Astroturfing in Russia

Rossen Vassilev Jr.
rv727716@ohio.edu

Astroturfing—“the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums”—is on the rise, warns The Guardian article in our PR Ethics readings for this week. I have myself found evidence that Internet forums and comment threads are being hijacked by people who are not exactly what they pretend to be—namely, disinterested and objective-minded members of the public.

But this time the scene of this kind of widespread cyberspace deception (for lack of a better term) is Putin's Russia. I must admit that I am a big skeptic regarding the currently popular accusations that Russia has allegedly been hacking U.S. elections, Democratic Party politicians (like Hillary Clinton) and what-not else. I believe that a sanctions-wary and cash-strapped Moscow does not have the stomach, the nerve or perhaps even the money to do it.

But doing it at home is a completely different matter. Astroturfing is probably seen in Moscow as part of their own homeland security.

Let me first explain how I have arrived at this unexpected finding. For quite a while I have been studying intensively a couple of foreign languages, one of them being Russian. In order to learn the comparatively more difficult Russian tongue faster, I have been perusing on an almost daily basis Russia's online media, including their web forums.

To my surprise, I have found many ordinary Russians openly ridiculing, railing at or even cursing their government's online spin doctors called “Kremlin bots” (“Кремлeботи” or “Кремлевские тролли”). There appears to be a legion of the latter, although it is most likely the work of only a few dozen human astroturfers who change their fake identities every day, if not every hour, for the sole purpose of attacking and discrediting anything or anyone more critical of Putin's presidential persona and policies.

https://www.newsweek.com/1443097preview1rand07032680422265689-1443097

If a recently-built Russian jet liner has just fallen from the sky, these astroturfers parry any criticism of the Kremlin: “What has Putin got to do with it? He is not an airline pilot or an aerospace engineer!” If the President is blamed for the poor and deteriorating state of the Russian economy, the astroturfers again jump into action: “Don't you remember President Boris Yeltsin's collapsing and moribund economy in the 1990s?” If someone is suggesting that Putin has been in power far too long for the good of the country, they immediately leap to his defense: “If not Putin, who else? Obama? Trump? Macron? Merkel?” As if there is absolutely no one else among 145 million Russians fit to be a president.

Increasingly, these same spin doctors are writing Russia's Internet news. You read many web articles with grandiose titles designed to boost national pride and militaristic self-esteem among Russians: “Putin Has Once Again Outfoxed President Trump and Other Western Leaders,” “The White House Is Scared Stiff of Russia's New Heavy ICBM, the Sarmat,” “China Desperately Wants a Closer Strategic Alliance with Moscow,” “The Pentagon Is Worried About Russia's New Underwater Nuclear-Powered Drone, the Poseidon,” “Turkey Prefers to Buy Russia's Modern Weaponry Over America's,” “NATO Feels Defenseless Against Our Iskander Nuclear-Armed Mobile Missile,” and so on.

This relentless daily campaign by Russia's paid astroturfing trolls is destroying the very essence of Internet freedom and online democracy in their country. But do not look to Putin and his oligarchic/plutocratic government to put an end to this clandestine assault on the integrity, authenticity and credibility of Russia's public discourse any time soon. Nor could they ever do it, even if they wanted to....