In 2012 a cache of emails between members of a Russian pro-Putin youth group, Nashi, was leaked online. The emails revealed that young Russians were being paid to create thousands upon thousands of fake online personas, which they would use to douse any online news article that criticised Vladimir Putin with negative comments. YouTube videos from activists such as Alexei Navalny would be stifled by downvotes, while others were paid to generate blogs and videos to create the illusion of widespread support for the Putin regime.
Russia was far from the only government to use such practices. In 2013 a report by the think tank Freedom House recorded “paid progovernment commentators” at work in 22 countries, “particularly surrounding politically sensitive events such as elections or major street protests”. Russia stood apart, however, in its aggressive willingness to direct this new power across its borders. When Mark Zuckerberg was called to appear before senators in April 2018, he agreed that Russia had “repeatedly used complex networks of inauthentic accounts to deceive and manipulate people in the US, Europe and Russia”.
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