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Reddit Has Become a Battleground of Alleged Chinese Trolls

(www.buzzfeednews.com)
142 points mzs | 2 comments | 15 Mar 19 15:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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neaden ◴[15 Mar 19 16:27 UTC] No.19401182[source]▶
I think right now there are three main kinds of internet trolls in things like this. First would be the government sponsored ones who tend to post in unison or have some theme. These seem to mainly be Chinese and Russian. Second are the freelance trolls, people in it to make money by building an audience for advertisements. A lot of these people are in Macedonia where they can make relatively good money spreading false blogs on Facebook or something. Finally are the home grown true believers who are just posting their honest views in an abrasive, hostile, or threatening manner. I think the majority of trolls belong to the last group, but the first two have an outsized impact at creating new stories and coordinating messaging that is amplified by the third.
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tomatotomato37 ◴[15 Mar 19 16:30 UTC] No.19401231[source]▶
If you're going by the original meaning of troll you're missing the fourth category; the people who post something inflammatory because everyone freaking out and arguing at each other is amusing to them
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ucaetano ◴[15 Mar 19 16:38 UTC] No.19401334[source]▶
If you're going by the original meaning of troll you're missing the fifth category: monstrous cave-dwelling creatures.

:)

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braythwayt ◴[15 Mar 19 16:45 UTC] No.19401434[source]▶
Well, actually...

In the Internet sense of the word, the trolls in question live under bridges and spring out to surprise those who would cross with unpleasant demands and behaviour. Not cave-dwellers at all.

——

Hey, this is Hacker News, if we can't bikeshed the etymology of "troll," what use is this medium?

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1. ucaetano ◴[15 Mar 19 16:46 UTC] No.19401458[source]▶
> In the Internet sense of the word

But that's not the original meaning :)

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2. braythwayt ◴[15 Mar 19 16:54 UTC] No.19401565[source]▶
It depends on "how original," stories about trolls under bridges go back a long way, but if we go WAY back, we get the word applyimng to many different mythical creatures:

"The term is used to denote various beings, such as a jötunn or mountain-dweller, a witch, an abnormally strong or large or ugly person, an evil spirit, a ghost, a blámaðr, a magical boar, a heathen demi-god, a demon, a brunnmigi, or a berserker."

I think that over time, and thanks to various "fairy tales," we have settled on Trolls as he mountain/riock/cave-dwellers who are turned to stone if exposed to sunlight.

Sadly, the Internet Troll multiplies when given attention. Sunlight does not disinfect social media.