It’s about time the political machinery of Canada dragged itself out of the past and showed some respect for human-assisted and/or autonomous manufacture of information and opinion. I speak here on behalf of Canada’s bot and troll farmers (and our associates, the rage farmers). Frankly, all of us have had it up to here with the preferential treatment given to producers of basic goods in the so-called “real economy.” Since we are known colloquially as “farmers,” let’s start there. Let’s use agriculture as our standard of comparison.
Federally and provincially, Canada’s governments cannot lavish enough funds on agriculture. If you think I’m wrong, go online and have a gander at the government websites devoted to agriculture. If farmers and ranchers want to improve their land, buildings or equipment, if they want to buy more livestock, if they want to expand or export, or make environmental improvements, or diversify, or insure themselves against weather phenomena—you name it, there’s a government program to do it! Let’s face it: farmers in this country are coddled. We in the bot- and troll-farming business might not even care—if we were getting the same. But we are not.
Perhaps you think I’m making a big deal out of a figure of speech: that bots and trolls come from farms. Bear with me.
Trolls aren’t born. They don’t pop out of the womb simply knowing how to spew misinformation and hate into the homes and offices of millions of social media users. A great deal of basic training is involved, to which only experience can add the finesse that is the hallmark of the finished troll. But are troll farms paid to produce and train their trolls? To support them until they’re paying their own way? No way. As for our non-human operatives, the autonomous bots, they obviously have fewer needs and no dependants, but they don’t just happen. At this point in history, actual humans are needed to create, program and release bots into the internet universe.
Trolls aren’t born. They don’t pop out of the womb simply knowing how to spew misinformation and hate.
Let’s make this comparison more direct. What do farmers do? They seed the ground. We in the troll-farming industry seed the internet. According to one study, 9 to 15 per cent of the accounts on Twitter are bots. Think about that for a minute. Can Canadian farmers and ranchers claim to have that kind of penetration of the planet’s cow, pig, chicken or wheat markets? Wheat, maybe.
Like farm workers in agriculture, our trolls need care (especially the high-needs ragers). Most internet trolls may seem to arrive at their jobs full of hate and loathsome creepiness, but that’s not often the case. Some are naturals, I grant you, but many of these more instinctually vicious trolls go to work for conservative parties, where the pay is off the charts. The majority of trolls are not so lucky or so fortunate. When they come to us, most are just ordinary people (sort of) looking for ways to make money without leaving their chairs. That doesn’t make them good at it. Bear in mind that disinformation, by its very definition, must be invented. If it’s to be believed, it must be, for instance, correctly spelled—though in fact we prefer misspelling when it comes from our rage-farmers.
For every gifted troll, thousands are nearly useless until groomed. The fine art of torquing and twisting. The ability to fan petty grievances until they burst into towering flames of unhinged hatred. If we depended on natural ragers, the people who beak off in taverns and rant online for free, we could not produce the quality of troll armies that are currently in demand. As just one example, imagine how many trolls it takes to keep 30 per cent of Canada’s population frothing mad at their prime minister.
As for job satisfaction, we’re not unlike the dirt farmers who look with pride at their fields of golden canola and waving wheat. We get a similar deep sense of satisfaction when we turn on the nightly news and see F*#$ TRUDEAU signs bobbing in an angry mob.
Our greatest accomplishment to date was when the convoys rolled. Sure, we wish we could incite armed attacks on government buildings and politicians as our colleagues to the south do, but we have to accept that cultural differences are real. We can only make Canadians do what Canadians do.
So perhaps you see now why it’s high time for the pols who tax and subsidize us to realize the effect troll-and-rage farmers have on Canada’s economy and political stability. It would be perilous to think we can be ignored. Rather than receive cash from shadowy party funds, we want to be paid where Canadians can see our work—a line in the budget! If our current federal government won’t play ball, the next one surely will.
If you get my drift, let’s see some grift.
Fred Stenson‘s novels include Who By Fire, The Trade, Lightning and The Great Karoo.
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