The Troll War in 2020: Misinformation At Home But Mostly Abroad (Part I)

1. Foreword, Er, Forewarning? 

In my 46 years on this Earth I don't think I've ever been a spectator. I've always been a very active male who lives on the front lines, working as a child behaviorist traveling between resource classes and traditional classrooms in schools, putting out fires as I go. Activity is what I live for, in a matter of speaking, for it's the students who some say can't be helped to which I devote my attention. 

Now I have no choice but to be a sentient homebody, trying to figure out what to do with all this free time in quarantine. So say we all, right? In the past two months after contracting COVID-19 at the school at which I primarily work, I've kept my eyes peeled to Facebook for the latest on this insidious virus. 

Its activity has been a real thorn in our side, mutating as often as the students' behaviors do. It's hopped flights, bouncing between major world airports and densely packed buildings in major cities, attaching its ugly tentacles to just about everything we touch in the process. 

As I've studied news stories on COVID-19 though, something jumped out at me in the comments of virtually every article I read on Facebook: Posters whose origins appear to be outside the United States--which I base initially on their terrible grammar--are supplying strange counterpoints to stories. 

What an interesting aside. What business is it of theirs to even comment? They don't live here, right? Why isn't anyone talking about this? Is it normal? Is it odd? What are they commenting on in particular? The virus? Perhaps most important, who is behind this? Some bored housewives in Nantucket who got tired of the rhetoric and said, f--- it? 

Let's look further. Seeing a troll's comment on Facebook is like watching a train wreck--live. You know it's happening right now, you know it's weird and you KNOW there isn't anything you can do about it other than laugh or groan. But, you know you're going to check it out anyway, because the comments look interesting. These comments usually involve scandal and when you were a kid, something like this appeared before your very eyes in huge, bold black or white caps. 

It glared at you in large print on the front pages, tucked into check stands at your local grocery stores--come on, you remember, right? It was in right there, in tabloids like the National Enquirer or Weekly World News. Yet even though people knew the pages were full of crap, they would buy it en masse for the entertainment value. Well, guess what? Times have changed, and, well, maybe not. 

Because what was once salacious and 99 cents--is now FREE! An alien just had Tom Cruise's baby?!? Who knew? And this COVID-19 abomination--like it or not--has brought out those who either believe stories about it are real or--gasp!--a hoax. This virus has also sparked national opinions that run the gamut. 

You have, in no particular order, the lockdown vs. anti-lockdown fight in cities and states that have been hard hit, like Michigan. It's a high noon showdown between those who require masks in public versus maskless folks loading up on AK-47s, storming state capitol buildings in protest. Then in the undercard, you have the mask vs. anti-mask battle in lesser-hit states in which masks are optional, but where fistfights are still breaking out in grocery stores over their use (and usefulness). Those are just two of many examples. 

Did I happen to mention it's an election year? Do we get any respite from this mess? Not really, because on top of all this noise, there's also this global pandemic going on that is disproportionately affecting the poor and the blacks and Hispanics, and that last point is unfortunately a fact . To paraphrase the great Jimi Hendrix, I can't get no relief. 

What are these trolls doing during a pandemic, you might ask? Well, they're doing what they do best; they're feeding off of our emotions like Stripes did movie-buttered popcorn in Gremlins. "They did it in 2016, and they're doing it again," per this very recent YouTube podcast  on misinformation campaigns from former CBS News producer-now independent journalist Ed Berliner. Yum, yum-mmmm...

But this time, these trolls are bringing friends from other countries--or are they? According to a May 2019 U.S. State Department report , the true origin of all, not some, of these so-called trolls from China might actually be Russia. 

NEXT UP: PART 2.