Free Republic Troll Watch

 Today in the Troll Watch the first thing to think about are two of the more popular troll tactics.  When you weigh in on a post with an opinion or facts that counter the troll's designated narrative their two most favored tactics to distract you are these: 1. On off topic response typically coupled with confrontational questions whose intent is to get you arguing about anything other than the topic on hand.  Like if there's a topic about Washington apples and you make an observation about how tasty those apples are a troll is likely to respond with something along the lines of: Oh yeah? Well what about what happened to the Branch Covidians? They had an orange tree and you pro-apple NAZIS murdered all of their children! Do you hate people who grow oranges? You want to murder their children, don't you?  And if you allow yourself to get sucked in you'll now be defending yourself from irrational accusations, you'll be discussing oranges in a topic about apples, and if ...

 Observations for today's Troll Watch: 1. Since I started doing this the identified trolls refuse to engage with me anymore. It's been a glaringly obvious trend where they refuse to engage with me and will even cease posting on selected topics if I weigh in.  2. One troll recently tried to misconstrue what it is to be a 'sleeper' troll. He claimed 'sleepers' were new accounts when in fact the definition of a sleeper is one who appears normal over a period of years until activated for a mission.  3. Trolls do not donate to Free Republic. None of the trolls on my observation list donate to Free Republic. Not even one of them.  Individually this means little, of course, but when 100% of the accounts I observe fail to show up as donating to FR it becomes a statistical improbability especially as several of these accounts are ten or more years old.  That is all. 

 Today in the Troll Watch the two primary narratives are as follows: 1. The variations on the theme of "Why don't you go to Ukraine and fight for them?" continues but has started to decline. Eighty four such identified posts were made on March 14, 2022 and that declined to twenty-three such posts on March 17, 2022.  2. The previous variations on the hypothetical question of Mexico or Canada deploying Russian or Chinese nuclear weapons has declined precipitously. Forty-three such identified posts were made on March 14, 2022 and that declined to twelve on March 17, 2022.  A new narrative has surfaced in which the West is being assigned responsibility for the potential use of nuclear weapons by Putin and Russia. The contention being that the West may 'force' Russia to use nuclear weapons if the West does not bow to Putin's demands.  A potential narrative is developing in which Poland is being promoted as a new threat against Russia and also being promoted as a ro...

Welcome to the first issue of Troll Watch!  Today in the Troll Watch there are three existing tactics and narratives in use by the Trolls: 1. Beginning the day before the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine and slowly declining in popularity are the variations on the Troll narrative that Ukraine isn't a real country . The argument tends to circle around historic Russian claims but can also veer off into nonsense about how Ukraine never registered their borders with some UN agency.  2. Next up are variations on the theme of Why don't you go over to Ukraine and fight for them? Naturally this narrative is intended to shame and silence anyone who supports the Ukrainians in their fight against the invading Russians. However, the counterpoint is that none of the pro-Russian trolls are volunteering to go fight and die for Putin.  3. The most recent Troll narrative is one where a hypothetical question is posed that asks how the US would feel if Russia or China deployed nuclear wea...

  This blog is an offshoot of my ad hoc efforts on Free Republic so my second post will be the rough information I've posted so far on my Free Republic about page: One of my side projects this past year (2021-2022) has been identifying troll accounts. Troll accounts come in a few different versions but first let’s identify who is NOT a troll: 1. New accounts are not automatically troll accounts. They do deserve scrutiny as they learn how to navigate FR but that does not automatically make them trolls. 2. People who freely identify as being from a foreign country are not trolls. Trolls pretend to be one thing in order to claim credibility as they spread propaganda. Yes, they can still be trolls but I give them a lower score on my troll index if they admit to being from a country they promote. Next up are the varieties of trolls to be found operating around FR. For the purposes of my ad-hoc research it’s easier to identify longer term trolls than it is new trolls. Given that FReepers...

 Firstly, this is a work in progress.  This is an effort to identify paid trolls (generally political agitators for China and Russia) who promote propaganda for governments specifically on the Free Republic forums. The information gathered and presented here is publicly accessible and no one needs to join Free Republic to find the same information that is presented here.  I do not have any kind of special information nor do I pretend to have any such information.  This blog is in no way connected to the owner, administrators, or moderators of the Free Republic web forum.  The ultimate purpose of my effort is to come up with a reasonably accurate set of criteria that anyone can use to identify paid trolls on their own.  A side purpose is to discourage paid trolls by tracking them and publicizing their narrative talking points, tactics, strategies, and perhaps even specific goals.