The history of propaganda can be traced all the way to ancient Roman empires; it has virtually existed since forever and continues to be an indispensable tool for political entities across the board. Mechanisms of propaganda have endured the test of time, specifically the rise of the internet, and are now more advanced and sophisticated than ever before. The most overt news about propaganda/troll farms was the American military’s takedown of a Russian troll farm that sought to influence the 2018 mid-term elections, but a brief purview of the news will show you that troll farms are a powerful and illustrious propaganda tool in the age of the internet. While these are currently focused primarily on Facebook and Twitter, most would wager that troll farms will increasingly infiltrate online spaces.
What are Troll Farms?
Put simply, troll farms are organizations who overload social media or other internet platforms with comments, posts, or other content geared towards supporting a particular political agenda. This, however, is done through the use of individual accounts, which means that the average user does not really know whether a certain comment is organic, that is, whether it is made by a real person, or whether it originates from a fake account made by a troll farm. They are called farms because they produce content- the kind that is essential for the propagation of a certain narrative on the internet. For example, if a government or non-state actor wants to support a certain policy, or if it wishes to support a certain individual, its troll farms will be used to overload content on social media with support for said individual/policy, but portray it as organic comments from real individuals. This, in turn, would represent that popular support (at least on the internet; smarter individuals would at least acknowledge that this is not representative of the broader population) is in favor of what said propaganda is being spread about, thus working to influence public opinion.
This, however, is just one aspect of troll farms; another, and more insidious aspect of troll farms is the spreading of fake news (false information presented as authentic news). A lot of recent research (most prominently the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal) has shown that ‘fake news’ can significantly influence public opinion, and it is these troll farms that, more often than not, are the instigators for the rampant spread of inaccurate news.
This operates on a similar model to just commenting: fake accounts will excessively share certain news items, which then bring the items publicity and greater coverage (thanks to algorithms), and thus allow for fake news items to enter into the mainstream in social media. These news items are often targeted towards specific individuals in an attempt to defame them, and thus work brilliantly to influence public opinion towards certain individuals (Cambridge Analytica found that fake news articles about Hilary Clinton before the 2016 US elections changed- albeit marginally- public opinion towards Clinton). This then makes such tools indispensable and extremely powerful for entities with marked political agendas, since propaganda of this sort has the potential to significantly sway the view of the public.
Threats to democracy
Without getting into technical or philosophical debates, there are certain clear threats to democracy that troll farms pose. These are no different from the kind of threats that propaganda has historically posed to democratic forces, but they are clearly more dangerous and potent, given the tremendous potential they withhold vis-at-vis their positionality on the internet. This is a serious cause of concern and one that those interested in preserving the forces of democracy, particularly in light of the feeble legal systems that underpin regulation on the internet.
Who uses them?
This, there is no clear answer to. Most of the accusations of the use of troll farms have been accredited to the infamous Russian state, though Russia has fervently denied these accusations. There have also been reports of the use of troll farms by Turkey, but this, again, has no clear evidence. Three different entities come to mind, though.
The first are obviously states, who use propaganda to sway public opinion: this may be pertinent in the case of domestic politics (here, Pakistan’s example is most pertinent), or geopolitics, such as the Russian case shows. The second entity is non-state actors. Here, we shift our focus to organizations such as Anonymous who have consistently used New Age technology for their own (increasingly political) agendas. It would not be a surprise, however, if organizations such as ISIS were also investing in the use of troll farms. The third, and most obscure, could be researchers who are running troll farms as social experiments. While there is no substantive evidence for anything of the like happening now, the Cambridge Analytica scandal does present this as a possibility.
Why is there so little on the internet about them?
The answer to this should be obvious: troll farms, like all forms of propaganda, need to be covert and undetectable. If you knew about them, and if it was easy for you to identify troll farms, there would be no value to them as mechanisms of propaganda, and as entities that aim to show artificial content as organically generated public opinion. The potency of troll farms lies in heavy discretion within which they operate, and it is thus obvious that there is little-to-no substantive information about troll farms present on the internet. Nevertheless, if one searches diligently enough, there are certain scholars and journalists who have begun to focus on the phenomenon.
Where does Pakistan fit in?
There have been numerous, albeit obscure, reports that the Pakistani state has also engaged in the use of troll farms for propaganda. For now, these have been limited to the military establishment, wherein the claim is that the military establishment has used troll farms to withhold its support and legitimacy on the internet, and thus has used these mechanisms of propaganda to ensure that public opinion is presented in the favor of the establishment. There is no empirical evidence to prove these claims, nor has there been any sort of comprehensive or serious attempt to uncover the use of troll farms in Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Pakistan’s presence on social media and internet platforms is increasing, and the internet is increasingly becoming a space for political, economic and social debate in the country. Given this shift in the trends of political contestation and given the state’s historical tendency to attempt to ensure that its legitimacy remains intact, the claim that the Pakistani state is using, or is planning to use troll farms, is intuitively plausible. Then again, a lot of potential hypotheses ostensibly make sense, but that does not mean that they are true. One can, however, expect that troll farms make an appearance in the country sooner or later.
It remains to be seen how relevant and essential troll farms remain as tools of propaganda, and how they develop in the tide of rapid technological change. The legal, political, and social frameworks to address troll farms also remain a matter of great interest. In the New Age, where every node of our social and political realities is evolving, troll farms represent the dynamism of change that underpins the 21st century.
