YES you hit a lot of great points here.
I can tell you that Cass Sunstein is a cognitive infiltrator that has his shill army infiltrate the 9/11 truth movement. Also They hyped up the whole "flat earth" B.S which has been debunked, but shills aren't interested in truth or facts - only discrediting their opponents.
Watch out for the shills posing as representatives of other groups like for example - fake Christians. A shill will use a religious userpic (cross or Jesus or sky) and their username will contain some word affiliated with Christians (Jesus, God, Repent, Holy spirit, etc) and will always quote Bible versus.
I bring this up because they were the ones mostly used to push "flat earth" claiming the bible explicitly says the world is flat. I checked with some Christians I knew and others in truth movement and well apart from their shock they told me it doesn't say that. I double checked too, it seems to be taken out of context. It is pretty easy to pose as religious groups when one only has to do that and grab religious quotes from the search engine.
Other signs to watch out for is;
Mass astroturfing, spam
Voting content down in large numbers
Mass flagging people's comments or content
virtue signaling to gain popularity and followers/subs/likes
Mental gymnastics, reverse psychology
Groupthink, and sometime they hold doublethink
gaslighting, to confuse you and distract and frustrate and make you question your own beliefs
Repetition. Repeating the same thing everywhere all over a website or affiliated websites, they really keep themselves busy, with their sock puppets
usually dont put a lot of effort in their user profiles, they count on the naive and ignorant to take what they say and not bother to check if they are legit, sadly this happens a lot. Confirmation bias will do that.
They also tend to gather at popular places that have a lot of people to push their narrative on, like popular channels on youtube - pop culture and trending topics, social media like Tumblr because the youth are there and this is mainly to use entertainment as a trojan horse for political bias topics because the youth aren't going to be to invested in the news, so shills will push it through art, film, music, tv ,gaming reviews and essays.
I'm in the tinfoil hat circles.... I've dealt with plenty of these online vermin.
I've personally experienced the flat earth thing. From out of nowhere I was accused of being a flat earth conspiracy theorist. It's the most stupid line of attack that I know of.
Your points on gas lighting, virtue signaling, astroturfing, and mass flagging are pertinent.
I had someone accuse me of being a troll--on my own blog! Another one accused me of trolling his page, when he was actually posting on a public forum. Some people seem to think anyone who disagrees with them is a troll.
That's partly why I wrote this article: so people can more easily tell. Obviously, I wouldn't accuse someone of trolling by posting on their own blog. That's stupid. Your second example also sounds like a ridiculous accusation, in terms of possessing a forum post -- just sounds like a dense person. Having said all this, I have no idea of you're a troll or not lol.
Yeah, I have no idea either, but I don't believe that I am, and that's never been my intention. There was no ideological test to pass to join Steemit, but the first accuser seemed to think I was trolling this whole platform because I didn't agree that Hillary was as bad a choice as Trump, and because I used to be a journalist and I understand that sources of information must be evaluated for credibility.
Maybe I should look into that paid troll gig. Does it pay better than editing, do you know?
Great article and ironically I published a humorous book a couple of years ago with nearly the identical theme. It was titled "The Fine Art of Internet Troll Slaying", published under my pseudonym Tobor Eichmann. I pulled it because I didn't feel confidence that it was good enough and I didn't want it associated with my known alter ego. However, I've decided to revise/re-publish some time this year. I'm saying this because perhaps I will make mention of your article in my book if you can reciprocate when/if the time comes.
Thanks for the strategies, I had to deal with quite a few of them. I recently did my first Steemit article on equity release. It's a great platform and I'm enjoying the diversity of content.
this is a really good post. very good advice. I think i could back to some old fb post and point out some paid trolls now.
and upvoted, followed and resteemed
Thank you!
YES you hit a lot of great points here.
I can tell you that Cass Sunstein is a cognitive infiltrator that has his shill army infiltrate the 9/11 truth movement. Also They hyped up the whole "flat earth" B.S which has been debunked, but shills aren't interested in truth or facts - only discrediting their opponents.
Watch out for the shills posing as representatives of other groups like for example - fake Christians. A shill will use a religious userpic (cross or Jesus or sky) and their username will contain some word affiliated with Christians (Jesus, God, Repent, Holy spirit, etc) and will always quote Bible versus.
I bring this up because they were the ones mostly used to push "flat earth" claiming the bible explicitly says the world is flat. I checked with some Christians I knew and others in truth movement and well apart from their shock they told me it doesn't say that. I double checked too, it seems to be taken out of context. It is pretty easy to pose as religious groups when one only has to do that and grab religious quotes from the search engine.
Other signs to watch out for is;
They also tend to gather at popular places that have a lot of people to push their narrative on, like popular channels on youtube - pop culture and trending topics, social media like Tumblr because the youth are there and this is mainly to use entertainment as a trojan horse for political bias topics because the youth aren't going to be to invested in the news, so shills will push it through art, film, music, tv ,gaming reviews and essays.
I'm in the tinfoil hat circles.... I've dealt with plenty of these online vermin.
Excellent points!
I've personally experienced the flat earth thing. From out of nowhere I was accused of being a flat earth conspiracy theorist. It's the most stupid line of attack that I know of.
Your points on gas lighting, virtue signaling, astroturfing, and mass flagging are pertinent.
Thanks!
That explains it hahah wicked article
Thanks :)
love this!
Thanks :D
I had someone accuse me of being a troll--on my own blog! Another one accused me of trolling his page, when he was actually posting on a public forum. Some people seem to think anyone who disagrees with them is a troll.
That's partly why I wrote this article: so people can more easily tell. Obviously, I wouldn't accuse someone of trolling by posting on their own blog. That's stupid. Your second example also sounds like a ridiculous accusation, in terms of possessing a forum post -- just sounds like a dense person. Having said all this, I have no idea of you're a troll or not lol.
Yeah, I have no idea either, but I don't believe that I am, and that's never been my intention. There was no ideological test to pass to join Steemit, but the first accuser seemed to think I was trolling this whole platform because I didn't agree that Hillary was as bad a choice as Trump, and because I used to be a journalist and I understand that sources of information must be evaluated for credibility.
Maybe I should look into that paid troll gig. Does it pay better than editing, do you know?
Great article and ironically I published a humorous book a couple of years ago with nearly the identical theme. It was titled "The Fine Art of Internet Troll Slaying", published under my pseudonym Tobor Eichmann. I pulled it because I didn't feel confidence that it was good enough and I didn't want it associated with my known alter ego. However, I've decided to revise/re-publish some time this year. I'm saying this because perhaps I will make mention of your article in my book if you can reciprocate when/if the time comes.
Good luck on your book 📚
What do you mean by reciprocate?
Oh, I just mean perhaps making a mention of my book somehow but don't treat it as an obligation.
Thanks for the strategies, I had to deal with quite a few of them. I recently did my first Steemit article on equity release. It's a great platform and I'm enjoying the diversity of content.
Interesting article. Thank you.