Iain Dale and his Sock-Puppets
"Anyone who posts insults anonymously gets rejected. Simple as that." - Iain Dale (January 2006)
"I am going to get tougher on moderation in general. If people abuse the hospitality or insult other users their comments will be deleted without explanation." - Iain Dale (March 2007)
One of the key empowering elements of blogging - especially if one wishes to remain anonymous - is trust. But it doesn't come automatically; it has to be earned.
Normally trust is earned over time as a blogger opens their material to criticism via comments (or perhaps a trackback feature) and subsequently deals openly and fairly with opposing views. Often this process involves admitting that you are wrong from time to time. Iain, bless him, does not like to admit it when he's wrong... but he's guilty of far worse than simple pigheadedness.
A trend on the rise (particularly among Tory users of Blogger.com) is the use of sock-puppets to reinforce material that has been posted and/or undermine any opposing material that appears under comments from genuine contributors.
Blogger.com makes this very easy to do - and even allows anonymous ratbags to pose as other users of its service - but only if the author of the weblog allows people to comment without registration*.
[*Note to users of Blogger.com - Introducing comment registration will not stop people from commenting anonymously... it will simply make it more problematic for sock-pupetting saddos to post under multiple pseudonyms. It only takes a minute to set up a false identity in Blogger, but it is not easy to switch between identities as it is in a 'free for all' system - plus, there is a very real risk that the bully will accidentally give themselves away by posting a comment under the 'wrong' identity as they try to keep up the puppet show between one login and another.]
At its most basic and almost forgivable level, sock-puppetry involves one lonely blogger who makes a post and then follows it with a number of comments under different pseudonyms, often just to give the impression that the article has been read more than once.
At its most complex and totally unforgivable level, it involves a high-traffic website with no moderation or extremely selective and selfish moderation.
In the case of Iain Dale and Paul Staines, an 'open gate' policy is maintained pretty much full-time, with pre-vetting of comments activated only when the site author himself is at risk. Often, the only 'offensive' comments that are deleted are those that involve the site author or one of their close allies.
What breeds in this environment is a very special kind of anonymous bully, who quickly progresses from adding an anonymous comment or two to back up comments they have made under their own name, to making libellous/bullying comments that they would not dare to post under their own name, to posing as a crowd of different people as they shout down, intimidate and drown out anyone who dares to disagree with them and/or the site author.
The longer this is tolerated by the site author, the faster these bullies breed and the bolder they become. Many will take this behaviour with them to other weblogs and/or create a weblog of their own with a similar approach to 'debate'. It also leads to an absurd situation where some contributors who would normally post under their own name feel so intimidated that they instead choose to post anonymously... which allows the users of sock-puppets to scream "Sock puppet!" at them.
By this stage, any vestige of sensible debate is long gone, and freedom of speech has suffered as a result.
If you run a weblog that contains a significant level of political discussion, you really should have some form of comment registration in place or be ready to moderate your arse off. If you don't do either, you lay fertile ground for anonymous bullies who seek to limit free speech by undermining and intimidating those they don't agree with (while simultaneously screaming about their right to free speech). No matter where you stand politically, if you allow this behaviour on your website and/or are irresponsible enough to actively use it to your advantage, the only thing you really prove every time you 'win' is that you are afraid to conduct an open and honest debate. This does not indicate a significant level of confidence in your political beliefs. (source)
People cannot speak freely if they are in a state of fear. You must also consider that one person can simply 'drown out' another by burying the victim's comment in a sea of sock-puppets and/or giving the false impression that the victim is in the minority to anybody who bothers to wade through it all.
Iain Dale claims that he doesn't allow the more anti-social form of sock-puppetry on his website, but in truth, he does more than tolerate it.. he actively encourages it, and often even participates in the anti-social behaviour himself:
Iain Dale will often label a dissenting point of view and/or a difficult question as a smear or an insult (thereby allowing him to delete it in line with his 'policy'). When doing so he will allow others to publish actual smears and insults about those who posted the opposing view, repeat those same smears and insults himself, and even (when the muse takes him) come up with a few original smears and insults himself.
When he's not bouncing off his resident sock-puppets in this manner, he protects himself by simply hiding behind them, allowing his gang of bullies to shout down or drown out anyone who dares question his accuracy or integrity.
Oh, and Dale also plays the ridiculous game of screaming "Sock puppet!" (and/or "New Labour astro-turfer!") at people he knows not to be sock-puppets. Or supporters of New Labour.
There are plenty of examples of this at work, and the best examples can be found via the following articles:
Chicken Yoghurt - A double edged olive branch
Bloggerheads - Iain Dale and the Nick Boles question
Bloggerheads - Iain Dale's many small deceptions (and one big flounce)
Bloggerheads - Iain Dale has some funny ideas about moderation
You can also click here to see Iain Dale in two of his more extended performances:
Iain Dale - Is the Labour Blogosphere About to Take Off?
Iain Dale - Is Yasmin Right? Does Blogging Impoverish Democracy?
And, finally, you can click here to learn more about the outright comment ban that made this microsite a necessity (after all, the only alternative would be to behave like his other regulars, and get around the ban by posting under a range of pseudonyms... and that's not going to happen):
Bloggerheads - Iain Dale: not a real blogger, in no way a blogging expert
To close, we come back to the issue of trust...
All of the measures and techniques listed above are designed to make the author appear more reliable than they actually are... and more popular (both Dale and Staines regularly cite the number of comments they receive as proof of their popularity), but while it may have a short-term positive effect for a few authors, it will have a long-term negative effect for everybody else.
That's why the oft-repeated "If you don't like it don't read it!" defence simply does not apply in this case; if this trend continues - and if people like Iain Dale continue to promote/encourage it by their selfish actions - by the time the next major election comes around, the British blogosphere will be reduced to a meaningless shouting match.
Iain Dale is free to be a mendacious hypocrite on his own turf (he is, after all, a politician) but when he brings these games to the web and actually has the audacity to pose as an authority on the subject of blogging as he does so, it suddenly becomes everybody's business.
Iain Dale demands honesty, integrity and transparency from other politicians; we demand the same from him. Failing that, we would settle for him actually following his stated moderation policy and/or taking active steps to stem the bullying culture he has done so much to promote.