‘Terrorist’ Troll Pretended to Be ISIS, White Supremacist, and Jewish Lawyer

[seashale76]

Was this ever posted here? I can't recall.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...isis-white-supremacist-and-jewish-lawyer.html

Joshua Goldberg posed as an Islamic radical and allegedly encouraged a terrorist to attack on September 11. That’s just one of his online personas though.
When Joshua Goldberg wasn’t posing as an Islamic radical, he was pretending to be a white supremacist—and is accused of impersonating a Jewish lawyer.

Goldberg had several online personas: an Islamic radical who was popular in ISISsocial media; a white supremacist on hate site Daily Stormer; a feminist on Daily Kos; a radical free-speech advocate on Q&A site Ask.fm, and a sympathizer with GamerGate. Goldberg is also accused of being behind a Times of Israel blog post that called Palestinians “subhuman.”

Yes, it's an outrageous story. He did a lot of damage pretending/taking on various personas on-line. However, the story itself is not what prompted me to post it. I'm posting this to get people to think.

All of us here obviously spend time on the Internet. We post in forums, on social media, and we read in comments sections on various news sites. You need to constantly keep in mind that trolls and shills are an actual thing. Yet, many of us tend to take the Internet and those on it seriously. We let their opinions influence how we think and feel about groups, people, et cetera. We often do it without thinking that we're making judgments based on the professed beliefs of personas that have a high likelihood of not even being real.

In other words, we've all likely fallen victim to propaganda on-line. You need to keep it in mind, realize the Internet is a false reality, and keep its influence over your life to a minimum.

 

[Ironhold]

What's scary?

A few years ago I was putting together ideas for a spy-themed role-playing game campaign I was going to run with friends (but never did, as our schedules didn't match).

This is almost exactly in line with one of the missions I created.

The idea was for the party - who would be working as spies or federal agents - to investigate a poster who was inciting violence online, only to discover that the person had been using multiple handles to cause problems and agitate multiple groups of people all at once. The idea was for the party to notice that the guy was getting sloppy with keeping his personas separate, spill the beans online, and let the internet rip his various personas apart while he himself goes to jail.

Until now, the idea has only ever existed in a Word document and the print-out I did; I never told anyone about it.

 

[seashale76]

Bump.

I'm getting the impression that some people don't like to think that those they interact with on the Internet may not be as real as they'd like to think. It's so easy to paint groups with a broad brush when you can point to someone on an Internet forum that said something you disagree with because you were convinced that person was a member of whatever group.

I think everyone would be better served to have a good healthy dose of salt and skepticism when it comes to anything on the Internet.

 

[Hetta]

Only a 10 year old would think that everyone is who or what they say they are on the internet.

 

[seashale76]

Only a 10 year old would think that everyone is who or what they say they are on the internet.

Must be a lot of ten-year-olds around here, then.

 

[Tallguy88]

Creep

 

[Gadarene]

Yeah, this guy got around and chumped pretty much everyone from all walks of life.

 

[cow451]

I guess that means people will be skeptical of my claim to be a 35-year-old wealthy plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills. Drat!!