Digg is a high traffic website that according to Alexa ranked 116th globally and 50th in the United States based on traffic. Digg is a high visibility website. It is expected that trolls would be attracted to such a widely viewed forum in order to wreak some havoc. Well, I began studying the different trolling tactics on Digg...The stories you are about to read are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
1. The Brute Force Troll
The Brute Force Troll resorts to viciously attacking a user or pasting highly objectionable content in the comments section in order to utterly disrupt a discussion, badger a user, or make a name for himself. Such trolls are very adept at ban evasion and often work in teams to saturate highly-visible front page articles with their invective monologues. Thankfully, Digg has not fallen victim to too many types of these trolls, and Digg staff usually brings things under control in a reasonable amount of time.
Examples:
The Onetimer Troll- The Onetimer Troll was a particular species of a Brute Force Troll that started off having many believe that a former user, Onetimer, had been killed by being drowned in his own bathtub. Subsequently, Digg was barraged with racist and antisemitic tirades with graphic and sexual threats that even came to include Kevin Rose.
Even though there has been general speculation and a consensus that The Onetimer Troll was none other than the banned user Onetimer trying to garner sympathy, there hasn't been any hard proof to establish this. However, we can all just be thankful that Digg took appropriate action, and we no longer have to deal with this psychopath.
Digg Story That Discusses the Onetimer Troll
The PS Troll- The PS Troll is Digg's most recent Brute Force Troll, and was mainly attributed to the No crowd, another group of trolls we will discuss later on in this article. PST started viciously attacking the Digg power user ThePartyStar with sexist epithets and political slander that came to include threats of rape. So far all evidence points to a team effort.
His first attack occurred on this Digg submission, as you can see by the replies to the first comment. NoClone/ThePartystar Troll then sent Digg on a two-week odyssey of sick and twisted comments.
First Evidence of the NoClone/Partystar Troll
You can see his postings in their full glory by viewing these Ubervu caches. Just scroll through the comments until you find "TheLegionOfNo" or other similar names.
2. The Clone Troll
NoLibrarians
NoCFL
NoGoldSurge
NoPaul2012
NoLasagna
NoLiberties
NoRand2010
TheLegionofNo
NoTeaParty
NoPaultards
NoSharronAngle
NoPeterSchiff
NoDipsticks
StatistOne
StatistTwo
Do any of these guys look familiar to you? Well you are not alone in suspecting foul play! We have thoroughly researched and documented this band of ne'er-do-wells who troll and prey on any Digg sub that would ever suggest that the government has too much power.
Although a few of these accounts are actually unique individuals, such as NoLasagna and NoLibrarians, the vast majority of these pricks are thought to be the same person due to their propensity of using identical sentence structures and jargon. Moreover, they can usually be spotted by their overuse of the word "son" and the branding of anybody who disagrees with them as immature losers.
It is thought that this band of merry trolls was behind ThePartyStar Affair, being evidenced by the fact that several of the NoClones who weren't posting such nasty diatribes were banned at the same time. Due to such evidence, The Rattington Post recommends that anybody who runs across a NoClone bury and ignore his comments without even responding.
NoClones After ThePartystar Affair
NoClones Welcoming NoTeaParty to His "Legion of No"
3. The Sly Name-Calling Troll
The writer of this column recognizes that certain degrees of trolling add spice to the Internet experience, but like the other two examples of trolls that have been given, I believe that it is necessary to be vigilant of those who go out of their way to personally attack users and sully the Digg experience. Having said this, now it is time to start detailing some of the insidious but more garden varieties of trolls, beginning with The Sly Name-Calling Troll.
The Sly Name-Calling Troll is one who will stir up a heated discussion to then later have supposed justification for directly insulting a fellow digger with at heinous epithet and then backpedal and try to justify it after being called out and reported. Sadly, this breed of troll is much more difficult to have banned than the first two categories already covered.
Examples:
RaceBaiter- Racebaiter's normal claim to fame is tracing friends of friends of a user on Digg and then accusing that person of being a White Supremacist just because there are numerous 2nd degree relationships on Digg. This is kind of like saying that just because your cousin is a racist that you have to be, and most of us don't disown our family over a few harsh opinions.
But, this is not the worst of his antics! Below is a link to a prime example of when Racebaiter called one of our female diggers a "twat".
Racebaiter Gets Frustrated and Calls Quirkopatra a Twat
"God you are such a mouthy twat. Do you have problems with people running out the door directly after sex? I would imagine so."
DrunkTroll- This individual is normally a rather intelligent poster, albeit on an equivocated and authoritarian side of the political spectrum. However, he morphs himself into SuperTroll whenever he decides to drink while digging. Just recently he told Dilberto to kill himself, an offense that DrunkTroll had been banned for previously. After being reported, he wasn't banned, but they simply deleted his comment.
DrunkTroll Has Comment Removed For Telling Dilberto to Kill Himself
4. The Copypasta Troll
Perhaps all of our readers are highly familiar with this sort of troll, but it doesn't lesson their annoyance. This troll copies and pastes a canned answer to many Digg subs and comments.
Example:
BongPuffer- The staff at The Rattington Post has agreed that posting examples of Digg's copy pasta trolls is a difficult task because normally their comments are deleted in a short period of time. However, we have a perfect example of a subtle copy pasta troll that only attacks a certain source, Fox News, rather than actually debating the issue at hand. Granted, I am not a big fan of any mainstream media outlet, Fox News included, but they all do report events, and one can easily verify or debunk the content. To just say, "This is crap because it came from over there!" is very immature and is considered standard troll bait on Digg.
"Buried for Fox News. Please submit credible sources.
http://www.newshounds.us/
http://www.outfoxed.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel#Crit ..."
Well, I think you get the general idea! ;-)
5. The Good cop/bad cop Troll
The Good cop/bad cop Troll is one of the hardest to detect, due to the fact that it involves one user with two Digg accounts. The two accounts are comprised of his principle account that actively participates in Digg discussions and often even submits articles that make the front page and another account that contributes very little to Digg and attacks users and submissions. Normally it is a necessity that the "good account" be the principle Digg user, because nobody wants to have their well-connected and successful Digg account banned.
Example:
Giovanny and Navarro- It has taken some time to hunt and track down this troll, but after a while the pattern becomes obvious. On any sub that is in any way critical of authoritarianism, both are often seen posting in concert.
Giovanny, the bad cop, will go in and post diatribes about how Digg is supposedly being gamed and that the post is spam. In addition to this, anybody who disagrees with him is assumed to be a "Freeper". Never mind that I myself have never partaken in a Free Republic discussion. This twerp will even brag self-righteously that he only has a limited number of mutual friends on Digg and that he makes the front page by way of "community approval". But, of course he doesn't mind having mutual friends on Digg who have 100s of mutual contacts, which brings us to his Dr. Jekyll half!
The good cop in this case is Navarro, a friendlier version of the same troll, and he often comes in to try to sound moderate and conciliatory after Giovanny has done his damage. Also note that Giovanny complains about people who use large numbers of mutual friends to make the front page, but his Siamese twin, Navarro, has a large network of diggers and frequently makes the front page. Below we have some documentation of this.
Self-righteous Remark About Not "Spamming
Example of Bitching About Standard and Accepted Digg Friending Practices
Note the "one right after another" technique on this one. Navarro starts off with a calm post, and his Mr. Hyde half follows up with a hateful diatribe.
Giovarro Makes His Good cop/bad cop Routine Way Too Obvious
Amazingly, soon after getting ripped into by Giovanny for having a healthy list of Digg mutual friends, as seen by the first link on this list, Smooth Navarro kindly "cautions" a fellow Digg user about the company he keeps on Digg.
Good Cop Tries to Make Good With Dilberto After Bad Cop Rips Him on First Link
Disclaimer: This article is meant to be nothing more than a parody of some of the shenanigans that occur on a regular basis in Digg's comment sections. The designator of the title "troll" should not be construed to imply that the users are bad people in real life. The author of this article does take care to not sully the actual identities of the mentioned users and has no intention of harassing or intimidating them. Where appropriate, the Digg trolls mentioned have had their names altered in the text in order not to directly jab at them, but the reader is free to check the links I have provided to verify and check out some of the trolling tactics that have been mentioned. If there is a troll that you would like to report, please don't hesitate in contacting the poster.
Thanks Augustus, for a well sourced essay. I enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteYour post brings back great memories of TrollHunters.org's exploits.
ReplyDeletedown with NoLibertarians! These notrolls seemed to have a communication network outside of digg.com. when digg took away the shouting mechanism --> a lot of the liberty movement on there was silenced, meanwhile perps like NoLibertarians reigned, thereby ruining general valid discussions. Too Bad These trolls messing up the free flow of information and ideas caused me to exit digg(dot)com and start-up iseenews(dot)com
ReplyDeleteThank you Augustus for your contribution to the slaying of these sick trolls.
ReplyDeleteOnly sickos here were the "Digg Patriots" like Dilberto and the owners of this Blog who have already been exposed as fascist scum bags trying to silence opposing viewpoints.
ReplyDeleteBtw, nice color scheme, it matches your brown shirts.