Who feeds the Crimean trolls?
The Ministry of Internal Policy, Information and Communications of the Crimea increasingly resembles the Orwellian Ministry of Truth
In Crimea, politicians and social activists who disagree with one or other actions of regional authorities, not only deprive the right to vote in the media and expert councils, but also severely punished for criticism. In the list of tools of the Crimean “Ministry of Truth”, – “factory trolls” and the spread of slander in the controlled media. Even the most optimistic social activists are not dreaming of reaching the top of regional authorities.
Yanukovych rake
“The current government is attacking Yanukovych’s rake, when instead of professionals in all spheres of life activities, relatives, friends and godfathers were put in the leadership. Those, in turn, put their relatives, and those – their own. The result was a circular guarantee. It is enough to take the first places in the republic by “their own” people, and the process has started, ”Znak.com commented on the current situation in the internal personnel policy of the Crimea with the former local official who was dismissed due to“ disagreements with the authorities. ” He refused to publish his name because of possible negative consequences. A lot has already been written about relatives of relatives of important people.
“I do not see any reason for them (relatives – approx. Ed.) To develop their careers due to the fact that I became the Head of Crimea. Are they supposed to move to another region? ”Sergei Aksenov was perplexed in response to a request from journalists to comment on the personnel policy in Crimea, stressing that he had selected a team of professionals.
And, indeed, who, for example, may doubt the professionalism of the former prison director, Igor Okorokov, who headed the regional Rosselkhoznadzor?
Or to question the professional merits of the new Minister of Property and Land Relations – the 30-year-old Anna Anokhina, who abruptly walked up the career ladder after the “Crimean Spring”? First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea, Mikhail Sheremet, in addition to active participation in the Crimean party “Russian unity”, managed to work as a turner, security guard and deputy director of a car repair factory. However, on the sidelines of the authorities say that the post of deputy director has already added backdating, to at least somehow embellish the biography.
Deputy Minister for Internal Policy Dmitry Polonsky Sergey Zyryanov, who heads the department of internal policy, came to the ministry as the head of the communal enterprise “Old Town” of the Simferopol City Council. And Polonsky himself was closer to the construction industry in terms of the chief of domestic policy — he headed the Installation Management No. 14 OJSC and the Crimean Architecture and Construction Company, and also was a member of the Russian Unity party leadership.
The party itself, which was headed by Sergey Aksenov, is interesting because in the 2010 elections to the Supreme Soviet of the pro-Russian Crimea gained only 4%. This is her only achievement in a six-year history.
Council of officials and priest
By the same principle of mutual responsibility, apparently, public and expert councils are formed under government structures. By a decree dated August 11, 2015, Sergey Aksenov created an Expert Advisory Council under the Head of the Republic of Crimea. On close examination, it turns out that the head of Crimea will consult not only and not so much with public figures and journalists (of course, from the media controlled by the government), but also with Deputy Minister of Internal Policy Sergey Zyryanov, First Deputy Head of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea Konstantin Mikhailov and others by officials.
“The expert council under Vladimir Konstantinov has gathered almost zero times in almost a year of existence. The council under Sergey Aksenov has now been created. And who do we see there? The same deputies and officials, ”commented the chairman of the council of the regional branch of the party“ Fair Russia ”in the Republic of Crimea, Alexander Yuryev. – Yes, there are sensible political scientists, but their minority. Tell, at the head of the republic, what, there is no opportunity to see these officials out of advisory council? There should be economists, political scientists, sociologists, leaders of political parties, public figures. Then it will be a working platform for discussions.
But while the same persons are included in the expert councils – mayors, deputies, deputy prime ministers, this is the same Polonsky who wrote himself there.
In general, the big questions to the Ministry of Internal Policy, and the inability to meet with the head of the Crimea among the leaders of political parties and social activists is first and foremost a flaw in the ministry. ”
A few days earlier, two prominent Crimean scholars and social activists, the Kiselevs, had been expelled from the council of Sergey Aksenov. This happened five days after the publication of the rating of the governors of the Civil Society Development Fund, in which Sergey Aksyonov was immediately lowered by five points. The political scientist Natalya Kiseleva, who has retired from the expert council under the head of Crimea, is the head of the Crimean branch of the foundation. But then, Archimandrite Tikhon, the confessor of Vladimir Putin, was still on the board, as the website of the government also reported about the other day. At the same time, the clergyman joined the council in August, and the news was posted only at the end of October. Apparently, to enhance the impression.
Power lawyers
Formally, the Crimean Ministry of Information has an extremely extensive list of tasks, 98 items in total, including “promoting the realization of the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of speech and monitoring the protection of public morality from the negative impact of low-quality printed, audio, video production”. The Ministry of Information should also organize interaction with civil society institutions, analyze the position of the media and public opinion on the implementation of state policy, prepare proposals for the Head of the Republic of Crimea to conduct working visits and meetings, organize events to involve the general public in public discussion and help resolve issues affecting the interests of public associations.
What really? In addition to participating in the councils of Sergei Aksenov, the Ministry of Internal Policy, Information and Communications of the Crimea is actively involved in other issues, such as the fight against critics of the authorities.
For these purposes, media controlled by the Ministry of Information are used. The Crimean public movement “The Anti-Corruption Bureau of Crimea” got under the blow of information, which allowed itself urgent and urgent comments on the Aksenov commission on the protection of officials. Recall, in July, Aksenov was going to create a commission to protect the state apparatus from criminal prosecution. Then a squall of caustic criticism struck the head of the Crimea, the project had to be curtailed. Literally right after a number of critical publications and television stories in two mass media controlled by the Crimean Ministry, “disclosing” materials appeared about the “Anti-Corruption Bureau of Crimea” and its activists.
“I first encountered this, even in Ukraine, with all the development of corruption and crony schemes, there was no such thing that the media, which was founded by the Ministry of Information, spread deliberately false information about people who criticize the government,” the deputy coordinator commented “ Crimean Anti-Corruption Bureau ”, a well-known human rights activist Jean Zapruta. “Then the Crimean Gazette publication and the First Crimean TV channel launched information that, allegedly in the 1990s, when I was in the police, I belonged to criminal gangs, extorted bribes, organized rallies for money, served as a mercenary in France and so Further. This information both media outlets from the same scandalously well-known site on the Internet, did not additionally check it out. ”
The lawyer has already written a statement about libel to the police, however, a decision was issued twice to refuse to open a criminal case, and twice it was canceled by the prosecutor’s office. But the human rights activist still hopes that the case will be given, and after the rulings meet all the requirements of procedural law, he intends to go to court with a claim for recognition of the materials published in the media as information discrediting part and dignity, respectively, and about moral harm. “Let’s see what happens. Unfortunately, the courts here, like a number of media outlets, now also play the role of lawyers for the authorities and it’s very difficult to get the truth. Nevertheless, I see no other way as a lawyer”, summed up Zapruta.
Crimean Troll Factory
The Crimean Ministry of Information, in addition, is working in the current federal trend – according to social activists, it has its own “trolley factory”. Today, the number of dissatisfied with the actions of local authorities in the Crimea has sharply increased, and this tendency is most pronounced in social networks. Recently, a large number of groups have emerged that highlight social, political and economic events in Crimea. In many of them, heated discussions flare up, where a wide variety of personalities who furiously whitewash the Crimean state apparatus come out on the side of the authorities. “I have no doubt that most of the groups, where several thousand participants, are created by the Ministry of Information, whose employees make the necessary publications there in the event of critical situations,” said social activist and lawyer Alexander Talipov, who revealed the network of trolls on Facebook. According to him, the whole staff of Internet bots works in the service of the “Ministry of Truth”. About a month ago there were no more than 60 of them, now the number of fake pages has exceeded one hundred. All these accounts are registered on the same day, they have several photos, each photo has more than 60 likes – most likely, these bots like each other. They send out mass invitations to friendship and recruit 600-1000 friends per day.
“On all accounts of the public, pseudo-criminals suddenly became more active, climbed in discussions, accused of being engaged, biased, working for the State Department, and so on,” Alexander said. – In particular, there was a discussion in the Krymology group. The girl Sveta Teterina from Evpatoria whitewashed her power, while at her 23 she understood all spheres of state administration. I wondered who this Light? I found it on the Internet. It turned out that Sveta’s girlfriend is not Teterin at all, but Motovilov, lives in Chelyabinsk and, most likely, never heard of Aksenov or Polonsky. Another guy – Simferopol civil servant Dmitry – turned out to be a plumber Vanya from the remote Russian hinterland. ”
“After that, I walked through all the accounts of ardent defenders of power and found another 10 fake pages. Now, according to my data, there are at least a hundred trolls.
And now this entire large group of comrades from the Ministry of Information, instead of working out state salaries for the benefit of the republic, spends days on end in trying to shape public opinion in the right direction, ”Talipov said.
Dmitry Polonsky himself is not far behind the trolls, competently building public relations.
