Recently, I have been receiving highly critical spam comments. Here is one typical example:
What a waste of time. You’re [sic] poor english [sic] made this article hard to read. Learn to write.
I have to admit I am puzzled by the psychology of this. One form that spam comments take is to give an effusive but generic compliment (“Your blog is great!”), presumably to flatter me so that I won’t delete it. It never works but I can understand the strategy.
But I am totally baffled by what the spammer hopes to achieve with an insult.
7 comments
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Steven Janowiecki
November 23, 2010 at 1:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Perhaps an insult is intended to make someone respond defensively (either with another comment, or just internally) without thinking about the spam-nature of the comment.
Robert Allen
November 23, 2010 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mano,
Don’t worry. You’re English is excellent. People don’t like your criticisms because the truth hurts.
Cheers
Robert
henry
November 23, 2010 at 2:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This may be an example of trolling. From Wikipedia:
For a spammer the effect is their website or product would be viewed over and over again as readers try to find out more about who the ‘troll’ is.
Mano Singham
November 23, 2010 at 3:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, Robert, I know they are not intended for me personally so I was not insulted. These things are randomly generated by a spambot. I know because on certain days I get dozens of similar messages with different ‘names’ attached to them.
But I am puzzled as to why the creator of this automatic spam generator felt this was a good strategy.
Steve’s idea may be correct.
Rob Herman
November 23, 2010 at 7:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe the idea is to get you to click on the link: “who is this idiot, and where is he coming from?”
Robert Allen
November 24, 2010 at 11:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mano,
Theists like to make vote bots. Maybe they make spam bots too. They probably think they are vigilantes for Jesus.
Robert
Jack
November 24, 2010 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”
Isn’t that what terrorists do? Get people to react to somethat so that their lives will be disrupted?