So Mr. Back to Africa wants to mock people for thinking trolls exist?
And is appears to be his Pit debut, outside of a thread where he defended racist posters–who he definitely doesn’t know and hasn’t posted here before. Are you not honored, Sherrerd?
Huh, someone who is suspected of being a troll gets an obvious troll in to defend them. Someone whose account was made half a year before they ever posted, even! I wonder why?
—Oh, there’s a black man behind you, Doork!
(Now that he’s gone for a bit, why the fuck are we suddenly mocking people for suspecting Russian trolls? It’s been brought up before, and it’s perfectly reasonable, and in no way would make us special. And do you really want to be in the company of this shithead?)
Oh, you must’ve just missed him, Doorky. Better stay up all night and watch, though, just to be sure.
I thought Russian trolling was low effort, mass spammed stuff.
Do they take the time to type out single posts to single questions that, maybe, a few hundred people will see? (really asking…dunno how they all work…you can save the whoosh for another time)
Interesting–that does rather look like a swoop-in on a pre-made account. I gather that viral marketers do more of that (making accounts for future use) than trolls, but it’s a useful tool for both. It lends—or is intended to lend—“authenticity.”
My impression is that it IS mostly low-effort, mass-spammed stuff.
But, as an experiment, post something uncomplimentary about Putin on one of the major social media sites, or a board of size similar to this one. The odds are excellent that you will get a mocking response, and that it will be from an account that is either recent, or not much used until recently.
They DO know how to use Google search (or the relevant equivalent).
As I’ve said, my impression is that boards like this are not the object of much in the way of ‘we must influence their opinions!!!11!!!!’ attention. Instead, it’s more a case of using this (and similar boards) as a place to learn how to interact and communicate convincingly. It’s not that any particular foreign adversary is even remotely likely to believe that the opinions of Dopers are crucial in the grand scheme of things.
So poster Barack Obama is most likely a dense misguided soul. If his posts were trolling they’d be incredibly ineffective trolling. But the our little message board is unlikely to get the Russians A game I guess!
Now if we were thought leaders then I could see trolling us with a poster or two. After all they invested a whole bunch in Mariia Butina just to have her be an influencer. Maybe the Russians believe we really are as hip as advertised?
It may not be too crazy to believe MB trolls after all. It’s a low investment item. One troll can cover a bunch of sites spreading stories and stirring pots of divisiveness. Again this poster? Tends to unite everyone else in agreement on the worthlessness of the crap he posts. So not an effective troll anyway.
I’ve seen a couple of accounts here written by posters who were pretty effective at stirring people up, and even getting them to argue quite bitterly and personally. The account writers I’m thinking of succeeded at dividing people who would otherwise have been in agreement over various political positions.
That’s a skill, if a dark one. I would think that a medium board would be ideal for honing that skill.
