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Unmasking a Troll: Aussie Australi Witness a 20-year-old American Nerd
- kelukelugames 11y agoAnd I thought I had too much free time. Here is the reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3komj2/redditor_european88_is_arrested_by_the_fbi_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3komj2/redd...
- olympus 11y agoTrolling can be as simple as rick rolling someone or telling people that "Alt+F4" will make your game run faster. This is so far past trolling that there should be a better descriptor for it. Inciting terrorist activities is criminal, not trolling.
- icebraining 11y agoTrolling is not necessarily harmless - I'd say that parts are still trolling (e.g. the Times of Israel article), while the incitations aren't.
- nicklaf 11y agoThis is where the definition of 'trolling', as understood in the traditional Usenet sense of the word, diverges from what the media has come to call trolling. In The Times of Israel article, he was impersonating somebody in order to generate anger toward the supposed author. Trolling was originally understood to be more specific than simply doing things that the instigator find amusing at the expense of others.
- icebraining 11y agoFair enough. I called it trolling since it was posting a message (even if in the Times) with the intention of generating an heated argument and flames. It seemed more or less in line with the definitions I remember (mostly from early 2000s websites).
- nicklaf 11y agoTo be honest, I actually think you were right after all. I don't think I was justified in saying he impersonated the author in order to trash his reputation, now that I've looked into it a bit more: he created several personas, mostly for the purpose of getting people's goat. It's just that in this case, his persona happened to be a real person. What mostly bothers me is that the media can't seem to tell the difference between trolling, and what in this case was collateral damage that went far beyond trolling. By the way, telling people that pressing "Alt-F4" makes their game run faster would not have originally been considered trolling.
- angelbob 11y agoThere's a movement to start calling such things "abuse" rather than "trolling", but I don't see it picking up much steam.
- generic_user 11y agoBecause almost everyone who conjurs up that moral authority argument is outed as wild eyed twitter troll themselves engaging in harassment.
- Joeboy 11y agoThe guy's activities certainly included trolling. From what I've read so far, if ever there was a troll, it's this guy. I guess incitement to violence or personal abuse[1] might be said to be outside the scope of trolling, but even there it's a matter of having crossed a hazy line (admittedly by some distance in this case) rather than the activity being non-trollish in nature. 1) I don't specifically know he directed such abuse towards people who weren't his sockpuppets, but it doesn't seem improbable
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- derrickdirge 11y agoI'm always shocked by how much damage a single sociopath can do.
- leppr 11y agoReligion is a powerful thing.
- reitanqild 11y agoThis subthread was about sociopaths.
- leppr 11y agoThe implied meaning being that the single sociopath in question would not have been able to cause much damage if not for the dormant power of religion within other sociopaths.
- Buge 11y agoReligion was only one of several controversial things he used to to drum up controversy. Here's one of his controversial articles that has nothing to do with religion: https://archive.is/3vwXz https://archive.is/3vwXz Here's a post criticizing that previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/isrconspiracyracist/comments/3jlggb/rconspiracy_regular_ueuropean88_aka_michael_slay/ https://www.reddit.com/r/isrconspiracyracist/comments/3jlggb... Turns out that post is also by him as well (Emily_Americana). As the original article mentions, he also created a fake twitter account pretending to be an anti-sexploitation campaigner, and posted anti-transexual tweets with it.
- leppr 11y agoMy mistake, I must have set the bar for "damage" a bit too high, only considering the shot policeman and the two dead terrorists. Controversy is obviously quite damaging to everyone involved. I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to read hateful tweets. Hopefully his 20 years in prison will give him time to ponder over the harm he did to Jews, immigrants and transexuals.
- benten10 11y agoAnyone up for collecting all his 'contributions'? This would be a goldmine for forensic text analysis and authorship attribution studies/ proof that they are all sensitive to context of the text. Prof. Patrick Juola, if you're reading this, the public would absolutely benefit from public research on this. Anyone in stylometry here? Drexel grads?
- generic_user 11y agoThere is already heavy digging on Reddit. as for the rest of the sites he was on, not sure.
- notNow 11y agoCan you please explain in simple terms all those buzzwords and fancy terms you listed in your comment as even though I'm a techie by profession, I couldn't really get even the slightest idea what you're talking about there?
- petercooper 11y agoYou might find this thread useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9716837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9716837 There was also a popular story on there the other day (which I've been unable to find) about how people engaging in deceptive behavior could be detected via topics of speech.
- paulpauper 11y agoOn his Reddit account, he writes: Jews aren't white or human, despite being Jewish himself. Makes me wonder how many internet white nationalists are in person self-hating minorities But this big story is the thwarted bomb attack, which is why he was arrested. The trolling is secondary.
- acqq 11y agoThe another big story could be: "In the leadup to an exhibition in Garland, Texas, at which pictures of the Prophet Mohammed were to be displayed, "Australi Witness" tweeted the event's address and reposted a tweet urging people to go there with "weapons, bombs or with knifes". Two Muslim men attempted an attack at the exhibition, and were killed by police. Australi Witness then praised them online as martyrs." But it's seems it's not known if they would have gone there even without his tweets?
- iso8859-1 11y agoHow can you know if it is self-hate? He participated in many arguments, often arguing against himself. He just liked the drama, probably.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rasz_pl 11y ago>thwarted bomb attack Except there was no bomb, and there was never going to be any attack. It was another FBI manufactured threat. Usually its FBI undercover agents providing all the incentives(kill those people, they are bad mmkay), plans (do it there) and means (here, have this rifle and two crates of c4). This was different in only one detail - FBI agent was on the other side of the equation. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-p... http://www.amazon.com/The-Terror-Factory-Manufactured-Terrorism/dp/1935439618 http://www.amazon.com/The-Terror-Factory-Manufactured-Terror... Apparently its all well and good when FBI manufactures terrorists, but internet troll? burn the witch!!1
- Crito 11y agoDescribing this guy as a troll is dismissive/revisionist. He was a terrorist, even if he was not the exact variety of terrorist that he was presenting himself as.
- JulianMorrison 11y agoSome people just want to watch the world burn.
- philtar 11y agoI believe this guy is correct.
- generic_user 11y ago"The suspect is a Jewish American, who possesses dual citizenship in the United States and Israel, is identified by law enforcement as 20-year-old Joshua Ryne Goldberg" And here are a few of his Reddit accounts. /u/European88 (behind most of the "racism" subs) /u/Gas-the-kikes /u/kill_all_pakis /u/Nuke_Europe There is going to be a lot of digging on this character it will be interesting to see if accomplices turn up of if he was just a lone wolf.
- nefitty 11y agoHas trolling finally gone too far? Find out tonight at 11.
- droithomme 11y agoIt's exceptionally disingenuous to describe this as either trolling or a fun exercise in free speech rights. It is neither.
- notahacker 11y agoIt's especially poor journalism to treat Goldberg's observations on free speech and targeting of perceived anti-free-speech organizations as sincere whilst acknowledging he spent much of the time creating both sides of an argument between his sockpuppets and picked his own ethnic group as one of his main targets. I'd go so far as to speculate that if he ever reads the article, the subject would probably wish he'd written it himself.
- suprjami 11y agoThis is the state of journalism in Australia. All our major newspapers are either staffed by amateur media graduates who can't even construct a sentence, or the entire publication is a mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch.
- iso8859-1 11y agoCriminal complaint: http://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/file/769491/download http://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/file/769491/download (I assume this is allowed?)