You Can't Use Anonymous Accounts to Attack, Smear, and Harass People

Michelle Malkin smacked down an anonymous Twitter troll identified as "Bloody Leftist" this morning:

@michellemalkin WE know you're not white...but do you?
— Bloody Leftist (@warpublican) August 9, 2012

And things continued around the horn. Robert Stacy McCain has that, "#TwitterGulag and Anonymous Trolls."

Robert got involved after linking me up in a post about Sundries Shack's Instalanche:

@wilw Delicious Gay Slurry! theothermccain.com/2012/08/09/del… hat-tips @ampowerblog @jimmiebjr
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) August 9, 2012

And it's been going around since, and my Twitter feed's in the loop.

From Robert's report:

After I posted about Jimmie Bise Jr.’s “gay slurry” post this morning and Tweeted it to Jimmie’s attention, he was accosted with vile accusations from the Twitter troll @warpublican (aka “Bloody Leftist”), an anonymous supporter of the Occupy movement who has sent nearly 10,000 Tweets but has fewer than 900 followers.

This is one of the hallmarks of a Twitter troll: A small number of followers and a large number of Tweets. They have few followers because nobody wants to read a Twitter feed that is nothing but a stream of vile attacks and obscene harassment. The whole purpose of such an account is to “get in their faces,” to annoy, distract and harass the troll’s targets.

It’s a form of psychological warfare, and it is permitted to continue because it has not been taken seriously. Except for the troll account’s comparative handful of followers, nobody sees the harassing messages except the person to whom they’re addressed. The target of this deliberate harassment feels isolated — “Why is nobody coming to my defense?” — and decides to ignore the troll.

Ignoring this kind of troll acount, however, only encourages them to continue their harassment. In their mind, they’ve gotten away with it, so it must be OK, and then they go on to attack the next innocent target and the next and the next.

Conservatives keep getting their Twitter accounts suspended because the Left uses swarming ”block and report” attacks against the targeted conservative. The leftists doing the “block and report” attacks are, in many cases, anonymous trolls. And these trolls may actually be sockpuppet accounts created for this specific purpose, so that one person can use multiple accounts to “block and report” the target.

Continue reading.

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