Predicting Russian Trolls Using Reddit Comments
Using Machine Learning to Predict Russian Trolls
Introduction
Russia has long maintained a contentious relationship with countries in the west. Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has long been known as a Russian nationalist who will do anything to advance the interests of his country (Marten 2018). This has long led to many countries in the West(The United States, England, etc.) constantly suspecting his motives. Over the past several years, this relationship has soured due to accusations of Russia interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.
There has been much discussion and public outrage pertaining to Russian influence on social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. Russian troll farms put a significant amount of effort into creating fake accounts and Facebook pages to influence American voters (BBC, 2018).
Although this problem has been identified and a variety of companies have taken action to shut down thousands of troll accounts, it does not mean the trouble has ended. There is nevertheless fear that Russia may try to use social media for other devious purposes (Washington Post).
Although Facebook and Twitter have been highlighted by the media as the premier venues of Russian influence, Reddit represents another company that had to deal with Russian trolls. In 2017, Reddit released a list of over 900 accounts they…
