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Russia's Online Troll Army Is Huge, Hilarious & Already Everywhere"
Trolls from Olgino is an Internet slang term which appeared in late 2014, referring to a series of fake accounts registered on major discussion boards (social networks, online newspaper sites, video hosting services, etc.) that were
used for promoting the Russian authorities' point of view in topics involving domestic policy, Ukraine and the Middle East. The extent to which the Russian government tried to influence social media became widely known after a June 2014 BuzzFeed article greatly expanded on government documents published by hackers earlier that year.[2] Stemming from a December 2014 article, the term "Trolls from Olgino" gained worldwide media attention by June 2015, when one of the offices of a Russian company named Internet Research Agency, based in Saint Petersburg, was exposed as having data from fake accounts used for biased Internet trolling. Subsequently, there were news reports of individuals receiving monetary compensation for performing these tasks.[1]
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Strategic
Russian newspaper Vedomosti links the approved by Russian authorities strategy of public consciousness manipulation through new media to Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy of the Vladimir Putin Presidential Administration of Russia.[6][7]
Tactical
According to journalists’ investigations, the office in Olgino was named as Internet Research Agency Ltd. (Russian: ООО «Агентство интернет-исследований»).[3][8] The company was founded in the summer of 2013.[6]
Journalists also point out that Alexey Soskovets, who had participated in Russian youth political community, was directly connected to the office in Olgino. His company, North-Western Service Agency, won 17 or 18 (according to different sources) contracts for organizing celebrations, forums and sport competitions for authorities of Saint Petersburg. The agency was the only participant in half of those bids. In the summer of 2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of Seliger camp.[3][9]
In 2014, according to Russian media, Internet Research Ltd. (Russian: ООО «Интернет исследования»), founded in March 2014, joined the agency's activity. Novaya Gazeta newspaper claim this company to be a successor of Internet Research Agency Ltd.[10] Internet Research Ltd. is considered to be linked to
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the holding company Concord. The "Trolls of Olgino" from Saint Petersburg are considered to be his project. As of October 2014, the company belonged to Mikhail Bystrov, who had been the head of the police station at Moscow district of Saint Petersburg.[11]
Russian media point out that according to documents, published by hackers from Anonymous International, Concord is directly involved with
trolling administration through the agency. Researchers cite e-mail correspondence, in which Concord gives instructions to trolls and receives reports on accomplished work.[5] According to journalists' information, Concord organized banquets in Kremlin and also cooperated with Voentorg and the Russian Ministry of Defence.[12]
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Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro, who extensively reported on the pro-Russian trolling activities in Finland, was in response targeted by an organized campaign of hate, disinformation and harassment.[13][14][15]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino
