Russian internet 'troll' sues former employer

Lyudmila Savchuk speaks from her apartment in St Petersburg, Russia. Photograph: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

Lyudmila Savchuk says lawsuit will shed light on secretive practice of paying people to post political comments online. The Moscow Times reports

Anna Dolgov for The Moscow Times, part of the New East network
Friday 29 May 2015 08.48 EDT

A former Russian internet “troll” hired to promote political views online is suing her ex-employer in an attempt to draw attention to the country’s “information war”, a news report said on Friday.

The grounds for the lawsuit filed by Lyudmila Savchuk, which is expected to be heard by a St Petersburg city court next month, is the employer’s failure to provide any labour contract or other paperwork supporting her hiring and eventual dismissal, Kommersant reported.

The Kremlin’s ‘cyber army’ is gaining increasing notoriety, but similar tactics are used to influence opinion around the world

Savchuk said she was fired after speaking to the media about her employer, Internet Research, which she described as part of Russia’s “troll factory”.

Internet Research is reported to be linked to another company with a similar name, Internet Research Agency, which in the spring merged with a firm called New Technologies, whose official registration documents identify it as a construction company.

(More here.)