Troll/s at work on Mumsnet

MaizieD

FannyCornforth

Delila if you spend a lot of time on a site and pay particular attention to particular things, it becomes very easy to spot if your mind works a certain way.

That's a lot of 'ifs', FannyC.

Like MOnica, I wouldn't have a clue.

Nope, me neither.

Many are easy to spot, as are posters returning under another name. As GSM says, there are linguistic tics that give people away, and although some trolls are newbies just along for the ride, most have axes to grind and have been here before.

It's not magic. We all have favourite authors based on style, and most teachers could tell if one pupil had written another's essay. This is the same sort of thing - it's just recognising patterns.

As for why people do it, I agree that usually it's not kids. I know someone once who was a nasty troll (not on here). I thought she was a friend and always defended her when others started to suspect, but she caused no end of heartache on a site I used to admin and I keep a wide berth now. With hindsight, clearly she had a personality disorder of the type that makes people think they are cleverer than others. She would post something friendly and chatty, and enjoyed getting responses from people who knew her as her usual self, as it showed that they had been fooled by her aliases and in her head that meant that she was smarter than they were. That was step one. Then the posts would get more personal, using information she knew about others (their relationships, job details, that sort of thing) and she would keep stirring, using the personal information to be hurtful, and turning one poster against another until people snapped and left or even got banned for making nasty posts in retaliation. She had multiple IDs and used them to befriend regular posters who were also taken in by her, and inadvertently backed her up in her different guises.

It blew up for her when she started PMing and emailing people pretending to be others on the forum and Admin could tell. She was banned, but persisted in trying to re-register, getting nastier each time. It ended with an IP ban, although she tried to get around that, but Admin was persistent and blocked her on every attempt, and that either limited her options to the point where it wasn't worth trying, or she gave up.

People say that the Internet is full of weirdos, and whereas I find that the vast majority of posters are as 'normal' as any of us can be, it is true that there are some seriously disturbed people out there, who get their kicks from seeing others fall out and hurt one another.

I entirely agree Doodledog - attention seeking, loving all the replies to a question about something in which they actually have no interest, and an axe to grind.

I don’t spend long enough on here to identify nuances in style. I respond to a post if I’m interested or I can help, irrespective of who’s posting.

The problem is that some trolls have their own little clique of supporters who follow them like lemings.

A makes a post. Instead of replying to the subject of the posting B de-contextualises some word or phrase that they take issue with and attempts to drive the entire thread off at a tangent. Or even worse points out some spelling or grammatical error or some abbreviation that they are unfamiliar with. Then the silly little clique piles in.

All too often these people are allowed to derail a thread because others take note of them.

This makes really interesting reading and full of information, so thanks for the thread.

Just a word of warning, folks.
If you think a poster is a troll, don't call them out on the thread, report to GNHQ.

Even agreeing with another poster that an OP might sound far-fetched can result in deletion of your post.

I agree Calli. That’s what I do now, especially after getting a lot of flak from other posters when I called our most prolific troll out on a thread. Of course it isn’t X, nothing like X’s style of writing. It was X.

Interesting!

Of course, some people's lives do seem far fetched when compared to ordinary people like me ?
There's nowt so odd as folk!

Germanshepherdsmum

I do know for sure Delila but I’m not at liberty to tell you here how it is that I know.

I’m also pretty good at spotting linguistic patterns and traits. Some people’s are particularly distinctive. No ifs.

Oh, so they’ve told you this then?

As unless you are running IP addresses I fail to see how you could know

“No ifs” GSM - so you are pretty certain, but in this case it seems you haven’t had to rely on your ability to recognise patterns, you actually have insider knowledge, or at least knowledge that the rest of us don’t have. How so?

I can’t speak for GSM, and I don’t know who our most prolific troll is (I didn’t know we had a recurring one), but I do know that if the person I referred to above were to post I would have a very good chance of recognising the style of writing and general MO. Maybe that is because I was targeted by her? That certainly sharpens the mind.

Also (hypothetically), anyone can email HQ - in fact they ask us to do so to report suspicions. If they have replied and said that someone’s suspicions (based on recognising the signs) were correct, then of course that person would be certain that they had been right. There is nothing sinister about that, is there?

I said I am not at liberty to say more, and therefore I won’t. You have my word that it is the case.. I can however confirm that patterns were recognised.

Can I admit right here and now that I did change my user name - just the once - when I realised I had posted some information which would identify me to those who knew me personally. I only did this when I found out that a few of them had recently joined Gransnet. I hadn't posted anything particularly controversial previously but realised that if I wanted to start threads for help or advice with personal issues it might make things awkward or embarrassing for me or them. That was the only reason. Others might think I was being duplicitous but I feel much more at ease in myself now.

AskAlice I once posted an identifiable family anecdote, thought better of it and then asked GNHQ to delete it, please. I asked, begged, several times! but it still remained.
Mine wasn't a family worry or traumatic event but you probably did the right thing to change your username.

Apparently we are allowed to choose a second username if we wish to ask for help on personal matters but it doesn't work.

This sort of, I can only say paranoia, is all over the threads lately

Hitting a target once doesn't mean you are a crack shot

BTW this is my second username for [insert reasons] but I plan on keeping it

You clearly have no idea of the damage the banned poster caused, VS. And the target in question has, by my reckoning, been hit several times. Successfully. And quickly.

I couldn't care less how many usernames you've had. The GN rules permit name changes in limited circumstances only.

Explain it to me then? Perhaps I missed things... I can't make sense of it

I do hate the troll hunting that goes on in general though and don't want to encourage it

grannydarkhair

When I had a look at Mumsnet a few minutes ago, there were 50+ threads shut down because of a troll/s. I really don’t understand why anybody wants to behave in that manner, what sad lives they must lead.
I sincerely hope they don’t target Gransnet next.

Apparently there's an invasion of MN Violetsky

It's very disruptive for trolls to invade and take over
Some are very clever too, why not report suspicions to GNHQ?



It's up to GNHQ, let's hope they listen.

I looked at mumsnet recently but haven't been back since to be honest, not got the time

MN is often targeted for various reasons.

What reasons?

It's odd so many happened together.
A group effort or can people create different accounts?

VioletSky

What reasons?

I don’t think trolls have reasons as such VioletSky, they pick targets seemingly at random and post horrible targeted stuff behind a cloak of anonymity just because they can. If you look for example at the comments section on newspaper articles about celebrities, the trolls run rampant. In their sad little way they think they are being clever denigrating somebody more successful or more vulnerable than they are. I think it’s important to seek them out to stop the collateral damage they cause. I’m not very good at spotting them until the damage is already being done unfortunately.

I can’t understand how anyone has ‘inside’ information?
That’s enough to set the cat amongst the pigeons to start with

There’s really only one persons way of posting that I would recognise and most people would, the rest could be anybody
In fact most of the time I m so interested in what the poster is saying I don’t even look at the name