Online trolls come in a variety of forms, but for some it may be a paid gig. “There are both public and private disinformation agencies that pay people to sow confusion on forums and comment sections,” states Feargus O’Connor Greenwood in his book 180 Degrees (p. 112), citing the Snowden revelations and research by Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman as support. “The security services of Britain, United States, China, Russia and other private security firms are all said to be involved in such practices,” writes Greenwood, describing the tactics of paid trolls as “deny, deter, discredit, disrupt, delay, degrade, and deceive.”
If the idea of conspiracy theories sets your hair on fire, 180 Degrees is not the book for you. Regardless, the tips Greenwood provides on spotting hired trolls are a useful addition to information literacy. Based on H. Michael Sweeney’s Twenty-Five Ways to Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation, Greenwood lists eleven tactics used by paid trolls (pp. 114-118):
DIVIDE AND CONQUER. Use divisive issues to sow discord in order to get people fighting each other. “All Muslims are terrorists.” “All liberals are communists.”
NAME CALLING. Using names to abuse and ridicule others. Specific pejorative term devised to invoke thoughts of irrationality in that person. “What are you… some kind of conspiracy theorist.”
HIJACK AND SIDETRACK. Change the subject or focus on a minor detail. “This reminds me of when my neighbor deliberately ran over my dog.”
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Pretend it’s hopeless to complain. Encourage people to be apathetic instead of trying to change things. “People are too stupid/ lazy to do anything about it.” “It’s too complex to solve.”
OPEN AND SHUT CASE. Ends the discussion, stops further questions. “The terrorists admitted to 9-11 so case closed.”
THE COMPLETE SOLUTION. Demand complete, foolproof solutions to the problems being discussed. Require opponents to solve the problem at hand. “If you can’t explain to us all exactly how it happened then just shut the f—- up already.”
EXTREMISM. Over-the-top or wholly disproportionate reactions that are counterproductive. “All bankers should be pitchforked.”
QUESTION MOTIVES/INTEGRITY. Suggest the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. “You are only in this for the money” or “We know that alt-media is unreliable.”
OFFENCE AS DEFENCE. Being indignant, incredulous or offended (directly or indirectly). “Questioning 9-11 is offensive to the memory of those that died.”
STRAW MAN ARGUMENT. Accusing the opposition of subscribing to a certain point of view, even though they do not, and then attacking that manufactured point of view. Alternatively, putting words in the mouth of the opposition and then rebutting those. “He is on record as saying he wants to ‘kill all Muslims'.’”
INVOKE AUTHORITY. Claim you are a specialist in this field. Use academic credentials or enough jargon and minutiae to illustrate the point. “Trust me, I have a master’s degree in this subject and have spent 20 years working in this field as a specialist and I can say point blank that what you are saying is total and utter BS.”
Greenwood briefly mentions a few more techniques, such as “ignoring the point entirely, claiming something is old news and therefore irrelevant, doing a hit and run (attack your opponent or the opponent’s positions and then disappear from the thread), and offering an alternative, but false, conclusion.”
Effective means of dealing with these tactics, according to Greenwood, is to “identify the technique, communicate to everyone else on the thread what the specific tactic is, and post a link to the full list of tactics so more people can familiarize themselves with them.” Greenwood explains that if these techniques are not resisted, in addition to “obfuscating the truth and sowing confusion,” they will lead to watered-down online content, avoidance of topics, and self-censorship.
Top image: Crusty old bucket with a troll in it.JPG/ Wikimedia Commons
More hilariously low-quality, pseudo-"heterodox" content on this Substack. Too much bullshit in this self-published book to enumerate. For some reliable resources on human psychology and misinformation:
I'm about halfway through Newell and Shanks. While some of their criticisms are debatable, they blew holes through a significant number of ideas I thought well established. Its rather disquieting. More evidence that scientific research, reference and reporting is in an appalling state. Thanks for the links.
This is good guidance for students who may not have considered this at all. The more complex analyses Rob suggests would be ideal in later classes...but you need to present troll techniques clearly first go.
While this is a good overview of bad faith argumentation, just as list of logical fallacies would be (there's overlap, clearly), I don't think it's that useful for spotting trolls since these techniques are so prevalent online one could point to almost everyone as a troll. Some folks just aren't good at arguing (or don't know enough about a subject) and use these as a pressure valve to when they run out of ideas.
In either case, its still a good practice for one's own time (and mental health), to disengage when the 11 methods on the list come out to play.
Yes, I do think many of these same tactics are used by garden-variety commenters and trolls (who may have picked up bad habits from paid trolls, who knows). I almost put that in the main post but decided to leave that for possible discussion in the comments. Two other types of trolls Greenwood briefly mentions are "the sad, who just want to project their own anger and inferiority issues onto others" and "the disruptors, who enjoy throwing proverbial spanners into the works just for the fun of it." Your pressure valve analogy is also good and I think disengagement is the best tactic. In the longer pieces on this Substack there is a link to the HxA Way--https://heterodoxacademy.org/resources/the-hxa-way/-- which applies both to both posts and comments here.
Indeed, that list is an invitation to selectively dismiss others according to one's own idiosyncratic biases. A much better form of "critical thinking" advice is Critical Ignoring:
I agree with Oleg's comments below, and think that Mike Caulfield's SIFT methodology and his. forthcoming co-authored "Verified" book offers promise--even though I think any method for verification or identifying trolls or misinformation will always come up short just because there's so. much of it. Disengaging from trolls and using attention appropriately are probably good strategies.
Larger problem that Rob is. pointing out is attempting to get people to trust reliable sources rather than attempting to fact-check or distrust unreliable ones.
More hilariously low-quality, pseudo-"heterodox" content on this Substack. Too much bullshit in this self-published book to enumerate. For some reliable resources on human psychology and misinformation:
Propaganda (Almost) Never Works
https://www.persuasion.community/p/propaganda-almost-never-works
Misinformation on Misinformation
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051221150412
Open Minded: Searching for Truth about the Unconscious Mind (open access)
https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5625/Open-MindedSearching-for-Truth-about-the
Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Make-Societies-Cognition-Explains/dp/0300223455
Some useful sources. Thank you.
I'm about halfway through Newell and Shanks. While some of their criticisms are debatable, they blew holes through a significant number of ideas I thought well established. Its rather disquieting. More evidence that scientific research, reference and reporting is in an appalling state. Thanks for the links.
This is good guidance for students who may not have considered this at all. The more complex analyses Rob suggests would be ideal in later classes...but you need to present troll techniques clearly first go.
While this is a good overview of bad faith argumentation, just as list of logical fallacies would be (there's overlap, clearly), I don't think it's that useful for spotting trolls since these techniques are so prevalent online one could point to almost everyone as a troll. Some folks just aren't good at arguing (or don't know enough about a subject) and use these as a pressure valve to when they run out of ideas.
In either case, its still a good practice for one's own time (and mental health), to disengage when the 11 methods on the list come out to play.
Yes, I do think many of these same tactics are used by garden-variety commenters and trolls (who may have picked up bad habits from paid trolls, who knows). I almost put that in the main post but decided to leave that for possible discussion in the comments. Two other types of trolls Greenwood briefly mentions are "the sad, who just want to project their own anger and inferiority issues onto others" and "the disruptors, who enjoy throwing proverbial spanners into the works just for the fun of it." Your pressure valve analogy is also good and I think disengagement is the best tactic. In the longer pieces on this Substack there is a link to the HxA Way--https://heterodoxacademy.org/resources/the-hxa-way/-- which applies both to both posts and comments here.
Indeed, that list is an invitation to selectively dismiss others according to one's own idiosyncratic biases. A much better form of "critical thinking" advice is Critical Ignoring:
https://theconversation.com/when-critical-thinking-isnt-enough-to-beat-information-overload-we-need-to-learn-critical-ignoring-198549
I agree with Oleg's comments below, and think that Mike Caulfield's SIFT methodology and his. forthcoming co-authored "Verified" book offers promise--even though I think any method for verification or identifying trolls or misinformation will always come up short just because there's so. much of it. Disengaging from trolls and using attention appropriately are probably good strategies.
Larger problem that Rob is. pointing out is attempting to get people to trust reliable sources rather than attempting to fact-check or distrust unreliable ones.