What's sock puppeting please?

I'm not saying I understand it - just that I know how it works.

Why anyone bothers to do any of that is beyond me.
I only have one email address.
I feel am not keeping up and have now 😂

No. Just use a different email address.

Oreo

Being a MN and now GN member I thought the IP address controlled name change, am sure it doesn’t allow more than one name under the same IP.
If a poster is banned and comes back under a different IP address then the moderators wouldn’t be able to tell.Other posters would tho!

In theory you can, eg if you wanted to ask a personal question but not use your normal username.
But it doesn't work.

Change username
You are able to select one alternative name to use for sensitive posts where you'd like anonymity. Please note that you are only allowed two usernames in total

But how?
Do you leave and rejoin?
Can you then rejoin again with your old username?

Some ISPs have dynamic IPs, which means that each time you log on you are assigned a different one. That makes tracing difficult (and an innocent poster can be allocated the same one as has been used by a troll or sock puppet an hour before).

Circumstantial evidence is the best admin can hope for sometimes, but there is no right to post here, and if they are convinced that someone is deliberately causing trouble they can ban anyone at their discretion.

People can get a VPN and continue to create new accounts. However GN do take notice of reports of obvious serial offenders. Never think you won’t be recognised!

Being a MN and now GN member I thought the IP address controlled name change, am sure it doesn’t allow more than one name under the same IP.
If a poster is banned and comes back under a different IP address then the moderators wouldn’t be able to tell.Other posters would tho!

nanna8

People who do that need to get a life in the real world, Kandinsky. I agree, seriously weird. Funny how these people change online identities and just spout out the same old ,same old. Do they not realise it is blatantly obvious or are they just so up themselves they consider their intelligence is higher than the rest of us?

I don't think it should be swept under the carpet so easily nanna8. Not if you value simple veracity and democracy.

Very professional "sock puppets" will have been used to persuade large numbers of Americans to believe Trump won the last election.

People denying truthful information while spreading disinformation damage democracy and trust.

And there I was thinking 'ooh, sock puppets, brilliant idea, I can make some with the DGC next week when they come to stay'! Mmmm, maybe not.

I think a basic name change is fair enough. Sometimes people think they have given away too much personal information, or that they have been objectionable to others and want to make a fresh start. I can't see the harm in that. Also people lose passwords etc, and can't log in to post under their regular name. Or they take a break and deactivate their account, so have to re-register. Or as mentioned, someone wants to talk about a personal matter without it being connected to their usual user name.

People deliberately changing name so they are not connected with their old ID and can claim never to have said something is a grey area, IMO. I can understand a fresh start, but if someone carries on where they left off but denies their history it is a bit underhand.

Sock puppet accounts are deliberately set up to cause trouble, and are different again. They can, of course, be traced if they share an IP (ie they are the same person posting from different accounts), but if they are different people communicating by text or messaging whilst posting separately it is more difficult, but not impossible to detect. And yes - people do do that, crazy as it sounds. When several apparently new people all claim to have been monitoring a site for a while and simultaneously decide to tell people what they are doing wrong, or 'make a stand' about something that was previously a particular poster's pet topic, it's pretty obvious.

People who do that need to get a life in the real world, Kandinsky. I agree, seriously weird. Funny how these people change online identities and just spout out the same old ,same old. Do they not realise it is blatantly obvious or are they just so up themselves they consider their intelligence is higher than the rest of us?

Saw this quite a bit on MN.
Over there you can name change as often as you like ( for privacy reasons mostly so you can post about a sensitive subject without everyone knowing it’s ‘you’ ) So some people had 4 or 5 names, which is fine if you’re not doing anything wrong.

But people were making out they’re different people. It was usually done to back up what they were saying. More often than not they got caught out because they’d forget to name change back.
One poster actually used to argue with herself.

Seriously weird.

It's not at all nice when used to bully or gang up on posters

The amount of times I've seen a new name turn up who immediately has a problem with someone

I'm sure it could be prevented in general but on some sites, would probably lower ad revenue lol

It's not new. A form of sock puppeting used to happen quite a bit on the long running thread that was about the labour party, a banned member used to pretend to be a zero hours worker, however his style was immediately recognisable.

I think this description is relevant to GN.

The goal (of sock puppets) is not necessarily achieving a specific political outcome but to sow division based on hot-button political issues.

So, the goal is to ruin a thread others are engaging on by one person or a group, disrupting it. We certainly see this on GN.

Actual "sock puppet" activity is used to close down information sources or provide disinformation, often on a wide scale. Think elections (in all countries), Brexit, Parliamentary business and Political Parties.

Wyllow, that is creepy .I am so glad to hear that he is your EX. .....

Some will be, some will be kids winding up the old people .

It can be banned members, but some people just enjoy it, or post in defence of a friend who they think is having a hard time. It gets worse in the school holidays

I have never thought threads were started by teens in the school holidays, they just would not be interested in this forum, I have always thought it is a double identity member that just likes to stir things up and watch the fallout.

Similar name, Shani Wallis I think.
I'll Google it.....

Was that Shari Lewis? The woman who played Nancy in Oliver?

So did I , Glorianny 😊. It was funny wasn't it.

henetha

The only sock puppet I know is one called Lamb Chop from years ago.

I loved Lamb Chop!

Nothing new fangled about gaslighting. It's been used for a long time in terms of formal evidence of abuse and also by psychologists.

Gaslighting was when my estranged Ex entered the house in the middle of the night and moved furniture around quietly and probably even looked in when I was asleep so when I came down in the morning things had been subtly moved around or hidden. Next day the police told me to change the locks, but that a fairly minor example of gaslighting.

here are the origins (1938) and the realities
www.thehotline.org/resources/what-is-gaslighting/

The only sock puppet I know is one called Lamb Chop from years ago.

nanna8

Never heard of it - another of these new fangled nasty ideas like gaslighting. Maybe someone should start an ‘ invent new phrases’ thread? Pastying- as in being nasty as in nasty pasty.

Hardly new fangled Nanna8
The film ("Gaslight") which the term comes from appeared in 1944