This is how the troll farms got their info (research)

In 2010 Israeli firm Wikistrat got American grad students, especially in poli sci and Law, to enter everything they knew while playing a Game ("gamification"), which in the end won one college the prize of $10K. Wikistrat (CEO Joel Zamel*) then provided source material for the Russian troll farms. "The Wikistrat platform enables the deconstruction of geopolitical issues and trends in a structured yet flexible manner,” Wikistrat press statements claim. 
Yeah, flexible.
Zamel "has described the Wikistrat platform as 'Facebook meets Wikipedia,' or GLOMOD."
More info on Wikistrat TK, I'm sure.
*Joel Zamel "studied counter terrorism" before founding the firm, named in last week's groundbreaking NY Times piece re Trump/Russia/Saudi Arabia.

Wikistrat - Wikipedia

Wikistrat Inc. is a geostrategic analysis and business consultancy founded in Israel in 2010[1] and headquartered in the United States. It describes itself as the world's first crowdsourced consultancy leveraging a global network of over 2,000 subject-matter experts.[2][1]

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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