Hi, there. 🙂

I don’t normally bother with troll comments, but, currently, this one is nearly at the end of the comment section, so I feel more comfortable offering an opinion without it derailing the genuine conversation for the article.

Please, forgive me for answering your sensibly concise questions with such a lengthy response, but I think a comprehensive reply may be of some benefit, for those few readers who might be unwisely inclined to take the troll’s claims at face value.

The short answers to your questions are:

1. Your observation is correct and the troll’s talking nonsense;
2. It’s nonsense predicated on false, illogical assumptions and no-one should care about it, particularly;
3. He’s recycling a knackered trolling tactic that worked before, but is increasingly ignored by TD’s commenters. He only cares if it successfully wastes people’s time or sabotages an honest conversation.

The longer response is that — from what I can see — the troll’s comments are just trollish nonsense, making little sense when subjected to any kind of scrutiny.

The first and most obvious contradiction is, for me, the fact that I make comments on another site in exactly the way the troll claims is proof of sockpuppetry here. I used to comment all the time on Torrentfreak, but I got sick of both the excessive trolling (at the time) and the continuing hassle of enabling Disqus’ ludicrous number of scripts and wandered off elsewhere.

I still pop up every now and then, but only when it’s a topic of particular interest, where I think I might be able to add a comment of greater value or substance. Otherwise, there are large gaps, usually of several months or years in length. I’m reasonably confident I’m not a sockpuppet.

That’s also the most plausible explanation for the accused commenters’ activity here: they’ve a particular interest in those particular topics. If the troll you replied to looks hard enough for coincidences — and considers all such coincidences to be automatic proof of sockpuppetry — then it’s effectively impossible for him not to "prove" himself right, in short order.

The probability that it actually is just a coincidence — and that, given a large-enough dataset, unlikely coincidences must happen surprisingly often, usually unnoticed — is something he can’t consider without his entire thesis unravelling.

Taking his claims seriously — for argument’s sake — and looking closely at the accused accounts suggests they are more probably genuine than not: the language and communication styles used are not an easy fit for any of Techdirt’s regular columnists, commenters or trolls. The most skilled writers around — working in any medium — usually have to fight to not sound like themselves (or another established identity that they’re more used to) when they write. Even when they do it well, there are usually hints, here and there, that they’re not writing in their ‘natural’ voice.

This is especially the case when it’s multiple comments on very similar topics. The very recognisable writing-styles exhibited over time by TD’s very small number of regular trolls is proof enough of that. Even on a ‘slow news day’, writing sockpuppets as effectively as would be required here requires far more time and mental effort than would be justified by any conceivable benefits in this context.

Also, the number of accounts he has asserted (on numerous threads) to be pro-TD sockpuppets is high to the point of absurdity. Given that some of them have extensive online presences, the amount of work needed to create so many distinct identities — and have them comment — seems to exceed anything a few working professionals could easily knock together on their lunch hour.

You’d need people working on this for something close to a full time job. TD’s trolls might be able to do it — since quite a few of them seem like they might be unemployable — and they certainly have more motive, by way of a false-flag setup, although their writing skills are rather limited for the task. A third-party lobbying firm or government propaganda outfit is also more plausible, although what their gain might be is unclear.

Famously, the first rule of investigative journalism is ‘follow the money’. Techdirt gains very little from adding minor fictional commenters, especially those that appear only rarely and largely tend to agree with TD’s articles. The troll here has yet to articulate a credible theory as to why TD should even want to do so, much less expend so much time and effort on the job.

They could be said to gain something from creating hostile trolls themselves, since such comments commonly increase engagement among genuine commenters responding to false claims — although such false-flag activity seems somewhat unlikely, given how far it falls outside of normal modes of leftist operation and ethics — not to mention the great reputational harm, should such deception come to light. The trollish far-right can easily survive such exposure. The left, not so much.

The troll is just trolling. It’s just coincidence. 🙂