I: Introduction

As stated on my previous post (Part I), the main problems arising on a public forum platform are usually caused by users that have ill intentions with the community. Their methods to disrupt the order that we hold dear vary quite a bit and are often fed by the responses of those that are the subject to their schemes.

A good number of confrontations here at Voat happen because of the inability of the users to understand that some may use FREEDOM OF SPEECH as a way to break chaos on our community and understand that even if most of us don’t like it, we can’t engage in the censorship of their behavior if it is not illegal nor incites harm on others, as their statements hide behind obvious voids that we still have to address here at Voat.

We can’t simply compromise on FREEDOM OF SPEECH for the sake of maintaining order on the community because that would apply the authority of a few that could threaten the very integrity of the principle we all care about. However we can definitely provide the tools for our users to be able to fight against them without feeding them.

II: What are internet trolls and what are shills?

An internet Troll is a person that likes to starts quarrels or upsets people on the internet to distract and sow discord with the intent to provoke an emotional response from their targets. This can be done just for the sake of said user’s amusement as it can also hold an agenda, like discredit the Forum or the discussion at hand.

A shill is a person that serves as a plant or a stooge that looks to publicly boost the credibility of another person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relation with said party. It serves as well the purpose of a mole in which it plants misinformation in order to attack the credibility of the counterparts of the person or organization that they are trying to help.

Both have an agenda. The nature of their agenda is hard to determine specially on an anonymous public forum which is why you all should be very suspicious of the people you deal with online.

III: What technics do the trolls and shills use to control a Forum?

As you all know, planting people within communities or groups has been a way to prevent actions against a certain party or reduce the damage that their actions could create on them. This has been done for centuries in history for military, social, economic, politic, religious and cultural reasons. For example when a protest happens against a certain government and the government plants people inside the protest to ignite confrontations in order to attack the credibility of the protest in question.

For internet forums there are similar tactics applied:

• Forum Sliding: Basically hiding the posting of a critical nature with other unrelated content that usually leads to misinformation. Another way to put it is divert attention from the post subject to Forum Sliding by flooding the forum. This implies the use of several accounts, meaning alts that are used for upvote brigading on those posts that will be used to slide their target and downvote brigading their target.

• Consensus cracking: This also implies the use of multiple accounts one that post some information that is made to look legitimate but with little evidence that proves it and nearly at the same time another post is made that argues against the initial with more substance. Basically the users will be given the two sides of the story, one very generic and the one that the trolls and shills are interested in pushing so then the users are manipulated by thinking they had all the facts on the matter. Hence they are herd to the post that seems to have more substance.

• Turning a news group into a gossip corner: This is used a lot in Forum Sliding. The irrelevant content posted targets the group by flooding their queue and creates an inability for the users of said group to become productive within it. Basically everything turns into uncertainty and hence we get to see a lot of “someone told me, anonymous sources” taking over the narrative.

• Collecting information on Forum Members: It is used to ask specific questions in order to determine the tastes, principles and ideas defended by certain users. This helps to run statistical models to study a certain population and hence find a way to manipulate it.

• Identifying Violent Forum Members: Using “preaching to the choir techniques” these users can be identified by posting things that will incite them to react or express their views in a violent way. This can be used to then target those users and track them down or also to even attack the credibility of the Forum in a whole by applying guilty by association.

• Gaining full control: One of the main objectives is not only controlling the narratives through alts but also gain a moderator/owner position within the forum’s different channels/subverses in order to kill any dissenting position.

IV. The importance of awareness and proactivity

All of our users need to be aware that this techniques are applied by those that seek to control a narrative and attack the free thinkers from separate themselves from the current dogma of the mainstream media.

Our main weapon against this is information and the proactivity of the users of the forum. Understand that as we can’t compromise on FREEDOM OF SPEECH you are also entitled to upvote and downvote the content based on your taste, your opinion, relevancy, etc. This is the main tool our Admin gave us to moderate the Forum in a whole.

Moderators can help you on the task, but you the USER are the ones that hold the power on whether this is a fair forum or not.

Learn to also understand that as we are not looking to censor anybody that hasn’t broken any rules or laws, you can’t ask us to betray that commitment but you can certainly help the forum by learning about this techniques and using your votes.

Trolls and shills only have the power you give to them. If you interact with them you are opening the door for them to manipulate your reactions, even when you think you will not be. Do not help them build on the discord. Don’t feed them. If you find a troll, if you are pinged constantly by a troll, you have the ability to block that user, the same with their alts. And you are also free to downvote and move on. Ignore it and his power will fade away from you and look for a weaker mind he can annoy. The more users start addressing this in this way, the less control the trolls and shills will have.

source: DISINFORMATION PART 1: HOW TROLLS CONTROL AN INTERNET FORUM