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

    I got almost no ppb but a ton of Shapiro comparisons. I think part of the problem is that even when people have much more personable communication than I've exhibited here, they are still called a "debate bro" for basically making any actual argument instead of just restating their conclusions.

    While it's inadequate, I think there's a good case for the "bully people left" ethos. People are rarely argued into different camps, even if they are sometimes persuaded on fine details that aren't too far from them. People's ideologies are based on their relationship to their own environment, there's no arguing someone out of that if it's got its claws in them. By just bullying people and saving time on arguments that usually amount to nothing, it gave the subreddit the ability to exert disproportionate control over the website culture by intimidating dissenters and amplifying agreement.

    That has much less pro-social application on an insular website like this one, but there is some merit to it in general.

    My compromise position, which would apply less in a more public setting like the sub was, is that even if you resolve to only bully people who are vocally not on the left, if they are on the left and seem to be communicating in good faith, then it's not just permissible but necessary for the development of half-decent ideology for there to be debate.

    Those are my thoughts on the matter, anyway. Thank you for weighing in despite my situation being such a miserable bog of internet dramatics.