Reddit Has Become a Battleground of Alleged Chinese Trolls

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.

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

I think that type has mostly gone away/become the third. People "ironically" posting racism seem to all just be flat out racists now. As Kurt Vonnegut said “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

> I think that type has mostly gone away/become the third

I think you underestimate the entertainment value of intentionally posting inflammatory things. It's fun to play devil's advocate. That doesn't mean you believe it.

Regardless of what one believes, posting specifically to inflame or upset people is a form of aggression. Where aggressive debate is a norm accepted by all participants this can manifest as interesting or even productive competition, but where it is unilaterally inflicted on unwilling respondents it quickly generates into sadism.

> Regardless of what one believes, posting specifically to inflame or upset people is a form of aggression.

This is a ridiculous, not to mention untenable, position. I take it you never read Socrates? He saw great value in poking and prodding -- being the proverbial gadfly.

Socratic inquiry and racist trolls are only similar if you refuse to think beyond the shallowest surface description.

I'm not going to defend this straw-man. Refer to what I quoted.

> posting specifically to inflame or upset people

That's not what Socrates did, was it? I thought he was just making observations and asked questions he thought had merit, despite knowing it would upset some people. But the objective wasn't to upset people in the sense of them feeling bad, more like medicine that tastes bitter but is beneficial in the long run.

What I do see a lot is that people impute a bad motivation for a question or claim that allows them to dismiss it without actually having to answer or challenge it, so today, Socrates surely would be called a troll by many. Wouldn't make him one though.

Socrates was certainly a provocateur (troll?). I think what the objective of a provocateur is: (1) to get people angry or (2) to create discourse or (3) etc. -- is up for grabs. My point was that claiming it's "aggressive" is nonsense.

> Socrates surely would be called a troll by many

Exactly. I contend that he would be called a troll by the person I quoted -- which I think is wrong.

> Socrates was certainly a provocateur (troll?). I think what the objective of a provocateur is: (1) to get people angry or (2) to create discourse or (3) etc. -- is up for grabs.

Do you think Socrates' objective was to get people angry? Do you think that's what he was trying to accomplish?