--- title: How to Spot a Russian Troll description: TIME spoke to activists who have been duped by trolls, the Russian trolls themselves, and cyber warfare experts, to gain insight on trolls. canonical: https://time.com/5274785/how-to-spot-a-russian-troll/ author: Arpita Aneja article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-11T23:05:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T11:33:21.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: How to Spot a Russian Troll og:description: A few important signs for spotting a troll social media account og:url: https://time.com/5274785/how-to-spot-a-russian-troll/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd086f8f3d90123b4/69893034096a9471336a2613/template-for-29-97-00_00_26_17-still002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1920 og:image:height: 1080 og:image:alt: TEMPLATE FOR 29.97.00_00_26_17.Still002 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Spot a Russian Troll twitter:description: A few important signs for spotting a troll social media account twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd086f8f3d90123b4/69893034096a9471336a2613/template-for-29-97-00_00_26_17-still002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Spot a Russian Troll > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=4323e0e0-f2b6-4f01-bedb-b92e00271836&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Russian Propaganda in the Internet Age [Watch (HLS stream): Russian Propaganda in the Internet Age](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5bLRXqYM.m3u8) (6:55)  _Published 2018-05-10. How Russian Trolls are infiltrating the internet and how to know if you've seen one._ by [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Sandra Ifraimova](https://time.com/author/sandra-ifraimova/) Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:33 AM UTCPublished: May 11, 2018 11:05 PM UTC How Russian Trolls are infiltrating the internet and how to know if you've seen one. by [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Sandra Ifraimova](https://time.com/author/sandra-ifraimova/) Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:33 AM UTCPublished: May 11, 2018 11:05 PM UTC Spreading false information as a military strategy dates back to the Cold War, when so-called _Spetzpropaganda_ was used as a tactic to confuse and destabilize opponents. Today the job is even easier thanks to the Internet, and Russia continues to plant seeds of doubt and mistrust in the American government to add to a general feeling of chaos and unrest in the U.S. How can American citizens and civic-minded individuals recognize trolls? What should be done to prevent attacks on US democracy? In this video, TIME spoke to political activists who have been duped by trolls, cyber warfare experts and Russian trolls themselves to gain insight into how the U.S. election season was infiltrated. David Patrikarakos, author of _War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century_, says that recognizing trolls is becoming increasingly difficult, as propaganda efforts become more sophisticated. But he also offers a few important signs for spotting a troll social media account: --- > “” --- ## Transcript [00:00] With fake news and Russian trolls dominating the [00:02] headlines. Russian trolls. A lot of it comes from Russian [00:05] trolls. It was Russian trolls. 126 [00:09] million Americans may have been exposed to this [00:12] content generated by Russian troll farms. By now if [00:15] you're on the Internet at all you've likely heard of [00:18] Russian trolls. It may seem a 21st century thing. But [00:21] trolling has it's roots in the cold war. When the Soviets [00:24] had a word for spreading false info. They called it [00:28] spetzpropaganda. And while the Soviet Union no [00:31] longer exists, Russia has found a new way to flex it's [00:34] muscle in the world. Whereas the Soviet Union tried to [00:37] promote the idea. Of the Soviet Union as the model [00:40] society, as a utopia on earth. Russia doesn't try to do [00:43] this. What it does instead is it tries to muddy the [00:47] waters. It tries to make things unclear. It tries to sow as [00:51] much confusion and misinformation as possible that [00:55] when people see the truth. They find it harder to [00:58] recognize it. This false information comes from what [01:01] people have started to call troll farms. And we've even [01:04] started to hear the stories of ex trolls themselves. [01:16] [ FOREIGN ] And it is the nature of social media itself. It [01:19] is its pervasiveness. It's everywhere in the developed [01:22] world. You can't escape it. When there is so much [01:25] falsehood, when there is so much propoganda, when it [01:28] is impossible to distinguish truth from fiction, then [01:32] our political environment suffers. With comments from [01:34] 1, 000 trolls Tens of thousands of bots. [01:37] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] In [01:42] the fall of 2016, a month before the US Presidential [01:45] election, Conrad James, a young left leaning activist [01:49] was contacted by an organization called [01:52] BlackmattersUS. They said that they're having a rally [01:54] And if I could be a speaker at their rally, and [01:59] I looked into their organization, I checked their [02:03] website, checked their social media. They had a huge [02:06] social media account, so I was like yeah sure I'll [02:11] do it. It was one of many protests [02:15] and rallies in the politically charged year that lead to [02:18] the election of Donald Trump. [ APPLAUSE ] [02:23] One year later, James found out that Black Lives Matter [02:26] US was part of a Russian funded operation whose aim [02:29] was to sew discord across the US My reaction [02:33] actually at first, I found it amusing. You know, I thought [02:35] it was pretty funny and I thought I was just getting [02:38] played around with and then eventually it got to a [02:42] point where it's like wow, well this really happened and [02:46] I got questioned by a lot of people. If I was American [02:48] or if I was fighting for Russia or Any of these [02:52] other things saying. The worst part about it is that they [02:56] chose the activist community. And they basically [03:00] distracted the activism community from following their [03:03] own passion in order to promote some type of [03:07] negative intent. [ MUSIC ] [03:10] Russia has influenced political environments around [03:13] the world for years. But Americans are now finally [03:15] waking up to it. Special Counsel Robert Mueller [03:18] recently indicted more than a dozen Russian nationals [03:21] and entities for allegedly interfering in the 2016 [03:24] presidential election. [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [03:28] [ CROSSTALK ] Is your point that we shouldn't have [03:32] come to show our support for President Trump? No, [03:33] not at all, my point is it's just that it says here that he [03:36] was- I don't care what that paper says. I don't care, I [03:40] don't care. This is Frederick Lynn, a Trump supporter [03:43] from New York. He attended a pro- Trump rally in [03:46] November of 2016 after the election. We showed him [03:49] how that rally matched the description in the Muller [03:52] indictment. But he told us [03:56] he didn't believe Russians had anything to do with it. I [03:59] know that there's different sides. Americans know that [04:02] there's two groups that aren't getting along. We don't [04:04] need Russians to point that out. America is no stranger [04:08] to protesting. It's engrained into the Constitution. So [04:11] does it actually matter if Russia organized a few [04:14] protests here? American activism is at [04:18] risk, I think, of being deligitimized cuz I think that [04:21] there's now a real argument that can be made that [04:24] that protest isn't real, that protest is fake. These [04:26] people are receiving foreign support. Well now we [04:28] know that that's actually true. Standing Rock received [04:31] foreign support. Bernie Sanders received foreign [04:32] support. Donald Trump, everyone who was an [04:34] opposition candidate or movement received some sort [04:37] of support. Now we know that. It didn't have to be [04:40] financial. It could also just be through mimicry and [04:43] sharing Facebook posts. I think that the basic premise [04:45] of social protest is that We are the people in the [04:48] streets representing some sort of, you know, greater [04:51] form of democracy or more a pure consensus on [04:54] where the country should go, and our elected [04:56] representatives have to listen to us. But once we start [04:58] to believe that our movements are actually being [05:01] created by foreign governments, then it undercuts the [05:03] idea that these are citizen- led agendas. Spotting [05:09] trolls is a difficult thing to do. If you look at the [05:13] account, you see a lot pro- Kremlin content. You see a [05:15] lot of pro- Trump content, spelling mistakes. The [05:18] English is not the first language. It's more likely to be a [05:21] female account. Not a huge amount of followers. And [05:25] it's a lot of tweeting at people. That certain articles, [05:28] alternative sources, that sort of thing. And if you go [05:31] through the account and it consists of nothing but these [05:33] recurrent themes, it's more than likely that it's a [05:35] Russian troll. There is no scientific method for it, [05:38] because you do get these people anyway. You stay in [05:40] this game long enough and you begin to Recognize [05:43] trolls. It's probably not possible at first glance to tell [05:46] the difference between an authentic social protest and [05:48] a fake social protest. Precisely because our social [05:52] protests have become so scripted. So I mean one way I [05:56] like to tell people for example like, if there's fireworks [05:59] at the social protest, totally fake. You know this is how [06:01] we know but I mean again it doesn't really work. You [06:04] have to develop your revolutionary intuition. You have [06:06] to try to develop a theory of change and I think that A [06:10] lot of the danger of Russia's involvement in American [06:13] activism is they're not invested in positive social change [06:16] in America. They are quite happy if thousands and [06:19] millions of American activists waste their time on a [06:21] social protest as long as it creates unrest in this [06:24] country. The fact of the matter is we just all need to [06:27] think critically. I mean, there's so many times that a [06:30] post gets shared that you have no idea what it's about, [06:33] but you're just. Reading the headline you're like, yeah, [06:35] I agree with that even though you didn't check your [06:38] sources. These are the things that we learned in school [06:41] but it seems that when we go to the [06:45] Internet it doesn't follow. 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