Ich habe Millionen von Tweets aus der „Trollfabrik“ des Kremls untersucht und klassische Propagandatechniken entdeckt, die für das Social-Media-Zeitalter neu interpretiert wurden

These are the words of the architect of Russian online disinformation, Yevgeny Prigozhin, speaking in November 2022, just before the US midterm elections. Prigozhin founded the notorious Russian “troll factory”, the Internet Research Agency (the agency) in 2013.

Since then, agency trolls have flooded social media platforms with conspiracy theories and anti-western messages challenging the foundations of democratic governance.

I have been investigating agency tweets in English and Russian since 2021, specifically examining how they twist language to bend reality and serve the Kremlin. My research has examined around 3 million tweets, taking in three specific case studies: the 2016 US presidential election, COVID-19, and the annexation of Crimea. It seemed that wherever there was fire, the trolls fanned the flames.

Though their direct impact on electoral outcomes so far remains limited, state-backed propaganda operations like the agency can shape the meaning of online discussions and influence public perceptions. But as another US election looms, big tech companies like X (formerly Twitter) are still struggling to deal with the trolls that are spreading disinformation on an industrial scale.

Only a naive reader thinks that Prigozhin is a genius, and was the first to come up with a troll factory.
Prigozhin has not yet been born, and the owners of mass media have long used their media to distort the perception of information.
Back in school, I read the story of the classic American literature “Running For Governor” by Mark Twain.
Nothing has changed.
Now it’s just very convenient to use the false flag to do the same thing.
 The only thing you can do to avoid being manipulated (whether it’s by Russians, Chinese, Americans, media moguls or politicians) is not to accept everything they write as the truth