The reason that Internet trolls are effective is that people still don\u2019t understand their game.<\/p>\n
There are\u00a015 commonly-used trolling tactics<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0disrupt, misdirect and control<\/a>\u00a0internet discussions.<\/p>\n As one interesting example, trolls start flame wars because \u2014 according to two professors \u2014\u00a0swearing and name-calling shut down our ability to think and focus<\/a>.<\/p>\n And trolls will often spew divisive attacks so that people argue against each other, instead of bad actions and policies of the powers-that-be.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0trolls will<\/a>:<\/p>\n Start a religious war whenever possible using stereotypes like \u201call Jews are selfish\u201d, \u201call Christians are crazy\u201d or \u201call Muslims are terrorists\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yesterday, the alternative news site Common Dreams\u00a0caught a troll\u00a0<\/a>using scores of different user names to spew anti-Semitic bile. (Common Dreams discovered that the same troll was behind the multiple user names by tracking their IP addresses. And the troll confessed to Common Dreams.)<\/p>\n The troll is a \u201ca Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website\u2019s discussion of issues involving Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n He would posted anti-Semitic diatribes \u2014 such as Hitler should have finished the job and killed all Jews \u2014 using one alias. Then \u2014 a couple of minutes later \u2014 he\u2019d post an attack on the first poster using a\u00a0different<\/em>alias, claiming that criticism of Israel is the\u00a0same thing<\/em>\u00a0as anti-Semitism. (Note: Holocaust survivors and Israeli ministers say\u00a0it\u2019s not<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Why would a Jew post vile anti-Semitic comments? Because normal people are offended by \u2014 and don\u2019t want to be associated with \u2014 pure, naked anti-Semitism, and so they will avoid such discussions. If the discussion was originally criticizing a specific aspect of\u00a0Israel<\/em>\u00a0policy<\/em>, the discussion will break down, and the actual point regarding policy will be lost.<\/p>\n Similarly, anti-Semitic posts weaken websites by making them seem less reputable. Indeed, Common Dreams says that the troll\u2019s anti-Semitic comments\u00a0drove away many of that site\u2019s largest donors<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 dealing a severe blow to its continued viability. That\u2019s\u00a0exactly<\/em>\u00a0what trolls spewing anti-Semitic bile aretrying<\/em>\u00a0to do: shut down logical discussion and discredit and weaken sites which allow rational criticism of policy.<\/p>\n It is well-known that foreign governments and large companies troll online. See\u00a0this<\/a>,\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0this<\/a>, and\u00a0this<\/a>. For example, the Israeli government is\u00a0paying students<\/a>\u00a0to post\u00a0pro-Israeli comments<\/a>\u00a0online.<\/p>\n And American students are also\u00a0attempting to influence internet discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the Common Dreams troll claims that he\u2019s not sponsored by the state of Israel,\u00a0government<\/a>\u00a0agencies<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0manipulated<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Internet<\/a>\u00a0discussion for years. This includes the use of\u00a0multiple \u201csocket puppet\u201d<\/a>\u00a0aliases. The potential for mischief is\u00a0stunning<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unless<\/em>\u00a0we learn their game \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If We Understand Their Game, We Can Stop Their Shenanigans The reason that Internet trolls are effective is that people still don\u2019t understand their game. There are\u00a015 commonly-used trolling tactics\u00a0to\u00a0disrupt, misdirect and control\u00a0internet discussions. As one interesting example, trolls start flame wars because \u2014 according to two professors \u2014\u00a0swearing and name-calling shut down our ability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,13,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-137930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-sicence-technology","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}