Atroll farm ortroll factory is an institutionalised group ofinternet trolls that seeks to interfere in political opinions and decision-making.[1]
Freedom House's report showed that 30 governments worldwide (out of 65 covered by the study) paidkeyboard armies to spread propaganda and attack critics.[2] According to the report, these governments use paid commentors, trolls, and bots to harass journalists and erode trust in the media. Attempts were made to influence elections in 18 of the countries covered by the study.[2]
It has been widely suspected that Brazil's former presidentJair Bolsonaro and his family created troll farms to promote support for his government policies and to attack and harass rivals through the internet. These fake accounts and bots are possibly controlled by an office inside one of Bolsonaro's government buildings led by Jair's sonCarlos known as 'office of hate',[3] which is suspected to have created more than a thousand fake accounts to support Bolsonaro's government.[4]
Troll accounts have also been linked to misinformation related to theCOVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, as Bolsonaro's government is known for having adopted a denialist and weak posture regarding the pandemic.[5]
The "50 Cent Party" consists of paid Chinese bureaucrats who cheerlead for theChinese Communist Party (CCP) or try to change the subject during online discussions.
India's ruling partyBJP has a large number of online supporters who support its agenda and attack political rivals. Their methods were recorded by investigative journalistSwati Chaturvedi, who described them as a "digital army" in her book on the subject,I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP's Digital Army.[6]
In 2022,Meta Platforms announced that it has removed hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts that were directly linked with theRoyal Malaysia Police (RMP), as they were used as part of a troll farm to disseminate propaganda and manipulate public discourse about the Malaysian police and the government.[7] Meta added that such actions were against its policy of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour".[8]
In November 2021, Facebook reported that it closed accounts, groups and pages in Facebook and Instagram linked to a troll farm operated by theSandinista National Liberation Front, the ruling party inNicaragua.[9]
The Philippines has been called "patient zero in the global disinformation epidemic."[10] Studies into the country's troll farms found that political campaigns pay trolls $1,000 to $2,000 per month to create multiple fake social media accounts to post political propaganda and attack critics.[10][11] Thepolitical campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte has spent $200,000 to hire online trolls, according to one study.[12]Duterte admitted to hiring trolls for his2016 political campaign.[13][14]
Since then, trolling behaviour supportive of Duterte has been traced back to taxpayer-fundedgovernment institutions.[15]
The Internet Research Agency building, dubbed the Russian troll factory, is seen at Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg, Russia. The building is now for rent.
Ukrainianoligarchs and politiciansactively use [ru] "troll factories" for their business and political purposes. Journalists fromRadio Liberty note that the services of trolls, among others, were used by such oligarchs asRinat Akhmetov andIhor Kolomoyskyi.[19] In the fall of 2019, two large-scale journalistic investigations about “troll factories” in Ukraine were published.[20]
In 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic,Facebook found that troll farms fromNorth Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation. The publisher, which used content from these farms, was banned.[21]
In the run-up to the2020 United States elections, Eastern European troll farms operated popular Facebook pages showing content related toChristians andBlacks in America. They included more than 15,000 pages combined and were viewed by 140 million US users per month. This was in part due to how Facebook's algorithm and policies allow unoriginal viral content to be copied and spread in ways that still drive up user engagement. As of September 2021, some of the most popular pages were still active on Facebook despite the company's efforts to take down such content.[22]
Finnish investigative journalistJessikka Aro interviewed workers at a “troll factory” inSaint Petersburg. Aro was harassed online after she published her story.[23] A court inHelsinki convicted three persons who had harassed Aro on charges of defamation and negligence.[24] Aro has stated that online trolls can negatively affect freedom of speech and democracy.[25]
In February 2020, theNew York Times interviewed 10 ex-People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) members who said that the MEK's Albania camp had a troll farm that promoted the opinions of MEK supporters, includingRudy Giuliani andJohn Bolton, and attacked the Iranian government. The MEK claimed that the former members were Iranian government spies.[26] In the March 2021 CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior) report,Facebook announced that it removed hundreds of accounts, pages and groups in both Facebook andInstagram which were in a troll farm in Albania, operated by MEK.[27]
During the2020 United States presidential election and theCOVID-19 pandemic,Turning Point USA and its affiliateTurning Point Action were described as troll farms for paying young conservatives inPhoenix, Arizona, some of them minors with parental support, to post misinformation about the integrity of the electoral process and the threat of COVID-19. The payout included bonuses for posts that generated greater engagement. They used their own social media accounts or fake accounts without disclosing their relationship with Turning Point and were instructed by Turning Point to slightly alter and repost the modified messages a limited number of times to avoid automatic detection.[34][35]
^Wong, Julia (11 June 2021)."Revealed: rightwing firm posed as leftist group on Facebook to divide Democrats".The Guardian. San Francisco.Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved26 September 2021.Rally Forge ... established a domestic 'troll farm' in Phoenix, Arizona, that employed teenagers to churn out pro-Trump social media posts, some of which cast doubt on the integrity of the US election system or falsely charged Democrats with attempting to steal the election
