On the hook

During the past few years, the battles for the voters’ favor have been going on not only during political talk shows or at the Verkhovna Rada. The pre-election competition moves from the real life to the virtual world. It is about the appearance of a team of trolls representing a number of Ukrainian politicians. The main task of the “troll team” is to create an air of popularity around their candidates and lower trust ratings for their opponents. Professional commentators and bloggers are hired for this purpose. They continuously provoke discussions and defend the point of view which is advantageous for their customers. Such activity influences people’s minds, and even becomes a reason for changing political preferences.

Recently, a special term was invented to describe this phenomenon: astroturfing. It denotes a process of creation of the artificial public opinion in the conditions of the Internet anonymity. So, after a number of forged trolling campaigns, it seems that a great many people support a certain political course or oppose it actively, although the real situation in the society may be absolutely different. Moreover, trolling happens not only online, but offline as well. And the involvement of specially trained workers is not essential in this case. For example, during the last broadcast of the “Shuster LIVE” TV show, the Party of Regions MP Olena Bondarenko accused the opposition of public trolling of her party member Volodymyr Oliinyk. Earlier, eccentric TV show host Oleksii Durniev played a troll scene with Arsenii Yatseniuk and a carrot. Famous super-short interviews with Ukrainian politicians by Michael Shchur are also a vivid example of trolling. What can we say, when social networks are full of the so-called trollfaces (black and white image of a face with a broad sarcastic smile – a “fed” troll) of famous politicians, created by common users of various network groups, communities, and public pages.

FROM A “PHILIPPIC” TO A “TROLL”

The very phrase “forum troll” appeared in the early 1980s, but its roots reach as far as the ancient times. In the 14th century BC, Athenian orator Demosthenes directed a number of angry, accusatory speeches against the Macedonian king Philip II. Later, Cicero somewhat imitated Demosthenes, when he called his speeches, directed against Mark Antony, “philippics.” So, “philippic” and “troll” are synonyms, since both have to do with soiling the reputation of a certain person or a group of people.

The term “troll” was borrowed from the fishermen’s vocabulary. There, this word describes bait on a hook. Indeed, trolling on forums is somewhat like fishing: naive users are given a provocative bait post, they react to it emotionally, thus resemble fish, caught in the flamer’s (disputes provocateur) net. However, there is another version of this term’s etymology. In Scandinavian countries, troll is one of the main folklore characters; it is an ugly, mean, and unpleasant character in a number of fairy tales. Just think of Andersen’s Snow Queen, the very beginning of which features “the most evil troll that looked like Mephistopheles.”

Trolling became especially widespread in the 1990s, but nowadays, this social and psychological phenomenon became more popular than ever before: sooner or later, all the popular websites, forums, and groups encounter trolls and trolling. Moreover, since the beginning of the new millennium, Internet trolls started creating their own virtual communities, organizations, and even parties to exchange experience on the most effective ways of inciting various conflicts. It is curious that in July 2012, an American journalist wrote an article about the creation of a special virus program for a commentary fight against terrorists. Because trolling is the only option that was not used by the United States in this fight. And according to the application developers, this may become the most effective weapon.

TROLLING WITH A HUMAN FACE

Initially, creation of Internet forums and implementation of the option of leaving comments under specific publications aimed at the creation of a network platform for the constructive debate. That is, everyone could join the discussion and express their personal opinion on the understanding of this or that matter. For it is known that virtual democracy is an integral part of real democracy. However, as the time passed, this concept has been partially forgotten. Now, Internet is one of the few platforms where a common citizen can express their negative opinion of political statements, actions, measures taken by the governmental majority, opposition, or separate representatives of Ukrainian politics. So, people have no other choice but to publicly make fun of the politicians they voted for not so long before. Voltaire wrote once: “What has been ridiculed, cannot be dangerous anymore.” The same principle works here. That is why it is no wonder that mainstream trollfaces and Internet memes (which for the most part are silly phrases or information that became highly popular on the web) featuring politicians are very widespread now.

For example, at the end of the last year, the search portal Yandex published the top 10 most popular Internet memes of the 2012. Political blunders received a lot of attention and were presented on the list. In particular, the third place went to a meme called “Krovosisi,” and the seventh – to “Paperedniki” (“Bloodsuckers” and “Predecessors” respectively – words, which the prime minister Azarov articulated incorrectly during his speeches). It should be mentioned that the prime minister’s speech mistakes are often mocked by Ukrainian Internet users. The fourth place belongs to a meme “Improvement” – political motto of Yanukovych’s 2010 election campaign. Today, it became more popular because of the increase of the gap between the words and the government’s real actions.

The sixth place was taken by the popular meme “House to the Cat.” It is associated with the famous Dnipropetrovsk billboard with a picture of an old lady and her cat and a caption that read: “Found out that my grandson voted for the Party of Regions; re-registered the house to the cat.”

Of course, there are hundreds of Internet memes and trollfaces on the web, and it is impossible to list them all. However, the following politicians received the most “trollface attention” in social networks in 2012:

1. Mykola Azarov (the prime minister of Ukraine);

2. Viktor Yanukovych (the president of Ukraine);

3. Natalia Korolevska (the minister for social policy of Ukraine);

4. Oleh Liashko (MP, leader of the Radical Party);

5. Oleh Tiahnybok (MP, leader of the Svoboda Party);

6. Vitalii Klitschko (MP, leader of the UDAR Party);

7. Arsenii Yatseniuk (MP, head of the Batkivshchyna faction);

8. Yulia Tymoshenko (leader of the Batkivshchyna Party);

9. Iryna Farion (MP, the Svoboda Party);

10. Petro Symonenko (MP, leader of the Communist Party).

Famous English essayist Joseph Addison wrote once: “Obloquy and mockery are always in the constant demand of the public.” In our time, this phrase is relevant as it has never been before. Because instead of making a real protest or openly declare one’s disagreement with the government’s actions, most of the citizens silently spend their time on the web, quietly scribble new angry statuses on their accounts, or create new Internet memes.

AGENT PROVOCATEUR AS A JOB

During an election campaign professional Internet trolls are in great demand. In job descriptions they are usually ambiguously described as “expert in social media.” Their mission is to provide daily comments on political websites in favor of a certain political camp. According to unofficial data, such experts can become a true asset in a political party or a majoritarian candidate’s team, and are one of the tools in the hands of contemporary political technologists. They shape public opinion and certain persons’ reputation via online comments and posts. In general, trolling involves playing on negative emotions. The main task is to cut the opponent to the quick, find their weak spot, appeal to their complexes and provoke a further discussion. Some parties employ the so-called team technology, where a team joins efforts to troll a certain author. Such trolls effectively block all further discussion of an issue which is undesirable for their customer.

Experts say that it is very easy to tell a troll’s comment from that made by a real user. As a rule, trolls only either praise or curse, they never express their thoughts in a tolerant manner. However, the most recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology shows that almost 70 percent of all comments in the Internet have traits of hate speech, while the most discontent is directed against politicians and the authors themselves. It means that the most part of the Internet space is crammed with trolls’ comments. Supposedly, the vast majority of them lobby for the interests of a certain political force of individuals. Consequently, the idea of Internet forums or online comments as a platform for constructive debate is something unrealistic and rather suggests the unattainable dream from Mann’s future order.

POLITICAL TROLLS

The representatives of the nation’s political elite are nothing loath to use trolling in social networks. We can see an example of sophisticated trolling in an exchange between the former minister of emergencies Viktor Baloha and his colleague, the then minister of culture Mykhailo Kulyniak. After the latter’s acceptance of friendship request, the former asked, “Why so serious? Aren’t you a government minister, by any chance? Thanks for accepting my request!” On the following day Baloha commented on his own post on his colleague’s page, “Is Kulyniak asleep?” To this Kulyniak replied, “I will have to inform the Facebook administration that you are not Mr. Viktor Baloha, as you are pretending to be.” Baloha reacted promptly: “Mykhailo! You should have dialed 200 at work and )))))).”

Besides online trolling, there is also its offline variety. The key difference – no anonymousness in the latter, and consequently, a higher level of responsibility for provocative escapades. However, politicians of all sorts and ranks are not scared by publicity. On the contrary, they find it rather stimulating. For them it is just another political technology, just like the so-called “black PR.” Such trolls are classified into crude and subtle. The former are also called political weightlifters. They specialize in scandalous statements and are notorious for their epatage. Here belongs the Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovski, and in Ukraine, the leader of the Radical Party Oleh Liashko and the former mayor of Kyiv Leonid Chernovetsky. They are the tabloids’ pets: they make news savory, and readers know their heroes by sight. As far as the subtle trolls go, everything is much more complex: subtle trolling requires a certain level of sophistication in performance, which our domestic politicians bitterly lack. However, here we can find some exceptions. The abovementioned exchange between ex-ministers Baloha and Kulyniak can be regarded as a form of online provocation. Kulyniak was not able to discern his colleagues subtle trolling and bit his bait.

The situation in the Verkhovna Rada – with the oppositionists chanting “Ukrainian! Ukrainian!” when other MPs begin their speech in Russian, or when PoR members chant “fascists” when Svoboda MPs take the floor – can also be qualified as trolling.

By the way, Russia recently started a new award, Troll of the Year, for publicly provoking your opponent. The first “laureates” are Vladimir Putin, Pussy Riot, and the Duma MPs Zhirinovski, Yelena Mizulina, and Vitalii Milonov.

GOVERNMENT’S BAIT

Various varieties of trolling play an important role in the government’s activities today. Going back in history, we can see that kings, emperors, and politicians put a lot of effort into devising and implementing trolling. However, today it has become much more important than ever before. Thus, from time to time governments troll their citizens. First its representatives announce some a priori unpopular innovations (the bait), which provoke popular discontent, eventually growing into mass protests and rallies. Later the president or prime minister proudly informs the country of their partial revision, or even abolition – and the population thanks and praises its demagogues to the skies. Something of this sort we were able to observe, for instance, during popular protests against the new Tax Code or pension reform.

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By the way, several years ago Vadym Kolesnichenko, MP for the Party of Regions, authored and proposed a draft law “On Opposing Extremism.” It suggested, among other things, to intensify the war against online extremism, which theoretically would have been able to destroy online trolls, but in practice would give a free hand to government in crushing down the dissenters. A similar draft had already been passed by our north-eastern neighbor, but was never approved by Ukrainian MPs. So much the better. Of course, fighting trolls is a good thing, but politicians should begin with themselves rather than continue a series of experiments on Mr. Everyman. The initial goal of political trolling is provocation. Popular trolling is meant to ridicule and mock the nation’s elected leadership and legislators. Heinrich Heine wrote: “When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.” Meanwhile, the Verkhovna Circus of Ukraine continues its barely productive work.