在俄罗斯圣彼得堡(St. Petersburg)一个很不起眼的大楼里，数以百计的工作人员在“因特网研究机构”(Internet Research Agency)中不分昼夜地倒班，每班工作12小时。但与其名称恰恰相反，这里所从事的主要是造假而非研究――在这里，他们秘密地设置了数以千计的伪造的推特(Twitter)、脸书(Facebook)以及其他社交媒体账户，以蛊惑公众舆论来反对西方。
现在，这个网络巨魔(trolls)的巢穴早已成为头条新闻。一位记者绘制了它的推特自动程序(Twitter-bots)，而另一位则通过按照地理位置来研究谷歌的搜索字词而发现了其他一些潜在的“工厂”。还有一位记者揭示了与该机构有关联的网络巨魔是如何编造复杂的网上骗局的，其中包括所谓化学品泄漏、埃博拉(Ebola)爆发以及在美国发生的谋杀案[]。最近，圣彼得堡的这家机构被一名前雇员起诉罚款一个卢布――她用这种象征性的举动来揭示这一恶行的存在。
据自由电台(Radio Liberty)，这一昼夜不停地运作的机构是通过一家由俄罗斯总统普京(Vladimir Putin)的“私人厨师”叶夫根尼·普利扎金(Evgeny Prigozhin)掌管的控股公司资助的。它的目的究竟是什么？
在BuzzFeed于2014年6月所的一份泄露的件中，一位项目负责人写：“主要的问题是，俄罗斯的支持者和反对者在国外因特网社区中的比例分别约为20/80。”
一些网络巨魔站了出来并讲了真话。前职业巨魔马拉特·布克哈德(Marat Burkhard)在出于个人意愿离开因特网研究机构后，将他的一些经历告诉了自由电台[]。他描述说，如果有新闻记者出现的话，大楼里面的窗帘就会拉上。员工们被禁止上街。
任何员工迟到一分钟就会被罚款500卢布（大约合9美元）。布克哈德说：“你必须坐在那儿不停地敲键盘，永无尽头。”
培养网络巨魔
以下是布克哈德和其他一些前网络巨魔所讲述的一些情况：
布克哈德说，该机构中的有些成员是“狂热分子”，但大多数人“都是一些只是想要赚钱的年轻人”。他说，“他们在政治上是如此无知以至于普京和欧巴马……对他们来说都没有什么区别”。
他们所申的工作通常听起来都是些正当职业，职称包括社交媒体专员、因特网操作员和撰稿人。
布克哈德说，“起初，他们会让你写一些比较中性的东西――像《素食主义：优点和缺点》之类”。然后，“为了加强政治内容，他们会派一个人来谈谈当天的主题，这样至少会使员工对这个主题有一点背景方面的了解。但派来的人对主题的理解水平极低，所以一切看起来都很荒谬。”
他说，他们会用一些简短的考试来考核员工的信念。“如果答错几题的话就必须重考”，而且那些一直考得不好的员工会被解雇。
伎俩：“恶人，图片，链接”
据国广播公司(BBC)，在一些社交媒体账户上，这些网络巨魔经常扮作家庭主妇和“心怀不满的美国公民”。但欺骗行为远远不止这些。布克哈德说，他的部门负责在俄罗斯社区论坛中对新闻发表评论，这个部门专事制造对话的错觉。
他说：“我们的做法是分成三组，其中一个人充当‘恶人’，他就是那个与论坛持不同意并批评当局的人，这样做是为了给我们的工作增加一种真实感。另外两个人加入进来与他展开争论――‘不，你是错的；这里所有的一切都是完全正确的。’其中一个会提供某些与此相关的图片或图像，而另外一个则会发布一个链接，在那里可以找到支持他观点的一些内容。你明白了吗？这就是恶人，图片，链接。”
这种伎俩是对人们施加影响的一种综合策略的一部分。政策专家安德鲁·威尔逊(Andrew Wilson)曾写，克里姆林宫“习惯于各方通吃”。他说：“在俄罗斯，克里姆林宫试图指挥政治棋盘上的所有棋子；黑白两方都包括在内。而且它还对棋盘四边强行管制，决定谁可以走棋，虽说借用了下棋这个比喻，但与真正的下棋规则相去甚远。”
发送信息
柳德米拉·萨乌彻克(Lyudmila Savchuk)告诉法新社(Agence France Presse)，“普京了不起”、“乌克兰人是法西斯分子”，还有“欧洲腐朽堕落”，这些都是她被授意在因特网论坛上散布的信息[]。“我们的工作是写亲政府的内容，以美化政府政策和普京个人形象的方式来对所有事件进行解释。”
萨乌彻克控告这一神秘机构并要求处以一卢布罚款，以便引起人们对这一恶行的注意。她对《每日电讯》(Telegraph)表示：“我希望让它关闭”。[俄]她说：“这些人在使用宣传机构摧毁客观性，并使人们怀疑任何公民抗议的动机。最糟糕的是，他们假冒成我们――俄罗斯的公民――来这样做。”虽然法庭以胜诉象征性地判给了她一个卢布，但这个机构还在继续运作。
帐户多，定额高
布克哈德说，他大约每五分钟必须至少写一条200字以上的评论，即在每班12小时内写出135条评论。每一个帖子都需要包括精确的关键字和标签，以供搜索引擎使用。
泄露的件还揭示出一些其他要求：网络巨魔平均每个工作日要对新闻跟贴50次。每个博客写手都要开6个脸书账户，每天至少发三个帖，并且至少在群内进行两次新闻讨论。在工作人员上班后第一个月月底，每个人都应该有500个订户，并且每天的每一个帖子都应该至少有5个跟帖。博客写手在推特上要至少管理10个账户，并且要每天发推50条信息。
一支“网络巨魔军团”
布克哈德说，因特网研究机构的部门――其中包括新闻、视频、“打压人心”(demotivators)以及社区论坛――之间从不来往，但讲语的部门扮演着一个特殊的角色。那里的人员“炮轰CNN和BBC的网站。他们有自己的目标――《纽约时》（New York Times）。”
BuzzFeed以及众多媒体都已对这支百万美金“网络巨魔军团”的设置进行了披露[]。网络巨魔大军的猖獗迫使许多俄罗斯纸以及俄罗斯局势的外语媒体关闭了他们的评论版块[]。
数字化战场
在利用网络巨魔大军的攻势扶植海外不同政的同时，俄罗斯却在采取措施扼杀自己国家的因特网自由。根据《纽约时》2014年的，克里姆林宫已经屏蔽了反对派领袖的一些网站。
普京于去年表达了他对因特网的疑虑，他将其称为一个“中央情局(CIA)的项目”，这一评论得到了《莫斯科时》(Moscow Times)的。（万维网（World Wide Web）的发明者在路透社(Reuters)发表章纠正了他的说法。）
人权倡导人士帕维尔·契可夫(Pavel Chikov)对BuzzFeed表示：“因特网已成为主要威胁――这不是一个由克里姆林宫控制的领域。这就是为什么他们对此穷追不舍。”
Everything you wanted to know about trolls but were afraid to ask
Hundreds of people work 12-hour shifts day and night at the Internet Research Agency，an unassuming building in St. Petersburg，Russia. But contrary to its name，more fabrication than research happens there —thousands of fake Twitter，Facebook and other social media accounts have been created in a once-secret attempt to sway public opinion against the West.
By now，this den of trolls has long been in the headlines. One journalist mapped its Twitter-bots，while another discovered other potential “factories”by studying Google search terms by geographic location. A third reporter showed how trolls linked to the agency created elaborate online hoaxes about supposed chemical spills，outbreaks of Ebola and murders in the United States. The St. Petersburg agency was recently sued by a former employee for one ruble —a symbolic move to highlight the operation‘s existence.
The round-the-clock operation is financed through a holding company headed by President Vladimir Putin’s “personal chef，”Evgeny Prigozhin，reports Radio Liberty. What was the idea behind it？
“The main problem is that in the foreign Internet community，the ratio of supporters and opponents of Russia is about 20/80 respectively，”one project leader writes in a leaked document reported in June 2014 by BuzzFeed.
Some trolls have come forward to tell all. Former professional troll Marat Burkhard，who left Internet Research Agency of his own accord，told Radio Liberty about his experience. He described how the building‘s curtains are drawn if a journalist shows up. Employees are forbidden from going out on the street.
Any employee who arrives a minute late faces a 500 ruble fine (about US $9). “You just have to sit there and type and type，endlessly，”Burkhard said.
Grooming trolls
Here’s more of what Burkhard and other former trolls said：
Some of the agency‘s trolls are “fanatics，”but most “are just young people who want to make money. They’re so politically illiterate that Putin，Obama …they don‘t know the difference，”said Burkhard.
The jobs they apply for often sound innocent，with titles such as social media specialists，Internet operators and copywriters.
“First they make you write about something neutral —Vegetarianism：Pros and Cons，”Burkhard said. Later，“to plump up the political content，they send in a guy to talk about the topic of the day，so that at least the employees have a little background on the topic. But the guy himself has an extremely low level of understanding，so it all looks completely absurd.”
(©Shutterstock)
Short exams test employees’beliefs，he said. “Anyone who makes a couple of mistakes has to retake it，”and those who continue to underperform get fired.
Technique：‘Villain，picture，link’
According to the BBC，in social media accounts，the trolls often pose as housewives and “disappointed U.S. citizens.”But the deception doesn‘t stop there. Burkhard said his department，which commented on news in Russian community forums，specialized in creating the illusion of conversation.
“We did it by dividing into teams of three，”he said. “One of us would be the ’villain，‘the person who disagrees with the forum and criticizes the authorities，in order to bring a feeling of authenticity to what we’re doing. The other two enter into a debate with him —‘No，you’re not right；everything here is totally correct.‘One of them should provide some kind of graphic or image that fits in the context，and the other has to post a link to some content that supports his argument. You see？Villain，picture，link.”
This technique fits into a broader strategy of influencing people. The Kremlin “is used to playing all sides，”writes policy expert Andrew Wilson. “In Russia，the Kremlin sought to direct all the pieces on the political chess board；both sides —black and white. And，to undermine the metaphor of how chess is actually played，it also policed the edge of the board and determined who could actually play.”
Messaging
“Putin is great，”“Ukrainians are fascists，”and “Europe is decadent”were the main messages Lyudmila Savchuk told Agence France Presse that she was instructed to spread on Internet forums. “Our job was to write in a pro-government way，to interpret all events in a way that glorifies the government’s politics and Putin personally.”
Savchuk sued the secretive agency for one ruble to draw attention to its practices. “I want to get it closed down，”she told the Telegraph. “These people are using propaganda to destroy objectivity and make people doubt the motives of any civil protest. Worst of all，they‘re doing it by pretending to be us，the citizens of Russia.”Though a court awarded her the symbolic ruble，the agency continues to operate.
Multiple accounts，big quotas
Burkhard said he had to write at least one comment of 200 characters or more about every five minutes，or 135 comments in a 12-hour shift. Each post needed to include precise keywords and tags for search engines.
Leaked documents reveal other requirements：Trolls should post on news articles 50 times in an average workday. Each blogger should maintain six Facebook accounts，publishing at least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice a day. By the end of the worker’s first month，he or she should have 500 subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter，the bloggers should manage 10 accounts and tweet 50 times a day.
A ‘troll army’
Among the Internet Research Agency‘s departments —which include news，video，“demotivators”and community forums that Burkhard said never fraternize —the English-speaking division plays a special role. People there will “bombard the websites of CNN and the BBC. They have their own types of targets —the New York Times，”he said.
Efforts to create a million-dollar “troll army”have been revealed by BuzzFeed and the press at large. The torrent of trolls has caused many Russian newspapers and foreign-language outlets reporting on Russian events to close their comments sections.
Digital battlefield
While fostering dissent overseas through its onslaught of trolls，Russia is taking steps to stifle Internet freedom in its own country. In 2014，the New York Times reported that the Kremlin has blocked the websites of opposition leaders.
Putin made his skepticism of the Internet known in 2014 when he called it a “CIA project，”a comment the Moscow Times picked up on. (The inventor of the World Wide Web corrected him in a Reuters article.)
“The Internet has become the main threat —a sphere that isn’t controlled by the Kremlin，”human rights advocate Pavel Chikov told BuzzFeed. “That‘s why they’re going after it.”
