Could you spot an internet troll?

Critically evaluating what we see online is a necessary requirement to stop us being swayed by people with ulterior motives, and also so that we are not convinced by false information.

That said, would you know a fake social media account if you saw one?

Why don't you have a see for yourself:

https://spotthetroll.org/start

I think that there more than just Trolls on the internet, we face all sorts of people who use this way of communication to accomplish their un met goals in the actual world. I m thinking about the manipulators , the power seekers, the bullies, probably those 3 things in one. It is not easy to guess people s intentions when we re missing 70 % of our unusual communication visual. It is only too easy to wear a mask when our face is already hidden, our voice is not heard and our actions unknown.

6/8
Had a quick learning curve and also realized I'm much more likely to misidentify someone as authentic rather than have a false positive. I also was initially looking for more traditional trolls than bot astroturfing which colored what I expected.
I'm curious how other moderators do at this.

7/8

I missed the Indiana guy one…..he had a racist post right off, so I didn’t look super close at it.

6/8

One of those I was about 50/50 on and the odds were not in my favor when I flipped a coin lol. I experienced the same sharp learning curve Rex mentioned. Almost lole it took my brain a second to snap into critical thinking mode. Thats a tool I'd like to be more imnediately available, and more of an automatic reaction. I intend towork on that.

It definitely took some thinking on some of them! I appreciated that they explained the reasoning.

I'm not really on social media much... I don't have facebook and I don't tend to look at twitter though I have an account (mostly for contacting companies).. but it has definitely made me think twice about what I read. I tend to think I'm pretty good at spotting a 'fake' but I didn't get 8/8 so I'm clearly not good enough!

There are definitely different types of trolls because the internet has also evolved into a field of battle. As such, I've noticed various sides trying to dominate online territory, especially forums because they are persistent. So there are trolls and there are who I call "agents". A troll is mainly just trying to incite people and generally get off on causing havok and making people emotionally upset. An agent though... they have much more of a strategy. I believe some are either indirectly controlled by a government agency and others are more like terrorist cells from other organized groups.

When the pandemic hit some of these agents flipped immediately into pushing certain narratives to influence certain ethnic groups to... you can probably guess. But this was one of those things that told me that we were missing an opportunity. The whole "online Jedi" thing doesn't have to be a handicap if you know where the online war is happening. If you don't know where to go then it's just like living 300 miles from the front lines. But that doesn't mean the war doesn't exist and no one is fighting.

But this is a good topic because on one hand, we can spot trolls and on the other hand, it's possible to mistake a real person for a troll simply because we don't like their politics or other ideas. So mods have to be really self-aware that they don't have any personal political biases that may get in the way of their perception of what constitutes troll or agent-like behavior. Because one of the worst sins you can commit, as a mod, is shutting down free speech just because you don't agree with what's being said. When this happens the mod becomes their own worst enemy and unchecked, this risks the forum becoming a place where people don't feel safe or free to express themselves. And the forum is a huge pathway into the Jedi community, as a whole, so it's something we need to be watching out for, for sure.

6/8
The last one I had a feeling about and should have gone with my gut. But Rex is right there is a quick learning curve. Once you see it you can see the pattern to look for.

7/8.

After getting the first one wrong and reading the explanation of the signs, I was able to get all the other ones correctly.