The Internet Research Agency

A "troll farm" is an organized group that gathers for the specific purpose of affecting public opinion through the generation of misinformation and/or disinformation on the internet. An individual involved in such activity is referred to as an internet troll. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian group established in St. Petersburg in 2013, which influences and participates in Russian war theaters, can be considered a "troll farm."

It is estimated that the IRA employs about 400 people who operate trolls on the internet from a base of 40 rooms, with addresses in St. Petersburg. At the beginning of its existence, the IRA's work was much more focused on Russian domestic politics. However, from 2014, there was a shift in the agency's efforts, involving themselves in internet networks in foreign countries, mainly the United States. The IRA heavily invested in fraudulent campaigns, creating images and videos to depict events and flood social media with personal accounts of incidents.

Before the U.S. presidential election, the IRA escalated its activities and used its social media presence to organize a series of real-world rallies. These fabricated rallies took place in Florida, New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania as part of the influence operation before the election. There is a list of contentious and divisive themes chosen and exploited by the IRA, including: Blue Lives Matter, pro-police; Texas culture, community, and pride; Southern culture (Confederate history); separatist and secession movements; LGBT culture, community, and pride; Native American culture, community, and pride; meme culture and "red pill" ideology; patriotism and Tea Party culture; liberal and feminist culture; pro-Trump and anti-Clinton political content; and media trust.

The existence of these groups may perhaps be considered the greatest demonstration of the vulnerabilities of democracies, as they end up negatively impacting their essence. Thus, the American saying "In God We Trust" could easily be replaced by "In Social Media We Trust.". This becomes evident on how Generation Z, between 9-24 years old, demonstrates how a generation that is most familiar with technology is nevertheless usually deceived, being an easy target for fake news and absurd claims.

During the election period in the US a fabricated claim started spreading, this misinformation claimed that there would be a massacre of LGBT people and people of color if Trump lost the election. However, even such a blatantly false claim, which overestimates the power of an individual, even if it is the President of the United States, ended up gaining traction mainly among the younger generation. The article argues that young people are more likely to believe and spread misinformation if they feel a sense of common identity with the person who shared it initially.

In order to understand how such contraditory fact comes to happen its important to understand the relevance of the social context of each community. When deciding which claims are trustworthy and which should be ignored or doubted, teenagers leverage their established social context in their communities. Social connections and individual reputations developed over years of shared experiences inform which family members, friends, and classmates are trustworthy for forming their opinions and receiving updates on events.

In this scenario, collective community knowledge about whom to trust and which topics to observe contributes more to credibility than the identity of the person making a claim, even if that identity is shared by these young people. Thus, the credibility of social media depends much more on identity than community. When this authority leaves the community, it moves to so-called influencers.Not only do identity issues transform the internet has a transformative effect on many other aspects of society. However, this transformation has not improved the act of protest and political manifestation.

"Optimistic Debates of 2010 and 2011."

Schiffrin (2017) describes the perception of the Western world in the years close to the Arab Spring, before it became the Arab Winter, as

The internet was supposedly dispersing the power of international organizations and governments to emerging communities, which take advantage of the capillarity of social networks and end up undermining the traditional authority of the state. The Arab Spring, for example, was long associated with this new information environment. From virtual money to community-based mapping, as well as gathering citizens to report news, distribute information, and organize politically, digital technology had the potential to leave obsolete power structures behind (Schiffrin, 2017).