics identifier and domain registration details, allegedly run by Nikita Podgorny from Internet Research Agency. The websites were mostly meme repositories focused on attacking Ukraine, Euromaidan, Russian opposition and Western policies. Other websites from this cluster promoted president Putin, Russian nationalism and one was spreading alleged news from Syria presenting anti-Western point of view.

In August 2015 Russian researchers have correlated Google search presence of specific phrases with their geographic origin, observing a phenomenon of significantly increased number of specific, politically loaded phrases (such as "Poroshenko", "Maidan", "sanctions") starting from 2013 and originating from very small, peripherial locations in Russia, such as Olgino, which also happens to be the headquarters of the notorious Internet Research Agency company.

Criticism

Alexander Yusupovskiy, head of the analytical department of the Federation Council of Russia (Russian Parliament upper house) published in 2003 an article "Conspiracy theory" in Russian Journal with criticism of theory of web brigades.

Yusupovskiy's points included:

• He thought that officers of GRU or FSB have more topical problems than "comparing virtual penises" with liberals and emigrants.
• Commenting on the change of attitude of virtual masses in 1998–1999 authors evade any mention of the 1998 Russian financial collapse which "crowned liberal decade", preferring to blame "mysterious bad guys or Big Brother" for that change.
• Authors exclude from their interpretation of events all different hypotheses, such as Internet activity of a group of some "skinheads", nazbols or simply unliberal students; or hackers able to get IP addresses of their opponents.
• Authors treat independence of public opinion in spirit of irreconcilable antagonism with positive image of Russia.

Sergey Golubitsky, journalist of Russian IT-related magazine Computerra commented on the story in July 2008, concluding as follows.

Does the Team "G" prowl expanses of the RuNet? Quite probably. Moreover it's likely to prowl, why wouldn't it? But in exactly the same manner there's the Team "E" from the opposite camp, represented by the anonymous Independent Customers' Association that prowls, honestly fulfilling its agenda and entering released funds. But how are these "teams" related to real life?! Absolutely no way. Both of them are here at work while we, the ordinary inhabitants of the RuNet, live here.

Opposition web brigades

Tatyana Korchevnaya, a former candidate to the Deputy of the State Duma from the Other Russia list, a former United Civil Front coordinator of the Primorsky Krai, participant of protest demonstrations, an author of the top tenth political blog of 2008 claimed in February 2009 in her blog that she was a member of an organization of Russia's "discontented", aimed to run a mass Internet campaign to discredit the authorities.

The project was allegedly coordinated by a Moscow-based manager, whose name Tatyana did not reveal. The goal of the participants was massive Internet campaigning, disputing those who were contented with their living in Russia, advertising Garry Kasparov and Dissenters Marches, and talking about atrocities of the "bloody regime". The participants used multiple nicknames to combat their opponents.

Korchevnaya considered such scheme abnormal: "I believe that if someone is afraid to say what they think out loud from their own names then they are not a free person – it's as if they're playing for both teams." She explained her confession with getting tired of the lie of those who she sincerely trusted before. The other reason was a concern for herself:

With every passing day I become ever more saddened by the things they told me. I began to experience hitherto unfamiliar feelings, which I only later figured out as like being a "sacrificial lamb on the altar of democracy".

According to an anonymous source Tatyana referenced to, after she left the project it was "launched on a larger scale than was planned at the start", with participants "planning to ditch their real life jobs and embark on this project full-time, especially now that they are going to get paid for it".

See also

• Cyberwarfare in Russia
• Astroturfing
  • Corporate astroturfing: Internet Water Army
• Sockpuppet (Internet)
• Internet activism
• Internet police
• Information warfare
• Trolls from Olgino
• White propaganda

Literature

• Jolanta Darczewska: The Anatomy of Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation, a Case Study. Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2014, ISBN 978-83-62936-45-8 (PDF)
• Peter Pomerantsev & Michael Weiss: The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money. The Institute of Modern Russia, New York 2014 (PDF)