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“There were people who [į darbą] “There were people who came to work realizing that everything they were doing was nonsense,” said Sergei K. in an interview with RFE / RL, a former employee of a Russian company called the “troll factory.”
Such a life spilled over into a St. Petersburg company formerly known as the Internet Investigation Agency, which earned its name by spreading conspiracy theories and liars, “trolling” on social media and spreading other kinds of disinformation.
The “troll factory” owned by St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozin became infamous around the world when it was linked to Russia’s attempts to interfere in the US presidential election a year ago in a 2017 US intelligence report.
“Pretending to be Americans, these workers used targeted advertising, deliberately falsified news articles, used self-created content and social media tools to reach tens of millions of social media users in the United States and try to mislead them,” he said the Intelligence of the United States Senate. Committee said in a statement.
The US Cyber Operations Headquarters, one of the top cyber agencies in the US government, says it shut down the “troll factory” during the 2018 US Congressional elections.
The company continues to operate. Media reports and other investigations record how Mr. Prigožin diversifies his efforts by engaging funds for private mercenary military companies, implementing their operations in Africa and elsewhere.
It is true that the influence of the “troll factory” has waned, however, as social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter have improved their ability to block and delete anonymous accounts that are considered “trolls.”
Even before the investigation findings published by US intelligence, the influence of the “troll factory” weakened: its former employees talked about the company and their work in it.
In 2015, blogger Marat Burkchard told the Russian branch of RFE / RL about working at the “troll factory” where he had been working for some time. A Russian journalist got a job at the troll factory to investigate their activities. She was later fired and later filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that her working conditions and contract violated applicable labor laws.
In the end, the journalist won the case and the symbolic victory was rewarded with one ruble.
“I thought it was dystopia”
J. Prigožinas apparently tried to hide that he was the legal owner of the company. Every few years, he constantly changed the company name and re-registered it. While Sergei K. worked for the Federal News Agency (FAN), another name for a “troll factory,” the company was called Mixinfo.
FAN, which has many ties to Prigožin and the Internet Research Agency, as the company originally called it, rejected the idea of being part of a “troll factory”.
In a lengthy interview last week via the Telegram correspondence app, Sergei K. told the Russian division of RFE / RL that he had joined the company in 2018. This position was offered to him by a friend. It was an opportunity to earn money easily, the man explained, asking that his name not be published, because he wanted to avoid legal consequences related to the former employer.
There I met people to convince me that the problem is not that everything is terrible [Rusijoje], and that it all has to do with the US State Department and the eye at the top of the pyramid, “said Sergei K., referring to the symbol on one side of the US dollar bill. This symbol is loved by conspiracy theorists and advocates.
According to the man, the requirements for this job were not high: a school certificate was enough. However, there have also been highly educated people, including those with doctoral degrees. Before hiring, the company carried out an identity verification. Sergei K. was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement.
He says that most employees were paid around $ 40,000 a month. rubles (about 433 euros). He himself earned 45 thousand. rubles (about 491 euros). Others who worked harder and harder earned more. The employee was expected to write about 120 comments during his shift.
The factory had many different divisions, each of which consisted of about 15 people. Each department was run by an independent social media or internet company. According to Sergei, the area of one chapter was YouTube, another – Facebook and another, the Russian social network VKontakte, which is very popular in the country. Sergei himself was in the spotlight with comments on media portals, including RFE / RL.
One unit was tasked with compiling databases containing biographies of people considered political enemies and compiling lists of targets. “There was a list of media portals that had to be forgiven for forgiving such a saying. Radio Svoboda (Russian branch of RFE / RL) and Novaya Gazeta were at the top of that list, reveals the man.
Memoranda, including those of a pornographic nature, were created in other sections. Then they were sent by messages, and the “trolls” posted them in various places, says Sergei K.
“At first when I got there, I really couldn’t believe that it was all true at all. I was surprised by a kind of culture shock. George Orwell wrote about those things. I thought it was all dystopia. But, in fact, everything worked exactly like that ”, RFE / RL presented their impressions and memories to Sergejus K.
According to the man, the Telеgram channel was used to coordinate work in his department. Decided in which direction to focus the effort.
“It wasn’t like you were sitting and shooting crows. There was a constant tapping of the keyboard, and this nonsense went on for 11 hours, ”explains the former employee of the“ trolls factory ”.
According to Sergei K., he and his colleagues had created fake accounts, such as VKontakte, and they only had a mountain of mobile phone SIM cards needed to verify the account when it was first created.
People created fake names and stole photos from other social media accounts, such as Odnoklasniki, another popular platform in Russia. Sometimes photos of dead people were misappropriated, recalls Sergei K.
It is true that the photos were slightly edited, for example made in black and white or rotated 180 degrees so that they could not be found in search engines, explains Sergei K.
He says a total of probably more than 100 fake accounts have been created. Troll accounts were used strategically: Let’s say a teenager’s comment about a nuclear weapons deal would look suspicious.
People also used virtual private networks (VPNs) to disguise their true whereabouts: it might appear that the commenter is, for example, in Mozambique, when he was actually sitting in St. Petersburg.
And the comments that the “trolls” posted on Russia Today, called RT, on the portal or on today’s social media accounts, were pro-Russian or anti-Western.
“Go to an RT group on any social network. They are fighting for Motule Russia every day. “They roar like roaches after every news story that comes out, whether it’s about missiles, the United States or Vladimir Putin,” said Sergei K.
Sometimes trolls want you to react to another troll’s comment or post and give the impression that there is an argument between two unrelated users.
Corrupt Karma
Sergei RFE / RL said that Prigožin himself never came to the building where the “troll factory” is located, but his assistant visited him: “He was a bald man between 45 and 50 years old.”
In 2019, after working for the company for about a year, Sergei felt the frustration surrounding him.
“It just came to our attention then. In our group, people openly mocked Putin himself, almost everyone understood the absurdity of our actions. Like doctors facing death, over time they begin to joke, to relax, to deny the situation, ”said Sergei K.
However, after a while, the man’s conscience began to gnaw away. He was constantly under stress and suffered from migraines.
When asked why he decided to talk about his former employer, Sergei replied that he thought it was probably his attempt to seek redemption from all the “trolls” and spread lies.
“I applied [į RFE/RL], because seeing the kitchen of propaganda from inside, I understood why they tried to shut you up and spread lies with such intensity. They lie everywhere. Now it’s bad for me to watch TV and my karma is ruined for three future lives, ”explains Sergei.
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