By Simon Thernström
THE FIRST TIME I heard the word “troll army” (“trollfabrik”, troll factory in Swedish) I was 15 years old. It had made its way into the yearly list of “New words” in the Swedish language curated by Språkrådet among others like “cosplay” and “mansplaining”.
At first, I found the word a bit amusing. I couldn’t fathom why this was a concept that was so prevalent that it needed its own word. In my head, I pictured an assembly line with trolls putting together miscellaneous items of no importance. Unfortunately, the 15-year-old me had underestimated just how big of a role these so-called troll factories would come to play in the very near future.
The saying “The pen is mightier than the sword” doesn’t exist without reason. These troll armies highlight just how much words can influence us. After all, what we all believe to be true is in a sense just that, true. Just as how we’ve all agreed that the colour blue is blue, we could all come to an agreement that Russia is a democracy. For an outsider it may not be objectively true, but for those that subscribe to these thoughts it will be perceived as a truth.
To illustrate how Russia is wielding the power of the written word, I will start with the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the 2016 presidential election in the US. Their main goal? Creating discord, putting fuel on the fire, causing the rift between republican and democratic voters to grow larger than ever before. They created ecosystems of fake groups and fake individuals to sway individuals more in either the democratic or republican direction, they targeted specific groups with messages that would appeal to them, they poured fuel on ideological debates surrounding issues like race, immigration, and terrorism before finally targeting voters with a de-mobilization effort to get people to not go and vote.
“The saying “The pen is mightier than the sword” doesn’t exist without reason. These troll armies highlight just how much words can influence us. After all, what we all believe to be true is in a sense just that, true.”
In 2022, Russia started a brutal war on Ukraine. This has of course also come coupled with an aggressive online disinformation campaign. Much too broad to be covered in a few sentences, I’ll use their efforts in Latin America as an example. This campaign is one of besmirching Ukraine. Painting a picture with colours that ought not exist, as they throw around accusations the Ukrainian government being led by drug addicts and neo-Nazis, and genocide against Russian speakers taking place in the eastern part of the country. These accusations were fed through channels that instilled trust in their native countries, many of them independent Spanish speaking journalists with no other connections to Russian state-backed media.
The most recent example came this past summer. A wave of Quran-burnings started a heated debate in Sweden, and it didn’t come without a fair bit of international attention orchestrated by the Russians themselves. This time, messages of the Swedish government’s alleged involvement in, and condonement of burnings of the Quran were spread through Russian channels in the Arab countries. Sweden was made out to be a country harbouring actively hostile attitudes towards muslims on an institutional level, and the west as a whole was criticised as an anti-muslim actor.
In all these examples, different results are desired but what they all have in common is their long-term aim — to further Russian political goals through polarizing the world in whichever way they can, to breed distrust, to generate discord, to make all countries in the world shut their doors and lock their windows.
According to postmodern political analysis, there is no “objective truth” to be found in the world. Everything boils down to our relative perceptions of what the truth is, thus reality turns into nothing more than a mental construct.
With this postmodern backdrop in mind, what happens when you think you can’t trust your neighbour? What happens when you can’t even trust that the information you yourself hold to be true, is true? This certainly seems to point us to a dire prisoner’s dilemma situation where every country has an incentive not to co-operate because they can’t trust that anyone else will, and how can you co-operate without trust?
“Everything boils down to our relative perceptions of what the truth is, thus reality turns into nothing more than a mental construct.”
Picture yourself in one of the situations listed above where Russian disinformation was abundantly present on every corner of the web. You’re wondering if you want to vote in the election and who to vote for. Thousands of people who seem to be just like you are suddenly creating an online outrage urging you not to vote. Countless articles from sources that to your eye seem to be trying to tell you that the election is rigged, that one candidate is not to be trusted, that it’s pointless regardless. How are you supposed to wade through this thundering river pushing you in the other direction? How are you supposed to know you’re making the right choice by wading, or if the better decision would be to give in and let the current carry you away?
Now imagine that your choice not only carries weight for yourself but also for the millions of people in your country who have elected you to see to their best interests. Do you swim against the current, or do you give in? Do you keep fumbling through the darkness looking for another source of light, or do you go towards the voice whispering in your ear? This is the choice our leaders with power and responsibility stand before. They’re human just like the rest of us, and they rely on something, anything, to inform their emotions and intellects to make a choice. That something could be a truth conjured by anyone, all that matters is perception. You put on a show good enough, no one is going to go peeking behind the curtains.
The Russian troll armies might be one of the first disinformation waves we’re facing in the new online climate, but it won’t be the last. What we’re witnessing could grow into a profoundly impactful and dangerous force working against all the ties of co-operation that have been made in recent times.
Never stop questioning what “the truth” is. It may not be what you want it to be, but that doesn’t mean you should stop looking.
By: Simon Thernström
Photography: Pixabay
