{"id":27134,"date":"2017-10-23T07:06:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T12:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27134"},"modified":"2017-10-23T07:06:27","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T12:06:27","slug":"the-strange-world-of-russian-trolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27134","title":{"rendered":"The Strange World of Russian \u2018Trolls\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Strange World of Russian \u2018Trolls\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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A big part of the Russia-gate hysteria is to accuse Russia of spreading U.S. dissension via Internet \u201ctrolling,\u201d but that\u2019s just one more wild exaggeration among many, as William Blum describes at Anti-Empire Report.<\/p>\n

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Webster\u2019s dictionary: troll<\/em> \u2013 verb: To fish by running a baited line behind a moving boat; noun: A supernatural creature of Scandinavian folklore.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Red Square in Moscow with a winter festival to the left and the Kremlin to the right in December 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Russian Internet trolls are trying to stir up even more controversy over National Football League players crouching on one knee (\u201ctaking a \u201cknee\u201d) during the national anthem, said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), warning that the United States should expect such divisive efforts to escalate in the next election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched even this weekend,\u201d Lankford said, \u201cthe Russians and their troll farms, and their Internet folks, start hash-tagging out \u2018take a knee\u2019 and also hash-tagging out \u2018Boycott NFL\u2019.\u201d The Russians\u2019 goal, he said, was \u201cto try to raise the noise level in America to try to make a big issue, an even bigger issue as they\u2019re trying to just push divisiveness in the country. We\u2019ve continued to be able to see that. We will see that again in our election time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia \u201ccausing divisiveness\u201d is a common theme of American politicians and media. Never explained is WHY? What does Russia have to gain by Americans being divided? Do they think the Russians are so juvenile? Or are the Americans the childish ones?<\/p>\n

CNN on Oct. 12 claimed that Russia uses YouTube, Tumblr and the Pokemon Go mobile game \u201cto exploit racial tensions and sow discord among Americans,\u201d while the Washington Post<\/em> (Oct. 12) reported that \u201ccontent generated by Russian operatives was not aimed only at influencing the election. Many of the posts and ads intended to divide Americans over hot-button issues such as immigration or race.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Strange World of Russian \u2018Trolls\u2019 A big part of the Russia-gate hysteria is to accuse Russia of spreading U.S. dissension via Internet \u201ctrolling,\u201d but that\u2019s just one more wild exaggeration among many, as William Blum describes at Anti-Empire Report. Webster\u2019s dictionary: troll \u2013 verb: To fish by running a baited line behind a moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[6963,3715,694,827,11603],"class_list":["post-27134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-consortium-news","tag-internet-troll","tag-russia","tag-united-states","tag-william-blum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27135,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27134\/revisions\/27135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}