Although not a new phenomena, internet trolling has significantly increased in recent years. Paid trolling is the organised propagation of “disinformation” online, a subset of misinformation that is purposefully false and misleading. It offers quick and cheap ways for governments, political groups, and tech companies to discredit their opponents.Infacts,governments around the world especially populist and autocratic rulers around the world use them as part of online propaganda efforts, as a weapon to suppress opposition, to develop alternate (and frequently perplexing) narratives, and to capitalise on polarized population.
Trolling armies are generally a group of people use fake identities to post on social media and participate in online forums in order to send or suppress a particular message. Online troll armies use outol of context,morphed pictures or disinformation to supress the truth.
According to experts,trolling army can be made up of both government employees and independent agencies who are paid on a per-post basis. However, not all troll armies consist of government agents or hired individuals;some people acting on their own initiative or even automated “bot” accounts that have been programmed to propagate specific messages.Retweeting and commenting on other other’s postings are just a couple of the strategies they employ to try to establish the impression of a preeminent and widely accepted narrative.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reportedly employs a group of internet commentators who are known as the 50-Cent Brigade and pays them regularly for each pro-China post. The 50-Cent Brigade is also referred to as the 50-Cent army.Generally instructons given by emails or through other social media platforms to twist public opinion to certain ideology,divert the attention to other issues.
