The Hate-Troll Sockpuppet

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After a while, you learn to discern the pattern:

  1. Not operated by a named person.
  2. Not associated with any organization.
  3. Lots of hashtags and/or slogans in the profile to signal ideological solidarity.
  4. Lack of organic content.
  5. Associates with other known trolls.

There are other traits — dots in the pattern — but the point is that such an account has no basis of responsibility.

No name, no location, no one to take the blame, so that when the account stops its automated “bot” function and begins harassing people, the target of the harassment finds himself arguing with a digital shadow. This type of account, the Hate-Troll Sockpuppet, deliberately spews insults in an attempt to provoke the target into an angry rage.

Do this: If you or any of your Twitter friends are ever waylaid by one of these accounts, do not immediately engage them. Instead, check out their timeline and look for the pattern. Have they previously done this to other people? Is their usual method of “argument” to hurl insults and obscenities? Going back-and-forth on Twitter with such an account is a complete waste of time. Just expose them:

See the point? It is a fact that many accounts like this are operated by the kind of drug addicts, criminals and perverts who supported the “Occupy” movement. The reason they don’t put their names on the accounts is because if people knew who they really were, nobody would have anything to do with them. (See, for example, the mentally ill convicted prostitute Melissa Brewer, or the convicted sex criminal John Thiessen or anal-rape enthusiast Bill Schmafeldt.) Their obscene derangement and obsessive hatred of normal people are never coincidental.

A hate-troll’s gotta hate-troll.

So if an account like this gets in your face on Twitter, remember: It’s not about you, and there is no “argument” to win. They have harassed others before, and will keep on harassing people as long as they have Internet access. It’s who they are. It’s what they do.

You can never know exactly who is operating a Hate-Troll Sockpuppet account, but a pseudonym can’t sue for libel, either.

 

55 comments

  2. There are times that you have to go process over content, because the “why” of what they are doing is more important than the “what.”

  3. Exactly: Once you know the motive for their behavior, everything else is just … symptoms.

    They hide their identities for this very reason. If you knew who they were, you might be able to locate some explanation for their behavior: “Oh, he’s got a record for drug possession” or whatever, and then the nature of the messenger tends to discredit the message. Who cares what a dopehead or a criminal says about politics?

    I mean, a lot of people had complained about being harassed by @catsrimportant, but it wasn’t until she was exposed as a convicted prostitute (whose pimp was a teenage sex offender) that her angry politics made sense — and not in a good way.

  5. Dollars to doughnuts, the more functional of these trolls seek out leaders who teach them how to set up the bots. The less functional are recruited and trained. In both cases, these trolls are enraptured to belong to a Cause and will never turn on their handlers because the handler is likened to Jesus Christ. In the old days, they were called cut-outs and cannon-fodder.

  6. Wish there was the digital equivalent of cannons for these fodder and their handlers. Swift, severe consequences have a way of damping down the crazy.

  8. See that up there? That’s my real name. I make no pretensions to courage, but at least I know I am not a coward. And a coward hides behind a screen name and hurls personal abuse at targets across the internet. They know better than to say the things they type to a person’s face. I see filth thrown at me by these spineless cringing internet tough guys and think, well, too bad they so loathe themselves that they lurk in bitter obscurity and fling poop at passing humans. Perhaps one day an aneurysm will take them out of their misery.

    Because nobody, not even these stunted goons, would spout off such things in person. Even they know they’d stand a very good chance of ending up pissing blood and shitting teeth. They’re pathetic nobodies not even worthy of contempt.

  11. “There are other traits — dots in the pattern — but the point is that such an account has no basis of responsibility” All true of course, but if you ever do a Maltego graph about it I’m never visiting again *wink*.

  12. I used to use my name online and learned quickly to do otherwise. Before Neptunus Lex was killed at Fallon last year, we would have meetups and it was fun getting to know the others by their handle.

    I’d suggest TOM meetups, but the owners of the venue would call the guys in the white coats.

  13. I’ve been stalked before (not just “someone looked up information I publicly post online which can easily be found”, but actual “guy shows up on my doorstep” stalking) so I’m a tad leery of making my personal information known.

    That said, the things I’ve said online are more articulate versions of things I’ve said to people’s faces.

  14. I fully understand why one would use a screen name. What I don’t understand is why one would act as if the screen name absolves one from acting responsibly, or as if it grants total freedom from decency.
    Well, I do understand why. I don’t understand how a decent human being would act on it though.

  18. I’ve never had any problem from using my real name online, on the other hand I openly subscribe to the following cowboy wisdom: Don’t hunt trouble, but don’t count on trouble never hunting you.

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