Single-purpose accounts aren't good on HN, single-purpose political accounts are worse, and what you're doing is an abuse of the site. Threads here are supposed to be good-faith conversations, not ideological channels. HN is fine with anonymity, but that doesn't mean people get to twist it to push agendas—we're a community, there's an implicit social contract, and doing that undermines it. Please stop.
Chinese trolls > Russian trolls
grammar(Anti-China trolls) > grammar(Russian trolls)
Also, your notation pleases my eyes.
We'd have to imagine what is being counted behind the former and the later. Behind the former ("Anti-China trolls", that is) at the moment we have just one specific example brought to our attention. Behind the later ("Russian trolls") is anything anybody understands as such. It appears that the journalist who wrote the article we discuss here considers every author of some pro-Russian opinion as a troll (according to the article kaitai linked to http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/this-is-what-pro-russia-internet-p... ). So there you have a lot of ordinary people who could actually be Russians living in Finland. Or if we extend that to other languages, we also get the people who aren't necessary native speakers.
Then we have the people supposedly working at some "government site which pays people to write comments" (as linked by zorf, http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propagan... ) being paid some 600 EUR a month, who again are almost certainly not the native speakers and probably aren't motivated too much to care ("we'll lower your salary because you screwed up the grammar on some of your posts").
So we can't expect grammar(Russian trolls) to have a high value, and the grammar(Anti-China trolls) is based on a very small sample. That "proves" the current state of the given inequality.
I also hope that this "derivation" also illustrates that naming names ("Anti-China trolls" "Russian trolls") is actually a wrong approach to learn anything about anything. See:
[1]: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-growth [2]: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp
I don't know about you, but I think "totalitarian" draw a more correct picture, than "corruption level is high".
I'm no fan of Russia, but many of these things you mentioned could be applied to the US and UK too.
This accusation is very vague and it could mean anything. It's surely more limited than, say, in Sweden. It way less limited than in Saudi Arabia.
> banning political opposition
Russian parliament consists of 4 parties, 3 of those are oppositional. I'm sure there is a number of banned NGOs, but totalitarian countries usually don't have this kind of political plurality.
> arresting dissidents
Notice they don't arrest people for being a political dissident? Khodorkovsky was brought up on tax evasion charges (which he undoubtedly committed). Pussy Riot was charged with hooliganism (which they undoubtedly committed). Were the trials politically motivated? Sure! Is it unique to totalitarian states that people who oppose the establishment come under higher scrutiny? Please...
> persecuting people for their sexuality
Now we are venturing into the cool-aid area. Modern Russia never prosecuted anyone for their sexuality. Homosexuality means attraction to the same sex and people are free to act on their attraction in Russia. There are a number of openly gay public figures. Russia has laws protecting LGBT minorities from discrimination. I would venture further - Russian government's policy right now is as progressive on LGBT rights as possible in Russia. The populace is hugely homophobic, ranging from 'being gay is a disease' to 'gay must be stoned'. It's the same in most of the former Soviet republics - even in the Lithuania over 80% of people consider homosexuality a perversion [1].
And by misrepresenting the fact about the state of the LGBT community in Russia the Western media only make Putin's life easier, since he can present it as a 'them-versus-us' issue internally. Compare [2]
> invading neighbour sovereign states
Is the emphasis here on 'neighbour'? Because if invading other countries is a sign of totalitarianism than the list of totalitarian countries will have some very surprising names on it.
> I don't know about you, but I think "totalitarian" draw a more correct picture
Which is your good right. I just don't see enough facts to support your opinion that Russia is a ' state [which] holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.' [3]
[1] http://www.delfi.lt/news/daily/lithuania/apklausa-daugiau-ne... (use google translate)
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/russia-...
Oh, it's pretty bad. Basically all television is state-controlled. All major papers as well. Any opposition site that becomes prominent is quickly banned. Unsanctioned street protests are banned even if they are as few as two people with banners. Lone opposition protesters are routinely attacked by pro-Kremlin "activist" crews which are promptly released even if they are ever detained by the police.
> Russian parliament consists of 4 parties, 3 of those are oppositional.
Those 3 "oppositional" parties have been tamed and groomed by Putin's administration since he came to power. They never criticize Putin, they vote for every law introduced by his administration, they never stage any protests against him. The true opposition leaders, in the meantime, are either spending their time in jail or exiled/dead.
> Notice they don't arrest people for being a political dissident?
Of course they don't, but that doesn't make them democrats. They sentence political prisoners on made up charges all the time - see Navalny, Savchenko, Murtazalieva and hundreds of others across Russia.
> Russian government's policy right now is as progressive on LGBT rights as possible in Russia
This is not true. Homophobia of its people is the cornerstone of the Russian government's anti-Western propaganda (especially anti-EU).
> ... that Russia is a ' state [which] holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.
Not yet, but they are getting there, or at least trying to. Russia is still an authoritarian state which is rapidly transforming into a totalitarian one.
Limiting free speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Russia "the Russian government exerts control over civil society through selective implementation of the law, restriction and censure." "In 2013 Russia ranked 148th out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders."
Banning political opposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_(Russia) "On 28 April 2015 the party was deprived of registration."
Arresting dissidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
Persecuting people for their sexuality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_LGBT_propaganda_law
Invading neighbour sovereign states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Russian_milita...
An we could add to the list. But it would be pointless, wouldn't it? Since we know that the first step is "you don't have any references", and the next step is "here's some mud flying at you and your references".
This is nothing new. History is rife with examples of propaganda leading to policy. It's just more widespread and happens faster now.
I honestly don't see a solution to this unless we have a general increase in the wisdom of the population. Censorship worked when the flow of information could be regulated, but with the internet, it seems unlikely that this is possible (unless you take pains to implement something like the Great Firewall).
Ideas can have a powerful effect on people. The Bolsheviks believed that the world was ripe to adopt communism, forming an international union of communist countries, and this would happen not through war (necessarily) but by people's revolutions in each individual country. When you understand that plan, it makes sense why the US was so paranoid about communism on its own soil.
I'm not saying its communism which will take grip of the imagination of people. But it might be some other radical idea. We need to understand that this is a very real possibility.
There are some very effective specific radical ideas I'm aware of which stood the test of the time. They typically involve otherworldly entities and an immediate but also the eternal punishment for disbelievers.
We need some kind of Ministry which would spread the Truth to the masses to counteract this threat.
If the trolls are the "threat to democracy" even worth mentioning, compared to the rest of what's going on in the world, then we're really, really lucky.
Speaking of democracy - the biggest thread to democracy in the world occured in 2003, when Iraq was invaded. Now instead of one big asshole in control of his own turf, you have hundreds of tiny assholes that are just as bad, all doing terrible things to become the biggest one. And their ambitions are not limited to Iraq anylonger.
The Russian government is fascinating. It's a totalitarian government, and yet, because of it's paid propagandas, it has instilled some ideas amongst the educated that Putin is a great leader. A dictator that hoarded all the oil and gas riches for him and his cronies during Russia's more vibrant economy, invaded crimea and ukraine, and seeks to impose its military on the world, despite a tiny flailing economy and aged military. With only some power because it's backed by another totalitarian government, China, which itself is starting to be more aggressive in south east Asia.
In any case, it seems to be that the threat to democracy will come from these paid trolls that seek to influence the minds of the western citizens.