Putin’s Trolls: On the Frontlines of Russia’s Information War Against the World

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. (June)