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!
they don’t let people debate transphobia on this site, why would they let dudes debate abortion?
There's a difference between listening to lived experiences and fully embracing standpoint epistemology.
I’ll make this easy so we don’t need to have a meta conversation about episcopalians or whatever.
Q1 - do you believe people have the right to an abortion?
Q2 - do you believe people have the right to define their own gender(s)?
Do you believe in natural rights? If so, where do they come from? If not, what do you mean by "right"? Obviously women in the US do not all have a present legal right to abortion [and just as obviously them having that right taken from them is a bad thing ], so clearly that's not what you mean.
Gender identity is necessarily internally defined (that's what progressives usually mean by "gender") by that person. It's a mental feature, not a physical one (like sex).
so like… I’m going to try and be sincere here. you do get how this kind of comment reads to people, right? It has huge :debate-me-debate-me: energy and you keep dragging yourself back to this completely different topic around defining words.
do you not understand what people mean in every day conversation when they say “right”? is your approach to leftism entirely “Rationalism” and rhetoric?
this lacks both written coherence and empathy, my dude. ofc people are going to think you’re anti-abortion or whatever if you pitch this kind of thing. It’s uncanny how much it matches the tone of right-wing convos.
Abortion rights aren’t an intellectual cardio sesh for anyone who can get pregnant, it’s a matter of life and death. Having someone sniff their belly button lint and pontificate on “what even are rights anyway lol” feels dismissive
I’m commenting with this in case you somehow really don’t understand what you’ve been doing and how it reads to people.
I don't care what you think of me and while I'm annoyed at what you project on to me, but it's not like I know you so there's not much I can do to change your mind. Go read my response to someone who asked a better question if you're so desperate to avoid thinking about tacit assumptions.
deleted by creator
I care a little more what you think of me, admittedly
deleted by creator
you literally got banned for being a dick but ok king go off lol
That's a really appealing argument to make to someone who explicitly made this account to talk about how the moderation practices are bad
deleted by creator
I assume based on context that love is using “right” to mean “a prescriptive assertion of freedom”, regardless of whether that freedom is materially available
That's my guess too, but I don't want to act based only on that assumption.