Posted by: McQ on Tuesday, September 05, 2006 In the world of blogging there are few mortal sins, but sock puppetry is one of them: A senior editor at The New Republic was suspended and his blog was shut down on Friday after revelations that he was involved in anonymously attacking readers who criticized his posts.Of course this follows a controversy charging "sock puppetry" on another left wing blog recently. You know, I think everyone is tempted at times to give in to the lure of sock puppetry. Ezra Klein commented on that: Ezra Klein, a blogger who had tangled with him, wrote in his blog on Friday, “The temptation to create a new persona and rally support for yourself in comments can be almost overwhelming.” But Mr. Klein said that most bloggers “resist the urge, take the lashing and move on.”Yup. I mean think about that temptation. It allows the blogger to slip his or her "blog character" and say whatever they want however they want in defense of themselves. And lord knows there are commenters who you'd love to simply blast for their pedantic nonsense and insulting tone, but, in order to maintain some sort of sense of decorum on your site, you demure. OTOH, as is obvious, it's easy to be a troll. It certainly doesn't take a genius. And with the anonymity of the net, trolls are free to act out however they wish without damaging their "real" personality. Thankfully most trolls eventually step over the line and marginalize themselves. But they can at times be very irritating. So irritating to some that they resort to sock puppetry. To old UseNet warriors, though, there isn't much at troll can say that they haven't seen before and said better (heh ... in fact, UseNet should have been required as basic training for bloggers). Bloggers have few good options when it comes to battling trolls. Banish them. Moderate comments. Or, have no comments. What you hope is you'll set a tone on the blog and within the comment section which will encourage discussion and discourage trolling. That's not an easy balance to attain or maintain, but it can be done. One thing I've noticed happens in comment sections, especially when you have regular commenters like ours, is they begin to police themselves. That's the preferred way to have it happen in my estimation. But back to sock puppetry. With today's technology, it is much harder to hide sock puppetry than it is to spot it. IP addresses are the most likely way a sock puppet will be found out. But we know that there are some Internet providers who have IP addresses which change (it's called something but I don't know what) so it isn't a surefire way to nail the puppeteer. But that is when the sock puppet is used on someone else's site. What about their own site such as happened at TNR? Well, one thing I have noticed is "style will out". No matter how clever and careful the person is, they have a particular style, use particular words in a certain way and will eventually get careless. That appears to be how Siegel was found out. Sock puppetry, at least to me, is in one part an admission of failure. It is used by someone who can't rally people to his or her argument so he or she invents supporters. It is also a method of slipping the social constraints you've established with your persona and blog to let someone know how you really feel (obviously hoping you won't be found out). Vicarious and satisfying at the moment, it does irreparable damage to one's reputation in the long run. But it is still irresistible to some. TNR is doing the right thing, taking the occurrence seriously and taking action against Siegal. It is appropriate action and I applaud it. Would that it was possible to take such action against everyone who resorted to the low-down, dishonest tactic of sock puppetry. UPDATE: Just for grins, what would you consider a blogging "mortal sin?" Something which would put you off that blog or blogger for good (and yes I know I'm opening myself up to the trolls, but I'm a big boy and I can handle it)? |
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