Why is the media referring to Russian "shills" as "trolls"?

37  2018-02-19 by CelineHagbard

In the coverage of the 13 Russian nationals recently indicted by the DoJ, all of the US media has been referring to them as "trolls," when by any consensus definition they should rightly be called "shills." A troll is person who posts on internet forums and social media for the purpose of eliciting an emotional reaction, while a shill is someone paid by some other party to promote a company, product, idea, or candidate, or to denigrate that of an opponent or competitor.

According to the DoJ narrative, the Russian government was paying these people to promote their agenda, so shouldn't they be called "shills?" Are they afraid that if people learn about the word "shill," they'll be looking for them in other places, such as pro-US-corporation shills?

24 comments

1  kit8642 2018-02-19

Good call, language is very important and taking note of how they are using it to manipulate the public is key. Thanks!

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

Thanks. I realized this after watching an NYT video today explaining what bots and trolls are, and the definition of "troll" was literally the definition of a "shill." I think that word gets tossed around a bit too loosely here, and on reddit in general, but it does have a real meaning with a long history of usage, and is a fairly well-documented phenomenon.

The other thought I had, and I read this Moon of Alabama post yesterday, is that these Russian "trolls" might actually have just been straight up shills for hire: they were using political messaging to gain followers that they could leverage to promote corporations, and were not in fact acting for political purposes.

I'm not sure if I buy this theory yet, but it certainly seems plausible. And it would make sense why they're being called trolls, which has the connotation of disruption and sowing discord as the narrative is being told, whereas if they were called shills, more people might look into this alternate theory.

1  kit8642 2018-02-19

I think you might be right. I've been wondering if Cambridge Analytics (UK based firm hired by Trump) is going to be brought up into the general conversation of foreign agents influencing our election through online shilling, or even CTR/Shareblue for that matter (although apparently it's a big difference if it's US people doing it... Which I don't agree with), but it never really does. What I think would be even more amazing, which I know will never be brought up in the MSM, is how foreign lobbying isn't considered influencing our elections or even our Government. It's what Gates & Manafort went down for, but just look at the pay to play with the Clinton foundation with regards to just military weapons deals. If these people actually cared about foreign influences in our government campaign finance and foreign lobbying should be the #1 topic they are discussing... But we all know how that works now.

1  TangledWebsWeWeave 2018-02-19

I'd say the vast majority, like 99.9 percent of Trump supporters online are real, organic supporters.

Just look the size of every single one of his rallies versus hers.

He didn't even need creepy musicians to draw the crowd beforehand.

1  Putin_loves_cats 2018-02-19

Yup, they have to control the narrative, and they are masters of manipulation, as we all know.

1  williamsates 2018-02-19

According to the DoJ narrative, the Russian government was paying these people to promote their agenda, so shouldn't they be called "shills?"

They don't actually allege this in the indictment. Moon of Alabama had a good article on this, if you haven't read it.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/3000-facebook-ads-the-russian-influence-campaign-is-a-profitable-click-bait-scheme.html

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

Haha, just posted this in another comment!

Perhaps I should have been more specific or careful in my own wording. The indictment itself does not actually allege motive, only the actions. It is telling, though, that almost every article I've read from MSM sources is referring to them as "trolls." I'll have to watch Rosenstein's press conference again and check to see if DoJ or the Special Counsel released a press conference, and whether they used the word.

1  frisbee_coach 2018-02-19

I’ve had multiple twitter accounts banned for “activity that is similar to bots”.

By that definition, I am a Russian troll 😂

1  Luvs2Spooooge 2018-02-19

Comrade

1  joelberg 2018-02-19

I think shill is a term that is known a lot less outside of Reddit. Troll is more of a grab all term. I'd almost say that shills are a sub group of trolls.

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

I think you're probably right that shill is less known outside of reddit, or outside internet forums in general, so that could be one benign explanation.

I would disagree that that shills are a subset of trolls, though. In the classic understanding, shills are paid for a specific purpose, while trolls are doing it for the psychological gratification (aka, the lulz). The distinction in my mind is one of motivation. However, you could make a case that the distinction could be one of purpose. The goal of a shill is to promote or denigrate a particular thing, while the goal of a troll is to generally disrupt a community.

In this sense, calling the Russians "trolls" could be accurate. But even this is a bit suspect, as it's only been the last month or so that the narrative has shifted from "Russians paid trolls to promote Trump" to "Russians paid trolls to divide the country."

1  moonmooncheeze 2018-02-19

Many of their Twitter and Facebook posts, would definitely quality as trolling. They were highly emotional posts designed to provoke a reaction, the very definition of a troll.

1  perfect_pickles 2018-02-19

but when its paid deceitful employment its shilling.

1  toomuchpork 2018-02-19

I don't see it that way. Trolls incite an emotional response. Shills are paid to subvert. People do the work of shills for free just being a troll. That may be the overlap.

1  Odor_punchout_16 2018-02-19

I've been wondering the same, glad you pointed that out

1  metlblu 2018-02-19

Josh Goldberg who posed as isis online to incite terror attacks was referred to as a "troll". Jewish privelige i guess. ..

1  I_AM_AMHAARETZ 2018-02-19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

And?

1  I_AM_AMHAARETZ 2018-02-19

You didn't read it all in 1 minute.

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

You ninja-edited the second link in after I made my comment.

1  RecoveringGrace 2018-02-19

Shills, IMO, are dedicated to a purpose because they are paid to push a particular message. Trolling is disruption and can be paid or not.

The votebots are what no one is talking about. I would love to know who is paying for all the bots.

1  macronius 2018-02-19

Trolls live under bridges, there are a lot of bridges in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg, where the alleged trolls were based: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/bridges/

1  unclezipper 2018-02-19

Perhaps they use it as a flag for linguistics analysis on social media. They would like to know how many strong their following is, wouldn't they? Getting a feel for how many people still buy what they're selling, in a sense.

1  afooltobesure 2018-02-19

Because they aren’t shilling for Trump, they’re trolling both for Trump and against him.

1  dancing-turtle 2018-02-19

I think it's just because 1) troll has such widely recognized negative connotations, and 2) it helps with their obvious agenda of using it to smear anyone else they want by association, since the definition of troll is so broad. Anyone who does anything you don't like online is a "troll". Calling someone a shill without evidence of a financial relationship would stray into defamation territory.

1  Amazonistrash 2018-02-19

Because media sock puppets dont speak 1337

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

Thanks. I realized this after watching an NYT video today explaining what bots and trolls are, and the definition of "troll" was literally the definition of a "shill." I think that word gets tossed around a bit too loosely here, and on reddit in general, but it does have a real meaning with a long history of usage, and is a fairly well-documented phenomenon.

The other thought I had, and I read this Moon of Alabama post yesterday, is that these Russian "trolls" might actually have just been straight up shills for hire: they were using political messaging to gain followers that they could leverage to promote corporations, and were not in fact acting for political purposes.

I'm not sure if I buy this theory yet, but it certainly seems plausible. And it would make sense why they're being called trolls, which has the connotation of disruption and sowing discord as the narrative is being told, whereas if they were called shills, more people might look into this alternate theory.

1  CelineHagbard 2018-02-19

And?

1  TangledWebsWeWeave 2018-02-19

I'd say the vast majority, like 99.9 percent of Trump supporters online are real, organic supporters.

Just look the size of every single one of his rallies versus hers.

He didn't even need creepy musicians to draw the crowd beforehand.