Trolling Al Qaeda... For Peace?

The Mister Purple writes "There is a small initiative underway to combat Islamic militant recruiting on the Internet... by trolling them. Quoting the article: 'The program, called Viral Peace, seeks to occupy the virtual space that extremists fill, one thread or Twitter exchange at a time. Shahed Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department and Viral Peace's creator, tells Danger Room he wants to use "logic, humor, satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists], but to undermine and demoralize them." Think of it as strategic trolling, in pursuit of geopolitical pwnage.' So, does this mean that I'm promoting peace when I post YouTube comments?"

Comments

Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Because pissing people off is an effective way to get them to leave you alone.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Because pissing people off is an effective way to get them to leave you alone.

It's not designed to work on the nuts, it's designed to work on the ones the nuts are trying to recruit.

Making the nuts look like idiots hurts their recruiting.

Re:Right

[kentrel]

You know that trolling doesn't mean ridiculing someone?

Trolling is a fine art, and often it means gaining someone's trust, and provoking an emotional reaction you want, but not necessarily drawing attention to yourself as the troll.

Re:Right

[Crosshair84]

Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.

These people are not blowing themselves up BECAUSE of their religion, that does play some part into it yes, but that is not the main driving reason. I paid attention in history class, I don't remember Muslims sending fire ships into New York Harbor in the 1880's. I don't remember suicide car bombings in the 1930's. I remember some piracy off their shores and that was about it. If religion was the DRIVING force we would have seen these past events, but we don't.

The reason they attack us today is because for the last 50 years we have been meddling in their internal affairs. We have installed/propped up dictators who have brutalized and oppressed their people for decades. They know that until the US has been driven from the region they will not have self rule. The purpose of 9/11 was to get the US more deeply involved and more easily attacked. They have told us their goals repeatedly, bankrupt the US Soviet Union style to force it to leave the region forever.

Why the suicide attacks? Because the US supported/influenced tyrants have made life so miserable that these people have nothing to lose. If they lined up as a regular army they know they would get slaughtered, so why not just go for a suicide attack and do far more damage. Either method ends in death. Self rule is worth dying for, so they make the very rational choice to sacrifice themselves for the future of their people to have the ability to rule themselves. If the roles were reversed you'd see Americans lining up around the corner to strap on the bomb belts for the same reasons and you and I would be cheering them on for their bravery.

Waste of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

it never worked on [Republicans, Democrats] (delete as per preference) so why should it work on fundies?

Re:Not trolling, counter-trolling

[Black Parrot]

Trolling on Usenet and sites like Slashdot is about provoking people who are otherwise engaged in reasoned, rational, discussions into flaming.

Actually it's about pushing people's buttons, and it works best on people who take themselves waaay too seriously.

You troll people who are inclined to jerk their knees, not those who are inclined toward reasoned, rational discussions.