Baiting, trolls, and agents provocateur

Baiting

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/baiting

On the Internet, baiting is similar to trolling, in that baiters, like trolls, try to elicit a response from other users. The difference is that the response is supposed to be embarrassing to the user in question, and humorous to others. Baiters frequently concentrate on groups they do not like, such as pedophiles, religious fundamentalists, or homosexuals.

What the baiter says does not need to make sense, it is often simply written to baffle the bait, and to produce an interesting result. In that respect, baiting is similar to telephone prank calls, but often much more elaborate. Baiting frequently takes place on IRC or instant messaging. The chat logs are then typically posted on the world wide web.

Some of these pranks have grown into Internet phenomena. For example, Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka from the popular Something Awful site engaged in a long ICQ session (titled "Space Robot Bonanza") where he talked to a gullible user about "space robots" who supposedly "protected" humans from the "terrible secret of space" by pushing them down stairs. This was later turned into a song by The Laziest Men on Mars, with lyrics such as:

We are the space robots We are here to protect you We are here to protect you

From the terrible secret of space

External links

• The Bait Shop

• Baiting.org archives

• Something Awful ICQ pranks

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Internet Trolls

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/internet_troll

On the Internet, troll is a slang term for a person who posts messages intended to create controversy or provoke an angry response rather than to add content to a discussion.

Table of contents

1 Origins

2 Usage

3 Examples

4 Motivation

5 Resolutions and alternatives

6 Related articles

6.1 Specific trolling subcultures

6.1.1 Trollgnaws

6.2 Notable troll examples

6.3 Miscellaneous

7 External links

Origins

The term trolling, like the term flamebait, originated as a fishing metaphor: like people who troll for fish, people on the internet were dragging a conversational lure through a group, baiting for a particular response, often anger or argument. Later, the verb became a noun, as a trolling person was labeled a troll. In its noun form, troll picked up the association of the monster trolls in folklore.

Usage

Some feel that using the noun (calling someone a troll) makes unnecessary assumptions about a writer's motives, whereas using the verb (calling a post trolling) describes the reception of a post without making assumptions about motives. Thus, it may be possible to troll unintentionally. Such assumptions would generally be an example of the fundamental attribution error i.e. inferring that behavior results from a person's nature or personality rather than examining behavior in the context of events surrounding the behavior. Regardless, labeling not only posts but people trolls is very common in current usage.

Of course, not everyone who is accused of being a troll meets even the loose definition of the slang term. The term is highly subjective, and some posts will look like "trolling" to some while seeming like meaningful contributions to others. Behavior which might be considered a simple rampage or an emotional outburst in other environments is often tagged with the term "troll" in internet discussion.

The term is frequently used to discredit an opposing position in an argument. This usually amounts to an undefensible ad hominem argument: many views that have met with opposition and even the ridicule of experts have subsequently been found to be justified, so the label "troll" used this way is actually likely to indicate a correct but controversial position that is stirring up flames precisely because it has challenged a doctrine others actually realize is wrong. (It is quite possible to stir up controversy with a wrong argument, but these can more effectively be met by simply responding to the substantive issue.)

Reasons for the use of slang monikers in Internet discussion explored in peer reviewed literature exploring behavior in electronic networks such as the Internet include a sense of anonymity or impersonal perceptions of others, which tend to reduce perceptions of the value of another person in a dialogue. On the other hand, customs of discourse, or etiquette, that originated in physical communities, where people are actually exposed to some danger of bodily harm (as opposed to merely epistemic communities or communities of practice), are often applied naively by newcomers who are not used to the range of views that people are often comfortable expressing online, especially anonymously.

Examples

Common types of troll messages or activities:

• off topic messages ˜ "Can anyone help me make a webpage?" "No, this is a music forum."

• inflammatory messages ˜ "You are an idiot for including this type of message in your list."

• messages containing an obvious flaw or error ˜ "I think is Roman Polanski's best movie."

• intentionally naive or politically contentious messages ˜ "I think George W. Bush is the best/worst President ever."

• intentionally posting an outrageous argument deliberately constructed around a fundamental but obfuscated flaw or error.

• posting a ridiculous claim and then insisting it's true unless people refute it to their satisfaction.

• making loud claims to be on the defensive, while the claims are a guise for their aggressive maneuvers.

• including offensive media such as annoying sound files or disturbing pictures in a message.

• after successfully baiting users, feigning innocence and/or feigning ignorance of procedures

An example of a troll message in the newer sense would be one that denounces a particular religion in a religion newsgroup, though historically, this would have been called "flamebait". Like those who engage in flaming, self-proclaimed or alleged Internet trolls sometimes resort to innuendo or misdirection in the pursuit of their objectives.

A variant of the second variety (inflammatory messages) involves posting content obviously severely contradictory to the (stated or unstated) focus of the group or forum- for example, posting cat meat recipes on a pet lovers forum, posting evolutionary theory on a creationist forum, or posting messages about how all dragonss are boring in the USENET group alt.fan.dragons. Cross posting is a popular method of choice by Usenet trolls: a cross-posted article can be discussed simultaneously in several unrelated and/or opposing newsgroups; this is likely to result in a flame war. For instance, an anti-Fast food flame bait might be cross posted to healthy eating groups, environmentalist groups, animal rights groups, as well as a totally off-topic Artificial Intelligence newsgroup. An example of a successful troll is the well-known "Oh how I envy American students" USENET thread which got 3000+ followups.

Motivation

Most discussion of what motivates Internet trolls comes from other Internet users who claim to have observed trolling behavior. There is little scholarly literature to describe either the term or the phenomenon. The comments of accused trolls might be unreliable, since they may in fact be intending to stir controversy rather than to advance understanding of the phenomenon.

Likewise, accusers are often motivated by a desire to defend a particular Internet project and references to an Internet user as a troll might not be based on the actual goals of the person so named. As a result, identifying the goals of Internet trolls is most often speculative.

Still, several basic goals have been attributed to Internet trolls, according to the type of disruption they are believed to be provoking. One alleged goal is to get some form of meta-forum (or "off-topic") response. The goal would be to provoke a sort of negative response. Another suspected goal is to generate a change in the opinion of the users of the board or of the overall reason for the forum. Another goal is to cause a policy change in the way the board is run. An example of a policy change would be the requirement of admin verification of new accounts before they are allowed to post on a previously open account registration board. Another goal a forum troll may have would be to cause the forum itself to be shut down, either temporarily or permanently.

These suspected motivations are similar to those stated by Internet crackerss, who often state their efforts are to improve Internet security or to generally disrupt overuse of networked electronic communication formats. In other situations, the person accused of trolling may simply be attempting to spread joviality or using a form of humor, such as satire, which can lead the target of such satirical barbs to label the behavior as trolling. A person might also engage in behavior described as trolling to target a particular individual, or because they have concluded there is no normal or rational forum for more legitimate discourse, after vainly seeking to improve the discourse against the emergence of groupthink or false consciousness.

Often, this behaviour may bring frustration to more mainstream users, especially in the case of a virtual community. An often overlooked co-motivation behind such behaviour is attention. Instead of simply leaving the discussion, a person might be driven by frustration to act in very puerile manners just to get a rise out of someone, or even for the rush from a power trip, to boost one's ego by manipulating another's emotions. However, the fact that this occurs at all is often a consequence of the absence of a "safety valve" to allow excessive charge to dissipate before it reaches irreversible levels. At the same time, the departure of more legitimate contributors may be a considerable drain on the intellectual resources available to the discussion, thus perpetuating a situation of groupthink or false consciousness. In these circumstances, to dismiss the trolls as unwanted troublemakers is to paint with far too broad a brush, as for every spectacular flameout there may be a dozen silent disappearances: see "Resolutions and alternatives".

Resolutions and alternatives

The popular wisdom about dealing with alleged trolls is "Don't feed the trolls, that will only encourage them." That is, do not respond to them; that is the attention they desire. Or, at best, one will be drawn into dialogues that waste time. Somebody who does respond to them might be told "YHBT. YHL. HAND." by other members of the group, which means "You have been trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day."

Literature on conflict resolution suggests that labeling participants in Internet discussions as trolls can serve to perpetuate the unwanted behaviors. A person who failed to find acceptance by a group, for whatever reason, might readily embrace an identity as a troll if the group more readily accepts that identity. An affirmative strategy in dealing with trolling behavior is to describe preferred behaviors, to affirm the capacity of a person to perform according to those expectations and to recognize the value of the preferred behavior. This is often difficult for those who use this term because it requires that they lend aid and comfort to those with whom they might disagree. Nonetheless, in most conflicts, for parties to articulate the interests of another party in terms the other party will accept is widely recognized as both a tool of conflict resolution and of persuading opponents to accept an unwelcome viewpoint.

Related articles

Specific trolling subcultures

• Slashdot trolling phenomena (see also Slashdot subculture)

• Usenet trolling phenomena

• Troll organization

Trollgnaws

• alt.syntax.tactical

• alt.fan.karl-malden.nose

• Trolltalk

• GameFAQs LUE

Notable troll examples

• baiting

• page widening

• Naked and Petrified Miscellaneous

• agent provocateur

• Adequacy.org

• AOLamer

• ludibrium

• killfile

• virtual community

External links

• alt.troll FAQ

• alt.syntax.tactical FAQ

• afk-mn FAQ (mostly old-style Usenet trolling)

• What Makes A F******d? by David Kendrick

• "Oh how I envy American students"

• Oh how I envy American students"

• False repentance

• The relationship between social context cues and uninhibited verbal behavior in computer-mediated communication

• Moral panic and alternative identity construction in Usenet

• Searching for Safety Online: Managing "Trolling" in a Feminist Forum

• Troll entry in the Jargon File

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Agent provocateur

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/agent_provocateur

An agent provocateur is a person, often a police officer, whose duty is to make sure suspected individual(s) carry out a crime to guarantee their punishment; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion, so they may be convicted of the crime the provocateur suggested. The phrase comes from the French language, where it means, roughly, "inciting agent"; the plural is agents provocateurs.

The activities of agents provocateurs are typically called sting operations. Agents provocateurs are typically used to investigate consensual or "victimless" crimes; since each participant in such a crime is a willing participant, only a police spy posing as a fellow participant in criminal activity is likely to be able to uncover such a crime. Agents provocateurs are also used in the investigation of political crimes. Here, it has been claimed that the provocateurs deliberately seek to incite ineffective radical acts, in order to foster public disdain for the political group being investigated; and to worsen the punishments its members are liable for.

Within the United States the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents posing as political radicals in order to disrupt the activities of political groups the U.S. government found unacceptably radical. The activities of agents provocateurs against political dissidents in Imperial Russia was one of the grievances that led to the Russian Revolution.

The activities of agents provocateurs pose a number of ethical and legal issues. Within common law jurisdictions, the law of entrapment seeks to discern whether the provocateur's target intended to commit the crime he participated in with the provocateur, or whether the suggestion to commit the crime began with the provocateur. It is also debatable whether the institutionalized deception that resort to agents provocateurs entails by definition does more harm to the social order than the various consensual offenses typically investigated by provocateurs.