Who/what was Claig? Where are they now?

[thesmallestpotato]

Does anyone remember Claig? She/he/it was prolific on here in the run up to the referendum then she completely disappeared and doesn't seem to have been back. Just seems odd that someone so fiercely pro Brexit would just disappear. I'm getting horribly anxious about it all - I suppose I'm looking for reassurance and was hoping to come on here and see that Claig was still here telling us why everything's going to be OK...

I thought she wrote interesting posts (not my own views as I voted remain) but a useful counter balance. I would hate to post somewhere where everyone shared the same views as everyone else.

I know trolls can post for a while to appear normal but claig started end of 2009 - I'm not aware (could be wrong) that the 2010 election was subject to external interference?

She said she took O levels just before GCSEs so that puts her late 40s/early 50s now. Not that old.

Remember everyone, PPE graduates are the root of all evil!

Ah yes, sorry, PPE, not PPS. Clearly I've been spared the font of claig for long enough the mantras have finally faded.

It would be easy to do quite a good claig-generator, if one could be arsed. Her posts were so same-y.

I sparred with Claig on a couple of climate change threads. This was a few Years ago when CC was not debated on here much. But when it was the discussion was always derailed by Claig’s utter nonsense. And once I am fairly sure they created a sock to argue the same points in the same “Claig” style.

Odd poster.

I'm sure Claig was some sort of paid persona, but done in a much more sophisticated way than the Vote Leave shills on here (SpringingIntoAction and his sock puppets) - who were just on MN to shut down any threads on Brexit by spamming them to death.

At least Claig used full sentences and proper punctuation unlike some other political posters who just kept writing propaganda headlines.

I agree with Mistigri. It was sophisticated stuff.

What alarmed me about Claig was something that we’ve seen growing very rapidly in the past 3 years both on social media and in public life: the normalisation of extreme, harmful positions through a kind of playful, jokey shtick, plausibly deniable, but utterly relentless. The sheer volume of posts repeating the same catchphrases, the same slurs, and the same easily disprovable lies over and over again, day and night. It was quite Bannon-esque.

I think it's a mistake to assume in the climate of Brexit that people who hold a strident opposing pov are trolls, bots, or whatever.

While I myself would have voted Remain - more than once if allowed - I have no personal horse in the Brexit race personally apart from immense concern about my relatives and friends in the UK and a horrible feeling of foreboding about the Irish economy and the future of Northern Ireland (that's quite a few horses come to think of it actually) and against Trump even if the opponent was a chimpanzee, I think it is dangerous to assume that people who hold alternative views must not be capable of independent thought or that they must have somehow fallen under some malign foreign influence.

Personal experience and observation of Trump voters form the basis of my view but I am also concerned that when we participate in the polarisation by separating into tribes characterised by - as we may see it - 'independence of thought' on the one hand and 'must have been influenced by Russia' on the other, we are participating in the problem.

Claig was indeed around from at least 2009/10 .

It wasn't the supposed POV, it was the posting style.

There are a couple of posters on this thread alone that I know I disagree with vehemently on some things. To the point I think they're self-serving twats who'd be dangerous if anyone listened to them on those topics.

It doesn't make me think they're bots or trolls.

Yes, absolutely the posting style, not the opinions.

The idea that it was a paid troll I think is a way of not facing up to how those opinions do belong to real people. Brietbart has a readership in the UK and those views do need challenging at some point. The idea that they can be switched off and not enter MN in a 'legitimate fashion' (the idea they must be the ideas of a paid troll) is quite bizarre.

There is a whole industry in conspiracy theories out there.

Claig really reminded me of a male flat mate I once had who took delight in cranking up his right wing arguments just to the right side of lunacy to utterly infuriate me and others. He was very very clever and believed most of what he said but would also throw in some outrageous stuff to get people hook line and sinker. I fell out with him eventually and lost touch but when I was reading Claig’s posts about Brexit I did wonder if it was him (and miss him a bit).

I don’t know who Claig was, but given what we now know about the way social media has been used to manipulate opinion, and on what scale, I don’t think the possibility of someone being a paid troll falls into the category of conspiracy theory any more.

I missed where Claig disappeared. Does anyone know which thread?

I also remember Isitme who seemed to blame Gordon Brown for all the worlds problem. and all the formatting

The idea that it was a paid troll I think is a way of not facing up to how those opinions do belong to real people

Yes, I strongly agree with this.

There are indeed paid trolls on social media – we know, because the sources of some of them have been found. But whether the troll introduces an idea or has simply taken an existing idea and amplified it (a common methodology), the ideas themselves are believed in by many real people. Failing to face up to this is a shortcut to disaster.

I'm pretty new to MN, but this Claig person sounds similar to someone I met on another forum. A pleasant person in many ways and quite 'normal' wrt posts about pets, crafts etc. But then out of nowhere there'd be these long almost cult-ish posts about conspiracies, blaming everything on MSM, Trump being almost God-like, the Elites, etc. You couldn't reason with her when she was off on one of those! She did however mention QAnon a lot and told us all we should 'red pill' ourselves. I did my research on the subject and understood what she was talking about but totally and utterly disagreed with most of it. She eventually flounced off the forum as she was annoyed at another poster getting all the attention!

I agree. It is ususally fairly easy to spot some paid trolls on some boards, at least, but I really don't think Claig was one. I have been told at various times I work for HMRC or the Tories etc etc and I genuinely don't. It just seems some people cannot understand people might eg vote Tory or vote Labour and find it easier to assume the person must be a russian.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't look out for troll farms who clearly have been very active in lots of different places however.

I welcome debate with people of different views as we can all learn from each other with humility rather than sit around thinking we are perfect holier than thou because we happen to support Corbyn or the Tories or whatever.

That said, I'll still continue to report suspected trolls.

The reason social media has been such a superb medium for (dis)information compaigns is that people are more accepting of ideas that apparently come from their friends and social group than they are to a roadside advert saying, eg "Theresa May is a stinky poo, please riot in the streets; signed, Vladimir Putin."

That's true even when the idea "Theresa May is a stinky poo" may also be held by real people who've never seen the advert.

So I don't see any reason to let the trolls frolic unchecked with their peer pressure and emotional string-tugging.

Yes. The point about social media disinformation is that it blurs and even erases the line between “real” opinions and propaganda. It has to hook into views already held in order to exert its influence, and give those views shape, force and direction.

I've also wasted thoughts wondering where Claig disappeared to
Very strange, obsessive posting style. Fanatical really
It struck me that if they were a real person why did they not continue posting to celebrate Trumps victory or praise his actions

I think Claig was banned in the end, although i’m not sure exactly what was the reason given.

I think claig finally imploded on a Trump thread towards the end of November 2016 - I missed the last few pages though. It was (unusually for claig) getting very heated and then the whole thread was zapped.

Claig reminded me very much of an lj user from years ago, although I don't think they were actually the same person. But both of then could talk about non political topics and come across as funny and sane and pleasant, and then would morph into some sort of hard right fundamentalist whenever certain things were discussed.

Theresa May is a stinky poo, please riot in the streets; signed, Vladimir Putin