Author Topic: Taxonomy of Trolls  (Read 241 times)

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Offline cybercoma

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Taxonomy of Trolls
« on: August 21, 2017, 12:11:34 pm »
Linguistic data analysis of 3 billion Reddit comments shows the alt-right is getting stronger.

This study categorizes bathe various groups that are coalescing around Trumpism.

As a side note, the presence of conspiracy theorists and non-conformists alike explains the affinity CA had for these positions on MLW.

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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2017, 01:09:41 pm »
1. I don't see how it explain's CA's alleged affinity.

2. I don't see how word counts of made-up terms like 'cuck' amount to much more than "What's The Latest Fashion in Pinheaded Comments ?".  If we can actually quantify quality of such things now, then I'd like to hear about that.

We have had 100 to 1, or 1000 to 1 outnumbering of this quack viewpoint on the weekend, which is a quantification of progress for sure.  I think we need to use the internet to check in with subgroups and individuals to see how they're responding to big trends like globalization. 

Offline cybercoma

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2017, 01:47:15 pm »
Language usage identifies a group culture. This study has identified a coming together of various different groups that many might just conflate as the "alt right." The value here is in identifying what these smaller groups have in common and what their differences are. They're anarchists, counterculturalists, and generally white men who feel left behind by society for a number of different reasons.

CA fits (it's an aside, not the main point here) because he's an anarchist and a conspiracy fanatic. This is one of the constituent groups that make up the larger domain of alt-right trolls. He has sympathy for their positions because he shares aspects of it, whilst everyone else (read: reasonable people) just look at it as trolling.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2017, 03:31:57 pm »
1. Language usage identifies a group culture. This study has identified a coming together of various different groups that many might just conflate as the "alt right." The value here is in identifying what these smaller groups have in common and what their differences are. They're anarchists, counterculturalists, and generally white men who feel left behind by society for a number of different reasons.

2. CA fits (it's an aside, not the main point here) because he's an anarchist and a conspiracy fanatic. This is one of the constituent groups that make up the larger domain of alt-right trolls. He has sympathy for their positions because he shares aspects of it, whilst everyone else (read: reasonable people) just look at it as trolling.

1. Ok.  For identifying them and noting some defining characteristics, this is useful.

2. So you're saying he's partial to the conspiracy people.  Ok, but how did they all get on the same page ? 

Offline Goddess

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2017, 04:31:29 pm »

2. So you're saying he's partial to the conspiracy people.  Ok, but how did they all get on the same page ?

Maybe he invited them.  Or maybe they finally found a forum where their rantings and psychoses are acceptable.

I posted that our resident Muslim hates Jews, Western culture and is a hypocrit for being a promoter of Sharia law while displaying profile photos of a young woman dressed in Western clothes.  I got a warning for that.  He/She/It is very much protected over there.  The 911 conspiracy guy is totally off the wall and calls everyoe a hypocrit, so I don't think it was the "Hypocrit" comment that got the warning.  And the person is very open about hating Jews and Western culture, so I'm not sure how pointing that out warranted a warning, either.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2017, 04:42:14 pm »
 
1. He/She/It is very much protected over there. 
2. The 911 conspiracy guy is totally off the wall and calls everyoe a hypocrit, so I don't think it was the "Hypocrit" comment that got the warning. 
3. And the person is very open about hating Jews and Western culture, so I'm not sure how pointing that out warranted a warning, either.
1. Bullshit.  Nobody is protected.
2. He's a blight.  But.. Hypocrite is a mild insult, and I doubt it's even reported much.
3. If it's that cut and dried - which I doubt - then just quote the thread where the person says "I hate Jews".  It's never like that, though.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2017, 06:44:57 pm »
CA fits (it's an aside, not the main point here) because he's an anarchist and a conspiracy fanatic. This is one of the constituent groups that make up the larger domain of alt-right trolls. He has sympathy for their positions because he shares aspects of it, whilst everyone else (read: reasonable people) just look at it as trolling.

Posting views that some people may find offensive or controversial isn't trolling.  It's only trolling if the poster is posting those views with the specific intent to negatively upset other members & bait them into an emotional response.  Very few people, posters & moderators alike, have any darned clue what "trolling" is.  CA obviously has no freaking idea.

Someone posting offensive or controversial or even racist things on Reddit isn't trolling if they really mean what they're saying, it's only trolling if they're posting the offensive views just to get a rise out of a liberal etc because they know it will upset them.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2017, 06:46:34 pm by Moonlight Graham »
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Offline kimmy

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2017, 10:01:19 pm »
2. I don't see how word counts of made-up terms like 'cuck' amount to much more than "What's The Latest Fashion in Pinheaded Comments ?".  If we can actually quantify quality of such things now, then I'd like to hear about that.

Nonsense, Michael. In London, they used to be able to figure out which street you grew up on just from your accent.  Linguists can trace the histories of different dialects back many generations to specific locales. And today on the interwebs we can use the same methods.

I recall browsing MLW shortly after Trump won the presidency and seeing 3 or 4 Republican-boosters use the phrase "revved up economy" within a few days of each other.  I don't know who used that phrase or which network it aired on, but I am 100% convinced that each of the Republican boosters watched the same video and watched the same talking head deliver the same talking point.

 The premise is simple. If you talk like one of those ****, either you're one of those ****, or you've been influenced by those ****. Language like "cuck" and "kek" isn't mainstream. It became popular on particular forums. If you see people using this language, you can trace it back either directly or indirectly to those forums. If you see someone using "cuck" as if it's a real word, you can trace it back to the mooks at 4chan, or to the reddit "The_Donald" forum that borrowed it from 4chan, or to the Twitter users who picked it up from "The_Donald" or 4chan.

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Offline Goddess

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2017, 09:36:04 am »
1. Bullshit.  Nobody is protected.
2. He's a blight.  But.. Hypocrite is a mild insult, and I doubt it's even reported much.
3. If it's that cut and dried - which I doubt - then just quote the thread where the person says "I hate Jews".  It's never like that, though.

1.  I'm not the only one who sees it.
2.  I don't know if hypocrit got me the warning or not.  Either way, agree it's mild.  The "blight" says much worse than that and it's all okay.
3.  I called the person on it when he/she/it said all Jews were murderers and criminals.  It then said openly that all Jewish children especially were future murderers and criminals and should be dealt with as such.  So yeah, it didn't outright say "I hate Jews".  But I don't think there's a lot of interpretation leeway there.
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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2017, 09:43:54 am »
Nonsense, Michael. In London, they used to be able to figure out which street you grew up on just from your accent.  Linguists can trace the histories of different dialects back many generations to specific locales. And today on the interwebs we can use the same methods.

I recall browsing MLW shortly after Trump won the presidency and seeing 3 or 4 Republican-boosters use the phrase "revved up economy" within a few days of each other.  I don't know who used that phrase or which network it aired on, but I am 100% convinced that each of the Republican boosters watched the same video and watched the same talking head deliver the same talking point.

 The premise is simple. If you talk like one of those ****, either you're one of those ****, or you've been influenced by those ****. Language like "cuck" and "kek" isn't mainstream. It became popular on particular forums. If you see people using this language, you can trace it back either directly or indirectly to those forums. If you see someone using "cuck" as if it's a real word, you can trace it back to the mooks at 4chan, or to the reddit "The_Donald" forum that borrowed it from 4chan, or to the Twitter users who picked it up from "The_Donald" or 4chan.

 -k
That's just it and the linguistic analysis they did here reveals that disparate groups like MRAs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Counterculturalists are coalescing with rightwing extremists like the KKK and various Neo-Nazi groups. Their rallying cry is free speech, which is appealing to people who don't spend two seconds thinking about it. Look at Moonlight Graham defending them as just having a "difference of opinion," as an example. I can't for the life of me understand how someone can look at white supremacists and think that it's a free speech issue and just a matter of a "difference of opinion." It's incredibly irrational. It's like saying you and a murderer just have a difference of opinion because the murderer wants you dead and you don't want to die, but he's entitled to his opinion, so you should respect him.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2017, 11:15:04 am »
1.  I'm not the only one who sees it.
2.  I don't know if hypocrit got me the warning or not.  Either way, agree it's mild.  The "blight" says much worse than that and it's all okay.
3.  I called the person on it when he/she/it said all Jews were murderers and criminals.  It then said openly that all Jewish children especially were future murderers and criminals and should be dealt with as such.  So yeah, it didn't outright say "I hate Jews".  But I don't think there's a lot of interpretation leeway there.

Post me a link and I'll give you my thoughts privately.  My experience is that these things are not as described.


Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2017, 11:20:41 am »
Nonsense, Michael. In London, they used to be able to figure out which street you grew up on just from your accent.  Linguists can trace the histories of different dialects back many generations to specific locales. And today on the interwebs we can use the same methods.

I recall browsing MLW shortly after Trump won the presidency and seeing 3 or 4 Republican-boosters use the phrase "revved up economy" within a few days of each other.  I don't know who used that phrase or which network it aired on, but I am 100% convinced that each of the Republican boosters watched the same video and watched the same talking head deliver the same talking point.

 The premise is simple. If you talk like one of those ****, either you're one of those ****, or you've been influenced by those ****. Language like "cuck" and "kek" isn't mainstream. It became popular on particular forums. If you see people using this language, you can trace it back either directly or indirectly to those forums. If you see someone using "cuck" as if it's a real word, you can trace it back to the mooks at 4chan, or to the reddit "The_Donald" forum that borrowed it from 4chan, or to the Twitter users who picked it up from "The_Donald" or 4chan.

 -k

Ok.  I didn't mean to say that the research and tagging we're without value.  But the idea that they're stronger than ever is hyperbolic.

We will never have zero White Nationalist presence.  It's different today in many ways but they are not stronger than ever.

Offline Goddess

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2017, 12:41:54 pm »
The thread "Canada rethinking its sales to saudi arabia" on the first page, the person talks about the Jews and Jewish children for about the third time on threads.  That was when I called the person on it.  And the person reiterates that Jews are criminals and their children will follow their parents.

I'm just saying that if that was said about all Muslims (or even if it's said about individual Muslims), there would be hell to pay.  But not one other person called it out.  Not one other person said this was an antisemite.  I spoke to another member privately and they saw it being said too, over and over in multiple threads, but they also feel the person is protected by mods, so.....

Calling Islam out for its bullshit = bad
Calling Jews and Jewish children murderers and criminals = protected speech

It's just interesting to me.  The site definitely caters to the nutjobs.
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Offline BC_cheque

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2017, 04:23:12 pm »
You see what you want to see.  I've seen posters says abhorrent things about Muslims and get away with it.

The day I left was actually over the moderation 'protecting' the Turkish poster when I felt my deleted post was on topic, so I don't dispute the fact that s/he gets away with a lot but it's definitely *not* a one way street.

Cybercoma one day quote half a dozen posts openly calling for death on Muslims which had remained standing.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Taxonomy of Trolls
« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2017, 06:02:13 pm »
That's just it and the linguistic analysis they did here reveals that disparate groups like MRAs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Counterculturalists are coalescing with rightwing extremists like the KKK and various Neo-Nazi groups. Their rallying cry is free speech, which is appealing to people who don't spend two seconds thinking about it. Look at Moonlight Graham defending them as just having a "difference of opinion," as an example. I can't for the life of me understand how someone can look at white supremacists and think that it's a free speech issue and just a matter of a "difference of opinion." It's incredibly irrational. It's like saying you and a murderer just have a difference of opinion because the murderer wants you dead and you don't want to die, but he's entitled to his opinion, so you should respect him.

When in Sam heck did I say what you're inferring I said above?  I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

And yes, I do believe white supremacists have the right the free speech, unless they commit a crime.  That crime can include threatening violence/genocide on another person or group.  Arguably, the KKK and Nazi groups could be considered terrorist groups and their very existence banned.  If you're a person who really dislikes gay people or immigrants but doesn't espouse violence or other illegal things then I think they have a right to say those things IMO.  It's a fine line.  I'm not a fan of censorship, but also don't want people getting seriously harmed.

But this is getting a bit off topic...
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