Government statement as propaganda, news article as propaganda, police leak as propaganda, opinion poll as propaganda….and comment thread trolling as propaganda
I have just taken great pleasure in expunging a professional troll from The Slog. The bloke’s history is as follows:
1. He first of all hijacked the ID of another innocent threader.
2. He then threaded 18 negative comments about exposés I’d posted.
3. When challenged, he launched an obscenely abusive response.
4. On investigation, he turned out to have used 17 different IP addresses while threading 18 comments. No genuine threader needs 17 different IP addresses.
This was what he posted at The Slog this morning when I asked him why he’d referred to me as ‘Pure Evil':
Over the last two years, my experience of organised trolling has been as follows:
* All but one of them was America based; the one exception was from Belgium.
* All of them used abuse of fellow threaders to wreak maximum havoc on the site.
In the end of course, one cannot be entirely certain who’s paying them – or exactly why.
But what’s increasingly obvious is this: the media – and I mean all media – have become little more than receptacles for deliberate obfuscation and insidious ambiguity.
24/7 vigilance is required.
PROFESSIONAL TROLLS:
God invented them to keep the rest of us on our toes.
Just like in the work-place it seems there was always one weasel undermining everything the rest of us were doing….
GrandPa – that bugger used to work at your place as well did he?
Fascinating. I have long since understood that the so-called phenomenon exists, but I welcome proof of all paid disruption. It shows the average (sheeple/sleeple/ignorami; take your pick) internet user that the problem is real. I have found Chinese trolls tend to be hacking for industrial secrets – they don’t have the time to be abusive. Russian (& to a lesser extent, Czech & German) trolls tend to be simply criminals; but very expert ones.
To find that the problem is mainly supported by the USA, is still disappointing, but no longer surprising. While I would shop for extended cutlery if supping with Chinese & Russians, it is (very sadly) becoming my view that the USA is sinking into the gutter of evil at a rate which disgusts me. For a person who grew up in the Cold War, I am increasingly finding myself on Putin’s side – and that really is saying something, because he isn’t any more honest than any other average politician.
I no longer have any doubt (except about the exact timing) that the West, and the USA in particular, is going to Hell in a handcart, and that the West’s financial system is now irretrievably broken. We will be using the Renminbi and possibly Roubles ere long, probably on some form of partial Gold Standard.
old nis
Switzerland may be having a referendum in October to decide if all the gold they sold over the years by copying Gordon Brown has now to be repurchased to a level of tonnage that will back the franc against gold by circa 50 percent to give it back sone substance . Thus is of course because in addition to gold sales Swiss have been obliged since the franc peg floor at no higher than 1.20 to the euro to buy astronomical amounts of euro
with ” photocopied” fiat Swiss francs i e from the John Bull printing machine fount . The Swiss electorate have now got wise to the situation where their once vaunted currency is now no better than the old Spanish peseta as regards gold backing and are thus instigating this referendum under their system .
If successful and ratified it will be the first time possibly since Nixon went off the 35 dollar per ounce gold standard in the seventies that a nation has conscious,y reverted to some kind of enhanced gold backing for its currency …..
Brod – Thanks, wasn’t aware of that. I bought some Swissies a long time ago and got burnt when they pegged to the Euro; I cashed them out a while ago and converted the proceeds to something metallic. Good post.
+1
oldnis: “…I would shop for extended cutlery if supping with Chinese & Russians…”
Haha. Nice.
My sentiments entirely.
If someone uses Tor (or a similar system) to protect their original IP address then they could show many more than 17 IP addresses.
+1, do the IP addresses show any kind of geographical pattern or consistent ISP? Tor is fairly simple to use and if I was going to troll is something I would use, it is virtually impossible to ban by IP due to the large number of exit nodes.
Well done Slog for dealing with the low life who is a TROLL. You have an excellent BLOG!!
The worst thing about trolling is that their garbage infects Google searches; I also suffer in my own area of expertise from idiots who post the No. 1 Google search as if it’s the Holy Grail, when it is often trolling by people who are at best fools, and at worst, deliberately trying to destroy important lines of research, such as this website. Keep on trucking, John, we’re fortunately intelligent enough to read your posts, while tuning out the dross.
There’s an obvious conclusion to reach here John: if you were just making it all up and posting nonsense then they wouldn’t have any reason to target your blog. They obviously consider you to be a threat. The truth is getting harder for them to cover up. Take satisfaction in that fact, you are doing great work, your recent efforts have been peerless. the ISIS stuff particularly.
And although you don’t need to be told, be careful, you seem to be very much on their radar. The Nazi treatment recently received by Chris Spivey (I know you two aren’t great pals but I think the comparison is valid) at the hands of the police is a fair warning. It shouldn’t, and wont, stop you. But stay vigilant, those motherf**kers aren’t fond of the light! ;)
+1, Admiral.
Slog on John.
+1, Admiral.
Call me crazy JW, but I still have nostalgic feelings for Impoverished Taxpayer. He turned out to be your most virulent troll after he lost the plot, even although he’d been posting threads for some years. Although always contentious he sometimes made a lot of sense. Must have been ‘grooming’ you.
You’ve seen off a lot worse than Flaky Pastry!
Oops, just realised I meant ‘Bankrupt Taxpayer’.
Unfortunately John there are a lot of mentally ill and paranoid people out there who spend a lot of their time, a little too much time, online specially in forums. I know I used to be a moderator on a well known forum. The amount of crazees out there who flocked to said forum was spectacular. Don’t get me wrong, a conspiracy (or any other) theory probably does have legs to some extent but once the imagination and truth twisting is done, the more vulnerable people get sucked in. Once you begin to appear on the net having a voice, being a reference, you are prone to attack and the more you appear, the more you will tend to be on the brunt. It’s online life I’m afraid….
oldnis – the USA is sinking into the gutter of evil at a rate which disgusts me
I was going to comment but you said everything I wanted too. To use a poor analogy, the West is burning the timber walls of the house to keep warm.
Steve – these people aren’t (mostly) mentally ill, just dickheads.
Bugger all braindead trolls who have nothing better to do with their warped lives.
But you can’t lock the imbeciles away these days.
You’re not even allowed to shoot them.
HECK.
Bogbrush is alive and threads!
According to Snowden, GCHQ have a specialist department of paid trolls called JTRIG that also alter on line polls.
GCHQ; Always listening to our customers.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140714/10462727873/latest-snowden-revelations-suggest-gchq-is-just-like-4chan-trolls-with-more-firepower.shtml
We’ve sadly got used to all numbers and markets being rigged, it’s a given. If opinion polls now have to join that list, then they are being distorted in order to influence opinion before the actual vote. All we have left is the assumption that the results of real elections are true and accurate.
Mafia christians? They stalk a lot
When banksters recruit trolls!
http://goo.gl/sWG3fa
Trolls?
Slug them John.
John and Spivvey lol. The bald cretin cant hold a candle to Mr Wards research and contacts.
Oh for the good old days when trolls lived under the bridge. I read the troll’s link earlier, trying to see what bugged him. My guess is he’s a god botherer. If the NSA had any sense, their trolls would be civil & thus more effective.
You just beat me to it sheik y. They seem to be too stupid to understand that their crass illiberality and lack of humour makes them obvious and therefore, as you say, far less effective. Perhaps they are just content to be annoying and disruptive?
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I have seen professional trolls active on a political campaign’s Facebook page. The trolling is done in real time and various IDs are doing so at different times of day. The campaign will start the day with an infographic of some kind to make a point and then there will, no doubt, be someone querying its accuracy and/or presenting researched and sourced material that contradicts it. At this point a troll immediately responds NOT with disagreement or rebuttal but a statement of nonsense longer enough to push the comment out of view. They will also ‘verbal’ the commenter by making statements allegedly in response saying ‘so you think women shouldn’t have the vote? You are sexist’. This changes the threads direction, causes the commenter to defend themselves rather than discuss the point at issue and discredits the commenter to the casual observer. These are the kind of tactics described by Edward Snowden. You will see them used by trolls working for Better Together on their Facebook page.
Not a new phenomenon. I was horrified to learn that my late father, who had a relatively high profile in the Midlands, but was definately non-political often received 17 page letters, usually in green ink from complete nutters on every subject under the sun. Didn’t stop him sleeping well at night. Chief Constable’s reply: “Eric, we all have to put up with this sort of thing”
Some of us are not trolls…. Some us simply challenge your assertions…. And instead you think it fit to label them (me) a wanker…… And you wonder why people get pissy with you….. And you have a fixation about IP addresses… Never heard of dynamic ip addresses ?…… It may surprise you to note that there are real people who don’t buy in to some of your clap trap …. I have never tried to hide my identity or mask where my messages come from….. You see my email address …. So what are you worried about ? That not evey dissenter is a troll perhaps ?
Having seen the particular abusive comment to which you refer, I did was I always do, click on the avatar. In his case he had a picture of the Muppets…NUFFZED!
I posted a blog a couple of weeks ago about this very subject which I hope you find of interest. Go well! http://nuffzed.blogspot.com/2014/08/government-trollsshills-exposed-if.html
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Techie that I now am, I do feel moved to ask if these IP addresses were all from the same RIPE allocation. This info can be found by doing a whois search on each address. If they were, it may be that the troll was simply on a dynamic IP system of some sort.
Absolutely spot on in all respects.
The DT and Spectator both have professional trolls operating on their sites and much of their overt ‘beliefs’ concern ‘Empire is good’, ‘Christianity peaceful, Islam war-like’, ‘anything to the left of Genghis Khan is socialist gibberish’, ‘anyone who disagrees with me is a homosexual, animal-fornicating, paedophilic pile of shit’ or the like. UKIP marked its card with me due to the absolutely obscene abuse of legitimately elected MPs (some of whose views I profoundly disagree with). I have currently asked the English Democrat’s chair (whose organisation have written a thoughtful Manifesto which anyone can find on the Net without difficulty) if the worrying sign of Facebook comments being attacking and derogatory to those engaging in debate can be healthily aligned to what is a manifesto most closely aligned to what I personally believe. I’m not saying I agree with all of it, but much of it I do.
Football Clubs now have professional trolls too. There are trolls paid to undermine every English player at Arsenal whilst constantly extolling about the wonders of French players who ‘should be signed’. As I have opined to the Club’s hierarchy, I as an English-born fan have no intention of subsidising the development of the French National team……with Yaya Sanogo about as capable of delivering Champions League glory as Sarah Palin would be of delivering ‘Peace in our Times’ as a US President……at least in that regard the hierarchy appear to have taken appropriate remedial actions on Transfer Deadline Day…..
It’s a shame, but the glorious innocent wonder of the internet c. 2000 – 2004 is now long gone. Websites are becoming like the DT, the Daily Mail and the Bildzeitung.That freshness of decent, frank conversation between ordinary folks is disappearing.
Life…….
Naturally, when all this starts happening to your blog/site/online accounts you just KNOW that you’ve hit the nail on the proverbial head, with your writings!! ;-) I’ve seen the exact same thing happen to a couple of other blogs I read a lot which, apart from some ‘humble opinions’, is saying much the same as you…Obviously those pulling the purse strings have a lot to lose, so it’s imperative that they control the dissenters a.s.a.p. As was mentioned by the twits on Twitter yesterday…’They must think we’re ALL stupid!’ Please keep up the excellent work!
Reblogged this on mtnwolf63 and commented:
PROFESSIONAL TROLLS: Who pays them & where do they come from?
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For about six or seven years I wrote articles for unexplained-mysteries.com, an online magazine. I (and other writers for the site) was constantly attacked by trolls, who never debated the facts but resorted to crude name calling. The webmaster would post almost any insulting comment, but would not allow me to post any replies critical of the trolls. In addition, the site began refusing to post any conspiracy-oriented articles that so much as mentioned any living human being. Finally, they refused to post any conspiracy article at all.
I soon realized that many of the trolls (or one troll using different names and e mail addresses) were almost certainly paid to do their dirty work. And it appears that whoever paid them (the government in the US or some of the elites who control it) has also taken control of the site. After over a hundred (unpaid) articles, my career with them has ended, although I still write for the print magazine, “Atlantis Rising.”
TFP?
Couldn’t be as obvious as http://www.tfp.org could it?