> Russia uses online trolling as a tool.

So does JTRIG[1][2], and probably many other groups as well. Russia isn't the only suspect for this kind trolling.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

[2] https://www.schneier.com/gchq-catalog/

Widely documented by "The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence", the most obvious enemy of Russia?

Human rights violations in the U.S. are also well documented by China:

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/06/26/china-issues-r...

The US does legitimately have an imperfect human rights track record, and most Americans who follow the news would agree (while at the same time being aware of China's own hypocrisy in this matter)

Likewise, Russia has a well documented history of sponsoring online propaganda campaigns, and most people who aren't delusional or paid shills would agree.

Two negative things about two different countries can in fact both be based in truth. Weird.

It should be obvious that the USA is not a singular political whole.

So why do we say "the Russians" and "the Chinese" as though they each form a political whole.

I mean, we know the CIA gets up to some pretty nefarious shenanigans, quite possibly without the express approval of The Administration.

It just seems like a lot of pots sitting around talking about how black the kettles are. Sure, some kettles are blacker than some pots.

paradite is saying it's not well documented. It's poorly documented by people highly incentivised to lie.

But hey, if you already wrote off anyone who disagrees as "delusional or paid shills" then you're too far gone to reason with. Literally nothing anybody ever says can make you think twice.

> poorly documented

Uh huh

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/st-petersburg-troll-factory-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-...

https://www.inopressa.ru/article/03Jun2014/buzzfeed/web_rus....

https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitte...

> if you already wrote off anyone who disagrees as "delusional or paid shills" then you're too far gone to reason with. Literally nothing anybody ever says can make you think twice.

Not true, but it would definitely take more than that hand-wavy uncertainty yarn you're trying to spin

Both the NY Times and the Guardian seem to hate Russia and all things Russian. I constantly read things in those publications that are ludicrously biased or simply wrong. They don't count as credible sources to me anymore.

And as was already pointed out, you stated that "Russia sponsors" but even the first article states that the alleged project is the work of one guy who apparently has money to burn - not the government.

I honestly think HN is the target of some of these trolls as well.

A significant percentage of younger (as well as non-younger for that matter) people have practically no exposure to mainstream media, so naturally one should expect propaganda (from the various players) will be brought to online forums of all kinds.

I feel HN has been specifically targeted as a source of above-average discourse, therefore it must be comprised.

Well documented analysis of a corpus of comments on some Latvian sites, yes. Anything in 100+ pages serving as a proof of Kremlin connections with the "hybrid trolls" (gotta love the newspeak)? Not so much. I don't know whether Russians are xenophobic aggressive bastards or knights in shining armor exposing the wrongdoings of others, it's just that claims along the lines like "Russia uses online trolling" seem exaggerated.

Russian here: Russia very definitely does use online trolling domestically (same as the US I guess). They also use paid "pro-government" rally attendees. That's very well documented, including direct video evidence on Youtube.

I very much doubt they're competent enough to pull something like this convincingly here in the US and avoid early detection and counter-intelligence response. Thus far no evidence whatsoever was presented that any of this was Russian, let alone state sponsored. That's either some truly elite level GRU work, to the standard we have not ever seen before, or there is, in fact, no "paid Russian trolls" on The_Donald. My opinion: there's no way in hell they could pull this off without getting noticed _well before_ the anointed Democratic candidate lost the election.

> They also use paid "pro-government" rally attendees.

Christ, even the Canadian government does this, and we're about as unsophisticated as it gets.

The naivete of people getting their panties in a bunch over the revelation that The Evil Russians participate in hacking and propaganda, how can you be so unaware of how the world works?

> claims along the lines like "Russia uses online trolling" seem exaggerated.

What?

gamergate, /pol, /b, alt-right, the_donald, antifa use online trolling. In context, saying a state actor uses online trolling is an extremely conservative claim. I'm sure there's online trolling in favor of and sponsored by US, Chinese and Macedonian interests (to name a few) too - but Russia's actions are much better documented.

Alacritous state actors more nimble at trolling than 4chan? You decide, I don't care. My problem is that US, Chinese, Russian and Macedonian sponsorships by state actors are equally unproved - if you read into "Trolls from Olgino" reports carefully. US's sponsorship is objectively less probable: English being lingua franca hampers American wannabe "hybrid trolls" [0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/fillin...

> My problem is that US, Chinese, Russian and Macedonian sponsorships by state actors are equally unproved

Disagree. There's no such thing as perfect certainty, but the only real question about Russian troll sponsorship is one of scale.

https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitte...

> US's sponsorship is objectively less probable: English being lingua franca hampers American wannabe "hybrid trolls"

This is an interesting observation, but I think you either underestimate American resources, or overestimate the logistics of online influence manipulation campaigns.

For illustration : there are about 1m fluent Russian speakers in the US, and about 4m fluent English speakers in Russia. Sure, it's a bigger talent pool : but both countries could rope in bilingual cyber propagandists by the thousands if they felt so inclined.