Hunting for Trolls On an Anonymous Forum
A dive into the moral ambiguity of a site that baits pedophiles
W e all have those friends who fail to learn the social graces requisite for participation in polite society. They can be quite funny in their way, especially in the eyes of people with no real connection to them. Online, their oddball characteristics are magnified, as is the attendant humor.
Enter Kiwifarms.net, a forum whose anonymous users keep a running chronicle of such people’s lives. If you are unfortunate enough to become one of Kiwi Farms’ “lolcows,” you can expect to have every move you’ve made online screencapped and archived and exhaustively commented upon. These trolls, or “k-farmers,” will insinuate themselves into your social media life and find ways to trigger you into producing milk — that is, reactions they find amusing.
You’ll find many breeds of cow at Kiwi Farms: skitzocow, lolcow, careercow, dramacow, artcow, horrorcow, cultcow, ratking, and more. Most cows attracted attention because of their outsized internet footprints and certain online behaviors that k-farmers deem to be sexually or psychologically deviant, while others seem to have been chosen because of some user’s personal animus. The overwhelming majority are innocent people who have been less than circumspect online. However, a minority…
