"elves" against the trolls

The Lithuanian online group of network activists “Elves” fights in cyberspace with Russian trolls and repels their attacks.

The group currently has about 4,000 volunteers who operate in 13 countries. The call sign of the leader of the Lithuanian online group that monitors comments and publications on the Internet is “Hawk”. He says:

“It’s a kind of war, a cyber war. It’s an information war. We need to be quick and stop the lies and disinformation.”

He also explains the differences between “elves” and trolls:

“We’ve never been paid and never get paid. And they usually get paid well. You know about the troll farms. It hurts them a lot that some crazy person started to oppose them.”

The name “Elves” is taken from fairy tales, which, along with supercomputers, are used in the fight against hacker attacks. Lithuania is now making great efforts to become a leader in digital security.

The supercomputer, located in the basement of the Faculty of Mathematics in Vilnius, is a powerful weapon for the effective protection of banks, energy companies, and government agencies. However, there is a vulnerability in cybersecurity where computers alone, even super-powerful ones, are indispensable. hawk says:

“There is always a population that is an easy target for trolls. That’s why I think that the main thing is education. Literacy and critical thinking.”