Talking Trolls, Again
Taking out the trash — a discussion
Today, just a while ago before starting this article, I dumped (blocked) probably over two hundred followers. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Makes it look like I’m less popular.
But if all of those were trolls and fake accounts anyway, was I ever truly that popular to begin with? Lets make something clear — I’m not a paid author. I’m not asking for claps because it makes me cash. I pay five bucks a month to both read and write here because I ENJOY it. I like the authors I follow, and I enjoy the back and forth with the comments by people who wish to talk about things we might not see eye to eye on. That’s what political discourse (and with other subjects too) are all about, aren’t they?
But trolls are a completely different story. They pop in and disrupt things with totally opposite viewpoints that at least in political posts, (where I see them almost exclusively), push the completely bullshit crap the right wing puts out in Trump’s rally speeches. Rarely do they even try to engage in a conversation, or if they appear to in that first comment, by the second or third, the trash comes out.
I wrote about this a while back, but I’ve got a lot to add today since I’ve watched this closely since.
So, here are my observations.
First the naming. It seems to be random? But there are a couple of things to notice. First, the most obvious is the fact that none of these people have any description under their names when you look at them in your followers list. None of them. Indicator number one. It isn’t perfect, some writers do that too, and one guy, whose name is literally “1”, has tons of followers and is very actively writing. But the most fascinating is the types of names.
About a quarter of them use American male names. A few less use American female names. Another quarter use foreign names, both male and a bit fewer female. That part seems to be a pattern. The last quarter use nonsensical or combined names or initials. Many of those combined things are misspellings or shortened combinations.
Some use pictures, some don’t. No pattern I can see there.
But the ones with single digit followers and no articles combined with no indication from Medium on their profile for how long they’ve been here, often have either plain Jane names or just initials or a combined nonsensical name thing, and are the next most obvious. Those, I block immediately.
Then you get to the next level, which introduces a bit of uncertainty.
The ones that fit the above, but have double digit followers. Some of them have been here a few months, and others for as much as a year. Two that I found had been here since 2019 and 2020, with a couple into 2012, 2022, and a few more with 2023. And it also gets a bit hairier, because some of them have created extensive lists of articles by other authors.
I say that because it is possible that some folks may just not be writers, but like reading and commenting. For that, look at their articles, IF you’re tracking someone who has commented on one of your stories. If those listed articles are like yours, yet their comments were the complete opposite of the political tone of that comment, you’ve found yourself a troll.
Block his ass.
Otherwise, use your gut. I did let a few of those remain. Not all of them.
And again, it now gets even more interesting.
Because a few of the newer ones have written an article or two. But those seem very…brief? And with little actual content. As if they’re trying to just legitimize their membership. The membership terms vary.
Interestingly enough, a lot of them seem to have been here long enough that they’ve gotten the yellow star over their picture. Many do not.
Another strange issue is that many of those mid-range accounts had a number of followers, in the higher double digits, but otherwise fit the characteristics of trolls. But even if you follow an account, unless they comment directly on one of YOUR articles, you still don’t see their OTHER comments to other writers! So, why follow them at all? They aren’t writing anything! As that guy in the movie decades ago said, “Tis a puzzlement!”
So, now to my conclusions.
To begin with, I see this troll thing as a major problem. Not particularly to me, I’ve just had maybe three of them comment, and it took me till now to realize that in certain comments, I should just check their profile before answering! But for Medium as a whole?
The fact that I went through my followers list and ejected by blocking around two hundred names indicates that Medium truly has a major issue with folks coming in here to disrupt and divide their members into hostile sides. In essence, to continue the political hostility outside of Medium inside here. If I found two hundred (and I was fairly picky as to some categories as I mentioned) to eject, and most of those were the most obvious categories I mentioned with low double digits and the single digit accounts, if Medium has over a million accounts, how many of THOSE accounts have those trolls following them? Folks, let’s not fool ourselves, I’m not THAT popular that I should attract an unusual number of these accounts. Not by a long shot!
How many of YOU are being targeted?
I mentioned in my first article about this that Medium has no “reporting this account as a disinformation troll” selection when you want to report an account. In my actions this morning I avoided reporting any of them, because I was a bit worried that the Medium folks might be a bit…curious? As to why I was reporting so many accounts. Especially given the time it would have taken them to check it all out, and I truly doubt that they’ve got any real clues as to how they might prove any of the longer existing accounts as trolls without diving into their commenting habits. Lots of time and effort equals money, I do realize.
But if anyone from Medium by chance, happens on this article, you might want to start examining your new accounts. Because they ARE causing dissension and divisiveness, and it takes away from the time we writers have to actually conduct real conversations and discussion with our readers. I’m here to talk, not disprove the trash that trolls push.
And I cannot but imagine that many of those trolls are commenting on RIGHT winger’s articles doing exactly the opposite to them! There is plenty of inaccurate trollish bullshit on the internet from “leftist” ideologues getting pushed around out there, and it would be amazing if they weren't doing that here.
It isn’t just right wing trolls, folks. Trolls are here to divide us ALL, and they aren’t from this country, either.
So, again, and this time especially, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this article. I feel it’s more important to us here on Medium than my usual stuff.
So, hey, you do know that as a Medium reader and/or writer, when you read an article and like it, you CAN clap up to fifty times, right? You can come up with a system, like fifty claps for a really great article (mine!) and perhaps thirty or thirty-five for a good one, and perhaps twenty for one that’s ok, and perhaps a single clap for one you read but weren’t at all impressed with but didn’t want to just walk away from. (Same with the comments, also.). Don’t feel too bad, it was almost two weeks before I got told about it.
