Saturday morning's missile attacks by the US, France and UK on Syrian installations allegedly used in the production of chemical weapons has compelled Moscow to retaliate in support of Bashar al-Assad's government in the form of “Russian trolls,” claims the Pentagon.
Even though Russia has not indicated plans to do so, Pentagon spokesperson Dana White with a straight face told reporters on Saturday that, as a result of the airstrikes, there has been a “2000-percent increase” in Russian trolling on the internet.
“The Russian disinformation campaign has already begun,” White asserted without provided context for the number, declaring that “there has been a 2,000-percent increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours,” cited by Gizmodo.
Although it is possible that a troll army in Russia not only exists but quickly picked up their metaphorical axes and swung to work responding online to the attacks on Syria this weekend. But what is unclear is where the White House got its “2,000-percent” statistic and what the significance of that number indicates.
Does an “increase in Russian trolls” include posts tracked back to Russian state-owned media? Or does the seemingly arbitrary number refer to an increased number of posts? Is it a measure of impact or engagement in the posts?
Or is it a figure chosen because it rolls off the tongue like the US missiles that rained down on Syrian infrastructure…
