Putin's Trolls
On the Frontlines of Russia's Information War Against the World
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
"Timely exposé of Russia’s vast disinformation campaign from a Finnish journalist persecuted for her persistent reporting of its brazen abuses...a damning portrait of Putin and his autocratic, manipulative regime."—Kirkus
“Jessikka Aro has written a frightening and fascinating book, chronicling Russian information warfare in irrefutable detail. Exposing Putin’s trolls is dangerous, vital, and ultimately heroic work.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter
“By exposing Putin’s institutionalized trolling operations Jessikka Aro has gone where no one has had the courage to go before and has done so at great peril. Ms. Aro has done the world a huge service by showing us how these tactics work so we can better defend ourselves going forward.”—Bill Browder
"An important book for those who want to understand the complex and confusing ways reality is manufactured in the digital era. Aro's story shines a bright light on the dark world of online information manipulation operations that can upend the lives of individuals and the health of democracies."—Liz Wahl
A chilling account of Russian information warfare, Putin's Trolls exposes the individuals and organizations behind the Kremlin’s coordinated, military-style social media operations against the West.
In this courageous and unflinching book, award-winning journalist Jessikka Aro interweaves her own dramatic story as a target of Russian social media propaganda with accounts from many internationally known critics of the Kremlin, who share their own stories of being targeted by Russia’s multifaceted cyber warfare campaigns. As Jessikka began to investigate the impact of the Kremlin’s troll operations outside of Russia, she learned that private citizens in many other countries were being victimized by Kremlin-designed information campaigns. These actions were frequently conducted through an organized “troll factory” led by Russia’s security and intelligence apparatus, using unregulated social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Many of the disinformation campaigns were centered around the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Finnish journalist Aro takes a chilling and timely look at how the Kremlin's "political technologists" have transformed Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube into "psychological weapons of mass destruction." After publishing a story about Russian troll networks in September 2014, Aro became the target of coordinated attacks by anonymous online commentators, fake news sites, and pro-Kremlin propagandists. She interweaves her own account of receiving threatening messages, having her identity stolen numerous times, and seeing her professional reputation damaged with the experiences of others who have been targeted by Kremlin disinformation campaigns, including a Lithuanian diplomat forced to resign after edited recordings of his phone calls were uploaded to YouTube, Ukrainian journalists covering Russia's invasion of Crimea, and a Serbian political analyst who sought to expose Russia's "hostile influence operations in the Balkans." Throughout, Aro warns that Western laws and legal systems "are inadequate for meeting the challenges of organized online hate dissemination," and bluntly criticizes Big Tech for ignoring its own community standards in order to profit off of "state-sponsored propaganda and hate speech." Though occasionally repetitive, Aro's cri de coeur is well-documented and persuasive. This disturbing study does a stellar job of depicting Russia's propaganda machine in action.
