Troll Farming: The Effects On People And Social Media

Humans desire the truth and nothing but the complete truth. Humans buy into anything if they want to believe it. Fake news and false information is nothing new, but with social media it has become more common and more dangerous. Before the 2016 presidential elections Russia began creating ‘troll farms’ intending to sway americans opinions and create havoc. Troll farming is affecting our society without people even realizing it and social media apps need to improve their efforts on banning these accounts.
The effects of troll farms on people and social media is a greater issue than people realize. Mike Snider has been working for USA Today for 28 years. He has written hundreds of articles for the USA Today and a majority of them have been

regarding technology, whether it be crime, new tech., or anything along that line. Snider explains the basics of a ‘troll farm’ and their effect on social media and society. “A ‘troll farm’ is an organized operation of many users who may work together in a ‘factory’ or from different places across a distributed network to generate online traffic aimed at affecting public opinion, and to spread misinformation and disinformation. Also the troll farm sent Russians to the U.S. to set up ‘the technical infrastructure to make it look like there were real American accounts,’ being used in the operation, he said. That meant maintaining computer services connected to the Internet to create a virtual private network that the agency could dial into in the U.S. from Russia. The overall goal of the troll farm was to ‘create divisive wedges, pitting Americans against each other… The goal is to undermine democracy.." (Snider). Snider gives a general gist of what the troll farms were and there purpose. To try and create the internet a communist place instead a of democracy like how our government wants it.
Adrian Chen also has written about the troll farms and was able to speak with a Russian activist about them. Chen has been writing for 10 years and joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2016. His stories on Internet culture and technology have appeared in the Times Magazine, Wired, MIT Technology Review, The Nation and New York magazine. What the russian activist said, goes along with what Snider said, “The real effect, the Russian activists told me, was not to brainwash readers but to overwhelm social media with a flood of fake content, seeding doubt and paranoia, and destroying the possibility of using the Internet as a democratic space” (Chen). It is safe to say before the 2016 presidential election, there were articles being produced at increased rates. News/ media companies are trying to cover everything being said and that can lead to false information. With modern technology, humans are constantly communicating and collaborating new ideas, new media, new reports, new anything; on social media anything has the potential to blow up. As humans, we are clickbaited simply because we want to know the truth. Russian organizations take advantage of this and produce created organizations and accounts to corrupt America. Sari Horwitz wrote about the impact of troll farms and found some intriguing information. Sari has won three Pulitzer Prizes and several other awards; at Bryn Mawr College she received her BA in political science and at Oxford University she received her MA in politics, philosophy and economics. “With those accounts and posts it reached over 130 million people and these ‘troll farms’ were against Hillary Clinton and did everything to get people to vote for Trump or Sanders. These ‘troll farms’ ran for 10 weeks before being shut down by the social media accounts.” (Harwitz). It is safe to assume these troll farms had an impact on some individuals considering they lasted for ten weeks and reached over 100 million people. Some organizations have enough popularity to create actual events, there was one particular incident created by these organizations that took me by surprise. “One of these, organized by a group called Heart of Texas, took place on May 21, 2016, under the banner of ‘Stop Islamization of Texas.’ On that same day, another Russian-controlled Facebook group, called United Muslims of America, publicized a competing rally to ‘Save Islamic Knowledge’ at the same place and time.” (Horwitz). The two accounts had enough followers and credibility to set-up an event that would clearly create controversy and hatred. The organizations clearly know what they are doing and are affecting people on social media. People are reading their posts, giving them attention, credibility and authority. Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has served as editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and associate editor of the American Psychologist.. Kruglanski wrote an article stating the following, “During the 2016 presidential elections roughly every American read 14 fake news reports.” (Kruglanski). He goes onto explain that one reason for this is because Americans do not fact check, but also Americans have lost faith to trust the government.
Who should be held responsible for these troll farms, the government or the social media apps? At first when reading about these troll farms I firmly believed the social media companies should be responsible because it is there platform and they should not want to lose credibility. I understand that they cannot go around banning accounts right away, but if there is any suspicion for any account it should be noted and then tracked regularly; that account and the IP address they are using. Another quote from Sari Horwitz, “Roughly, 100 people from Russia have been accused of running fake advertisements and accounts on Facebook and Twitter. With those accounts and posts it reached over 130 million people.” (Horwitz). I understand media spreads like wildfire online, but this is ridiculous, to me social media companies simply do not care about what kind of information is spreading or used the fake accounts to there advantage to attract more attention. There should be a group of people for an app that tracks for these type of activities regularly. When an app realizes there is an increase of fake accounts spreading false information and they cannot keep up with them, then they should let people know so they are not being lied to. Next, if the situation gets completely out of hand, the government should step in and give a hand. Social media and the government need to put differences aside and protect the American people.
A politician, a media producer or any active online user might say Americans should just fact check themselves and these troll farms would not even be relevant.

Yes, that would be very simple if Americans would take the time to fact check themselves. But, how many Americans are actually going to fact check something they read? Very little. Eileen Brown is a social business consultant who has been working with collaborative technologies for 20 years. Eileen creates the social business, energises communities and ignites social commerce and social CRM. She develops social business strategy, customer reach and online branding. Eileen understands that businesses need to be honest and should not want to spread false information to their customers. Eileen found several interesting statistics about media postings and fact-checking. “It discovered that 86 percent of Americans who read news articles on social media do not always fact-check the information they read.” (Brown). Only 14 percent of people actually fact check the information they read online, that number is to low to make a difference against fighting these organizations. “.. 61 percent [of people] who read articles on social media sites are likely to like, share, or comment on content shared by a friend.’, ‘ ...Millennials and Gen Z are social news junkies, using social media as their main source of news. They are about three-times more likely to trust most or all of the news from these alternative news sites compared with adults aged from 55 to 64. Thirty-five percent of Americans said that their lack of trust in mainstream media for credible news has caused them to seek alternative news sources online.” (Brown). People are at least realizing they are reading fake news, but how do they know the next online news site they go to is not spreading false information as well? Millennials are the biggest concern, in the 2020 elections they are going to vote and going to learn about these candidates somehow before

they vote and most likely it will come from social media. Let's say one individual reads an article bashing on one candidate that is completely false, but they believe and share it with their friends and family. Within a couple weeks the article has 50,000 views and without a doubt affecting some individuals voting. Social media companies and the government need to work together in the upcoming presidential election to squash fake accounts from spreading false information.