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Young Guard Activist Launches Political Spam Site for Hire

An activist in Young Guard, the youth branch of the ruling United Russia party, has launched a website where other activists can reportedly earn 10,000 to 15,000 rubles a month by posting political spam on social networks, a news report said Thursday.

The website, Ka-2.ru, operates by having people connect their own social networking pages to the main page and then tasking them with certain topics to promote on their personal pages, Lenta.ru reported. Then, the number of messages they send out to promote the given topics will be tallied on their Ka-2 profile, in turn determining the amount of their pay.

The site has already begun operations, with activists hyping up several hashtags on Twitter recently, including #ItogiMarshaPedofilov (#ResultsofMarchofPedophiles) and #MarshPodletsov (#MarchofScoundrels).

A source within Young Guard's Moscow branch said the new website does two main things: It brings the Russian hashtags to "trending" status on an international level, and it edges out Twitter hashtags promoting the opposition by spamming the people behind them.

The website's founder, Arseny Shcheltsin, is a well-known Internet activist from Nizhny Novgorod.

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