Enough with the lower post shaming on DU

[PatrickforO]

89. Your point is a good one.

You say it seems like this "fun, like-minded club is turning on each other many times for ridiculous reasons."

While it is a strange world we live in today, a strange world that may have 'moved on' in the Stephen King sense, I suggest that there might be some other, more sinister, reason we're turning on each other.

I'm thinking about trolls. Now, I'm a big reader, so I've read Tolkien many times. In the Hobbit, there is a scene where three trolls have captured the dwarves and the hobbit and are talking about eating them. It is late at night and the trolls argue so much the sun catches them and turns them to stone. It turns out Gandalf was insinuating himself into the conversation, and keeping the argument going the whole time. Gandalf, you see, had acted in the same way our modern trolls do - he created strife and prevented the trolls from doing what they needed to do to survive. They were too into the artificially created argument to worry, as they should have, about getting back to their cave before daylight.

I have been appalled at the extent of Russian trolling on our social media sites. With every revelation, I become more concerned. These click-bait posts criticizing Bernie or Hillary, I think some of them may be started only for the reason of tearing us apart. I harken back to the primary, when trolls put out the meme that Bernie was racist because he cared more about economic justice than social justice. Wow. I can remember being so angry about that, writing reams of refutations, basically saying, "Wait, don't you see - we're being manipulated! Someone's using the 'divide and conquer' strategy with us that has worked so well over centuries for the monied classes."

Do you who remember being on either side of this debate on here think there might have been some trolls keeping it happening? It did make us take our eye off the ball for a time. And sadly, there are still hurt feelings on here because of it.

Was it trolls? Was it Russian trolls? This is the Russian "Internet Research Company" building in St. Petersburg, Russia. According to several reputable sources, it employs hundreds of trolls who are supposed to go on social media and shape the message according to instructions from the Kremlin. Here's a link to an article in the Nation talking about how this Russian trolling is worse than we thought, and goes one even now. https://www.thenation.com/article/russian-trolling-of-us-social-media-may-have-been-much-greater-than-we-thought/

So, next time you're tempted by some click-bait pseudo-conflict post on here, be mindful of this.