A recent comment was left on my last blog entry about the birth of my daughter. I have thought about it and decided against deleting the comment as I think it serves as a good example to the character and motivations of who I suspect is the small same troll. In fact, I'm going to reproduce the comment here, purportedly posted by Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch, a site which I know about but don't usually visit :
Who's That Girl?I prayed to Saint Leo I the Great and asking the great saint "Whose That girl?" and I then prayed to Ever-Virgin Mary the Theotokos asking "Whose That Girl?". Finally, I prayed to Jesus our Lord asking "Whose That Girl"?
All three answered saying "It is prophesied that demon-possessed girl will become a prostitute. She is no Christian as her father's baptism was invalid not to say her father is guilty of hypocrisy whenever he says 'I am Christian' for Bob K is a wolf in sheep clothing, an apostate who is rebelling against the Church of Christ our Lord"
The CCC says "Outside the Church there is no salvation". As Jesus our Lord established the Church and appointed St Peter as the primate Bishop, so loyalty to the Church brings salvation. After all, the Bible itself was written by the Church for the Church. If you reject the Church, you reject the Bible itself!
I am naturally angered by this unwelcome intrusion in something that I would consider is my personal space. Who wouldn't? I have contacted Jihadwatch and asked to clarify if it was Robert Spencer who left the comment. I am still awaiting their reply and will post it if I do receive one.
As I have mentioned in an earlier reply to another comment, there is a pattern to how this troll operates. I reproduce the comment here:
I think its not stupidity thats fueling this. The underlying trend is that this impersonator (or group of impersonators) have specifically targeted certain blogs with certain consistent messages :
- To discredit those who take a more independent or partisan position vis a vis the establishment;
- To discredit Christians by assuming very radical and extreme right wing Christian cloaked positions, sometimes in the guise of a Muslim convert to Christianity;
- To discredit efforts to build up inter-ethnic and inter-faith dialogues by assuming very right wing ethno-nationalistic positions, usually as a member of an ethnic minority; and
- A particular political party is attacked vehemently, usually by associating it with another party to take advantage of the inherent distrust minorities have against the latter.
There is a pattern here and by taking a shotgun approach, perhaps the hope is that they might hit somewhere where folks are still not aware of this activity and help stoke tensions and distrust. Sounds like a familiar modus operandi to you?
If this is the work of an erstwhile persistent Barisan Nasional cybertrooper involved in Umno's declared "cyber war" (aka the Umno Cybertroopers), we now know what type of characters they and their bosses are. If this is the work of a religious zealot trying to discredit another faith, you have just done a major disservice to your own faith and public perception of the followers of your faith.
Now what would you do if you the target of such intrusion? And perhaps to those more theologically inclined, what would Jesus do? :)
Update (0030)
Note from Bob: I have been in communication with Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch regarding this comment and am satisfied that this is another mischievious attempt by the well known online impersonator who has impersonated many people on the internet before, including yours truly.
For the record, the IP address which the troll posted from in the last 2 comments was 218.208.229.7 (Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia on TM Net) whereas Robert Spencer's IP address in the comment below is 72.71.205.195 (Barrington, New Hampshire, USA on Verizon).
Some background can be read from this article in The Cicak.
The same impersonator has had a collection of his (or her) earlier comments collated and published here with the various pseudonyms and impersonations. One would notice the similiar style in writing and the similiar inconsistency in the stand.
If you liked this post, consider buying me some coffee. Suggested price is $1.00 for a cup and $10.00 for a 1 lbs bag (personally I am a big fan of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe).
Categories: Works
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Comments (5)
doulos said:
Bob, congrats again on the birth of your baby daughter =)
On the comment by Richard, it is very disgraceful to use the name of religion to blaspheme and pass idiotic judgments like this. I am equally enraged. I do think however, that you should delete the comment and block the person so as he will not be an annoyance in the future. It pains me to read such comment when the post was about something joyous.
Posted on August 29, 2007 9:33 PM
Robert Spencer said:
Note:
I did not post any comments at this blog until this one.
I did not write the comments that have been posted using my name here.
The operator of this website has perpetuated and furthered this defamatory use of my name by posting this.
I respectfully request a retraction.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
www.jihadwatch.org
Posted on August 29, 2007 10:08 PM
Bob K said:
Dear Doulos and Robert,
I am satisfied that it wasn't Robert Spencer who wrote the comment. In fact, when I first read it, it was already quite obvious that the perp is our erstwhile persistent troll who has recently commented here as Julius Paul, Robert Keng and now as plain old "Robert" of Jihadwatch in an obvious effort to implicate Robert Spencer.
As I have tried to explain to the real Robert Spencer in my e-mail to him, I do intend to retain the comments (with the necessary disclaimers) for certain reasons.
The reason why I choose to take this path is because I feel that there is a need to expose this person and to do so would mean having such comments left intact (with the necessary disclaimers of course) for people to see. It would be much more to this troll's advantage if his modus operandi was not exposed and displayed for the world to see so that he can potentially hoodwink people who are not in the know that perhaps the twisted opinions he provides is a representation of the actual opinions of the people he impersonates.
Blocking the person is generally impractical. This troll impersonates different people all the time and has been known to use multiple IPs ranging from those assigned to Kangar to those in Kuching. As the large majority of internet users in Malaysia use dynamic IPs from either one of two main ISPs in this country, I cannot possibly subject all the IP blocks allocated for Malaysians to a filter.
I hope you can understand my position and why I do what I do. I have sufficient reasons to react and lash out with this latest incident and trust me, it is extremely difficult to have chosen to do otherwise. There are, however, greater things at stake here and I have no intention of biting any bait that's laid out for me.
Posted on August 30, 2007 12:25 AM
Sivin Kit said:
do "trolls" get paid? or is it a hobby?
I'm glad Mr. Robert Spencer - the real one - has clarified it's not him.
I personally don't want to tolerate the actions or comments of people who are disrespectful when it comes to commenting on my family.
In your case, the birth of a child is a wonderful gift to celebrate. To see someone abusing that moment (or blog space) with disrespect to me is crossing the line.
Posted on August 30, 2007 1:48 AM
Steve F. said:
Perhaps you are giving this guy more attention than he deserves? This is the same childish old-fashioned paplism. I think years of counter-paplism have taught us quite a bit in identifying them.
On what would Jesus do for the theologically-inclined. First of all, WWJD is theologically incorrect :-P
Speculating on what Jesus would have done are just that: speculations: Human imaginations are almost always at odds with what Jesus would really have done as abundantly made clear in the NT.
Posted on August 30, 2007 9:35 AM