Phil Butler - Putin's Praetorians - Confessions of the Top Kremlin Trolls

We had stumbled on a gusher — a lot of pent-up anger in the US and Europe over how the truth about Russia was being trampled on by the media and politicians. The deception was extreme — and so was the reaction, and Russia Insider was at the center of it.

I was furious, as were many, about the dishonesty in the media about the Ukraine civil war. Living in Moscow and speaking fluent Russian, I was getting both sides of the story, and it was pretty obvious which side was lying. The anti-Russia bias in the media had long troubled us, but this pushed us over the edge.

This is a short account of the Russia Insider story, and what I think needs to happen to avert a grave threat to our very civilization.

The hunger for news about Russia which contradicted the glaringly false narrative coming out of the media was insatiable. The more articles we published, the more our traffic grew — like wildfire. Yes, Russian official media — RT — had been doing something similar for about a decade, and doing it very well, but the deception and bias was so endemic and ingrained, and the need to correct it so dire, that the sector could — to this day — easily support a dozen like-minded outlets.

We were in the right place at the right time and quickly became the go-to and largest platform in the world (not counting RT) challenging what the media was saying about Russia.

In addition to the site, we started a Facebook page and Youtube channel, almost as an afterthought. Traffic on both also exploded. Within 18 months, across the site, social media, and Youtube, we were getting an average of 4 million visitors per month and 6 million views, and were regularly cited in the mainstream media. Counting republishing on other sites, our views approach 10 million per month. The demographics are interesting: 60% US and Canada, 35% Western Europe, 95% white male, mostly over 50, highly educated, high incomes.

Contributors, most of them volunteers, wrote original material, and in addition, we scanned the internet and reposted what we thought were the best articles about Russia, of which there turned out to be a huge number of excellent quality. Dozens of dissident analysts of the highest order had quietly emerged since the dawn of the blogosphere, and by curating what we thought were the best, and putting them in one place, we became essential reading for anyone following Russia, and a platform where many writers were glad to publish, because of the audience we could provide them.

In addition, we maintained a completely hands-off comment section, which we quickly realized was one of the biggest draws of the site. In short order, we ranked in the top 100 commenting sites in the world, ahead of heavyweights Newsweek, PBS, and Newsmax. Within our category, news and politics, we were in the top 50. In two years, we racked up over a million comments. But more important than their number was the quality and seriousness of many of them (yes there was also a lot of unpleasant abusive talk — inevitable in an unpoliced internet forum). It was always a source of amazement to us. A group of extremely well-informed regulars were routinely posting comments which often exceeded in length the articles they were discussing, and often with superb quality and insight.

It was a spontaneous and massive outpouring of talent and facts which were shredding the view of Russia pushed for decades in the mainstream media, along with the reputations of the ‘commentariat’ and their owners and editors doing the pushing. It was a popular insurrection against an effete and brittle elite trapped in their echo chambers, long since detached from reality. They never had a chance.

There is no question that traffic to Russia Insider is being partially blocked by the American government — by slowing the spread of our articles via Google, Twitter and Facebook, as confirmed by many other opposition media sources. On a level playing field our elites would be getting even more of a thrashing than they already are. Tipping the scales is one of the few moves they still have. But this too is unlikely to save them.

One of the most striking things to me about Russia Insider is how much fun it is. The Mencken quote above should be our corporate motto. We can’t help ourselves, because the media and political figures we skewer make such deliciously rich targets of themselves. Like ridiculing the Catholic church in 1517, prospects are thick on the ground.

The permanently angry and prune-faced, stick-up-her-bum Anne Applebaum, the spidery Ed Lucas stalking the dark corridors of the Economist (we actually created a fake contributor named Russel O’Phobe with his picture), Rachel Maddow honking breathlessly about her latest blinding insight into the ‘Russia Conspiracy’, the frankly spooky Masha Gessen looking for all the world like an evil dwarf out of a ghastly German fairy tale, Charles Krauthammer, who looks like his plastic surgeon was on a serious bender the day he mutilated him, the freakishly mean looking Samantha Power. The correlation between preaching lies, death and destruction, and looking evil goes way beyond coincidence.

The procession of spokes-buffoons at State and Pentagon were a comedian’s gift and a stunning insight into the decline of a civilization. Jen Psaki, Marie Harf, and John Kirby will all always have a special place in my heart. You were truly remarkable, and thanks Nikki Haley for keeping the show going.

As soon as one hapless target exits stage left, our arrows protruding from it like some giant porcupine, another monstrosity heaves into view, begging for ‘the treatment’. Our latest favorite is British former politician and journalist (she failed at both professions) Louise Mensch, reinvented as a social media maven and Russia conspiracy theorist, to whom the New York Times is happy to give prime placement on their op-ed page. The delusion and confusion about Russia is so deep, broad, and wide, that there is an almost endless supply of these characters. There are not enough hours in the day to do them all justice.

Note that the most egregious, the nastiest, the most hysterical offenders are mostly — women. There’s a Sunday morning sermon in there somewhere, but that is a subject for a different essay.

Here are some examples of the humorous headline approach:

• “Ambitious Waffle House Bumpkin Nikki Haley Invents Her Own Middle East Policy”

• “Voice of America Tells the Truth about Ukraine, Hell Freezes Over”

• “John McCain’s Latest Op-Ed More Brain Damaging Than Huffing Glue”

We frequently get emails from fans saying they are ‘addicted’ to the site, along with all manner of similar superlatives. One thing that made that possible was the extraordinary wealth of talent already writing about Russia in the blogosphere when we came along. We persuaded a large number of them to let us post their articles, and in a matter of months we had a better bench of analysts than any mainstream outlet could field, no matter how mighty. As we grew, more and more blogs and small sites were started, partially helped by the fact that we would carry their articles.

The writing was often superb, and the analysis solid. These were professors, businessmen, diplomats, journalists, investors, legal experts — experienced, serious professionals who often understood their subject and knew their facts far better than most journalists ever would. The typical profile; white men over 50 who had a little spare time on their hands. Put them in a head-to-head with your typical 20-something being paid per click, or your ideologically blinkered striver at the Post or the Times, and it was no contest.

Another reason for the embarrassment of talent and knowledge was the degree to which media, government, and academia, had been hollowed-out by a strict insistence on a very dubious, neoconservative view which often stood in stark variance to the facts. That world was full of yes-men, neocon zealots, those willing to sacrifice principles to ambition, the intellectually lazy, and the just plain stupid — in short your typical modern journalist. It left out the better sort, and from this considerable population, a great many brilliant writers were born in the internet age.