One of the easiest ways to strengthen a community against attacks is to shine a spotlight on the behaviors shown by people attempting to sabotage it. This is done by labor organizers in real life to strengthen a group of workers against union busting, for instance.

The term often used for this is “inoculation”. Similar to being vaccinated once you are aware of an attacker, the effectiveness of their behavior decreases.

So Hexbear comrades, what patterns have you noticed in wreckers, trolls, and feds? Comment in the thread and I’ll update this post to include your feedback.

Terminology

Troll

:troll:

Standard internet bog person. Not particularly clever or inventive. 4chan-tier. Nothing in their brain but slurs.

Wrecker

:silver-legion:

Typically fixated on the site, repeat and/or sustained activity. (Eg Pumpkin Spice Flintstone guy). Might be a reference to an old USSR term for saboteurs in the party?

Fed

:fedposting:

Rare (?). Tries to encourage illegal behavior. Bad at it. Often doing it just to see who corrects them and in what ways.

Patterns I’ve noticed

General

:cissues:

  • new account with slightly “off takes” that gradually becomes increasingly aggressive

  • “just asking questions”

  • “innocently” brings up incredibly specific past struggle sessions

  • tries to position obvious shitposts as sincerely held opinions that somehow reflect poorly on the site (eg “everyone loves hunter biden”)

  • attempts to take other user’s sentences out of context and spin it into an argument

Wrecker Types

Fresh Accounts without History (FAWH)

:amogus:

These are accounts created in the last few weeks with little to no activity FAWHs indicate ban avoidance, shell propaganda accounts, and/or a desire to hide a pointed agenda. Identify and counter this by checking post histories.

Defrosted FAWHs

:corporate-art:

These accounts behave similarly to FAWHs but show a much older registration date combined with long periods of low activity, reflecting history editing or dormancy. They will occasionally only have comments at or around the time of struggle sessions. Identify and counter this behavior by checking post histories.

Drive-by Accounts

:stupidpol:

These accounts post bigoted or inflammatory comments in active threads then delete/edit their comments a day or two after the submission dies to obscure the pattern of their activity.

This is hard to spot unless you check back in with your suspected trolls or seek them out by reviewing. If you catch them in the act it's hugely indicative of subversive intent.

Identify and negate this by monitoring suspected trolls for post deletion and reporting before they are deleted. Also quoting especially aggressive replies so they can’t edit it away.

I’ll update this based on other’s comments. Viva la Hexbear!

:hexbear-retro:

      • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        My point was that moral disagreement makes someone "an asshole" no matter how carefully they choose their words. That's not a jab at the site culture, that's just how basically any society I've ever heard of functions. Because of that, if "being an asshole" is sufficient to ban someone, you are banning moral disagreement, which is a little hazardous.

        The site ideology has crystalized over time because of this, and some elements of that are actually really good, e.g. :some-controversy: , but some I think are holdovers from when the community was more of a "standard radlib but ruder" space.

        • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          There may be some contradictions in the fact that we purge core usership along ideological lines. Typically, that sort of purge is more effective in leadership, but the goal of the site is not to be a vanguard party in and of itself.

          But it sounds less like your concern is with holding ideological standards and more with the standards set for specific topics.

          • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Well, I guess I mean that the ideological standards should perhaps be "higher order" and so stances on specific issues in the world should have some leeway so long as they are argued from a reasonable position (e.g. there are legitimate communist criticisms of the CPC, and then there are radlib, neolib, and hard-right criticisms).

            If I could just have my way, I'd say "ban liberal reasoning", but I got a :who-must-go: for that one, so I'll take what I can get.