Undercover Reporter Reveals Life in a Polish Troll Farm

Christian Davies, reporting for The Guardian:

The undercover reporter, Katarzyna Pruszkiewicz, spent six months this year working at Cat@Net, which describes itself as an “ePR agency comprising specialists who build a positive image of companies, private individuals and public institutions – mostly in social media.”.

Pruszkiewicz’s first task when she joined the company was to set up a social media avatar for sharing “social and political content” with the aim of attracting 500 followers.

“The aim is to build credibility with people from both sides of the political divide. Once you have won someone’s trust by reflecting their own views back at them, you are in a position to influence them,” said Wojciech Cieśla, who oversaw the investigation in collaboration with Investigate Europe, a consortium of European investigative reporters.