Dealing with online trolls Vitaliy Moroz, Internews Ukraine TechCamp Georgia, 2016

!

Populism backed by manipulations as policy-making

One Facebook user has decided to check if his online friends can be manipulated

He applied storytelling by means of visuals as “proofs”

As a result, many users have not noticed the hoax

www.urbandictionary.com/

“The paid trolls have made it impossible for the normal Internet user to separate truth from fiction”

Leonid Volkov, Russian activist

trolls vs bots

person behind it not easily detected individual style

automated easy to detect copy paste

What tools are preferred by trolls?

text messages !YouTube !Twitter !Facebook Wikipedia !Livejournal !!

Who are the targets of trolls?

oppositional leaders !independent voters !opinion leaders !journalists !celebrities !international community !!

http://bit.ly/ru_trolls

#ColumbianChemicals hoax

Practice: analyzing video on YouTube

https://youtu.be/E2J6RvajSaA ISIS takes responsibility for the explosion in Centerville, LA

Unfortunately, fakes can be practiced by anyone

http://www.lemmetweetthatforyou.com/

Trolls in Facebook: blaming Ukrainian government

Bots in Twitter: sharing emotional fake statements

Trolls in Twitter: defending politicians

The Ukrainian journalist reacts on troll that stole her photo

How to deal with online trolls?

ignore

investigate/inform

report/counter

Ignore

Countering: reporting abuse

http://brudno.com.ua/

Countering: Users launched a website to block trolls

Countering: Newsrooms instruct how to delete Russian social media accounts

http://goo.gl/Ppz10l

Investigating: what can we learn about social media accounts?

Investigating: online sites to analyze web&social media

https://globalvoices.org/-/special/runet-echo/

Investigating: online sites to analyze web&social media

http://verify.org.ua/

Investigating: software helps to track trolls analyzing networks

Thank you!

@vitaliymoroz @insider_ua vitaliy.moroz@gmail.com

FB: Vitalii Moroz