Putin’s Trolls
The following is the opening section of Putin’s Trolls: On the Frontlines of Russia’s Information War Against the World, by Jessikka Aro.
I fled my homeland of Finland in February 2017. Just before my escape, I gave a presentation on the dangers posed by Russian propaganda and fake news at the National Police Board of Finland in Helsinki.
In school I was taught that Finland was one of the safest countries in the world. But for me, an ordinary journalist for Yleisradio, or Yle, the Finnish national public broadcasting company, the basic right to safety in my home country had been severely compromised simply because of my profession.
By the time of my forced departure, I had endured a two-and-a half-year campaign of death threats and libelous news articles. Online hate sites had brainwashed even some of my friends, turning them into enemies. These same sites portrayed me as a criminal, a liar, and mentally ill. Anonymous users suggested various methods of killing myself. One stranger proposed that I hang myself, while another recommended a “Russian suicide”: someone would push me under the metro, but in a manner staged as self-inflicted. A third individual wished that someone would put a “bullet in the whore’s head, Russian style.” Each time I opened my laptop, or glanced at my phone, I was forced to read snuff fantasies about me produced on an assembly-line scale. I was afraid that the psychological violence would at any minute spill out of the internet into the physical world. I installed an alarm system and other security measures in my home.
I had become the target of such vitriol for one reason only: I was a journalist investigating Russian social media information warfare.
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When I launched what would become my world-famous investigation into Russian online propaganda trolls in September 2014, I was thirty-three years old. My life was serene, and I dreamed of starting a family. I had no enemies that I knew of, and aroused no interest from anyone in the online world.
As a journalist, I specialized in Russia and extremist groups. Earlier in my career I had lived in Russia, and throughout President Vladimir Putin’s time in office, I had kept an eye on the pressure exerted on journalists, including retribution via violence and murder. The reporters who risked their lives investigating his regime’s wrongdoings were my professional idols.
Earlier in my career, I had investigated jihadists’ recruitment activities on social media, as well as organized crime. But it wasn’t until I began examining the Kremlin’s tools of international information warfare that a hate campaign was launched against me. The harassers wanted to exhaust me psychologically, hoping that I would ultimately decide to protect myself and cease investigating and publicly discussing Russian operations.
In my work as a journalist, I had become accustomed to extreme and violent material. I had reported on wars, natural disasters, plane crashes, and human rights crimes. But nothing had prepared me for the uncontrollable online spread of thousands of defamatory memes, threads, pictures, and videos—all about me![i][1]
Before I left Finland, I did everything in my power to put an end to the witch hunt, or at least limit its crippling impact on my life. I reported to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube those accounts that violated the community standards outlined in their terms of service. The companies’ automated responses declared that the content did not violate their community standards—even though it was crystal clear that the content violated not only their standards, but Finnish law. In effect, these media giants were happy to offer their services as platforms for what amounted to state-sponsored propaganda and hate speech.
I implored Finnish security officials for help. I cried my frustration out to a police officer, who told me that no legislation provided the tools to stop the crimes I was enduring. The only avenue available was filing criminal complaints, which would take years to process in court. Online propagandists skillfully abuse Western laws and legal systems, which are inadequate for meeting the challenges of organized online hate dissemination. I anticipated that even police scrutiny would not guarantee an end to these crimes.
Unfortunately, I was right.