Table of Contents
Agent Provocateurs
An agent provocateur is a French phrase, which in English means “inciting agent” - A trope of a character who is a regular nuisance to AnonOps personnel and allies, both online and in the real world. As the name implies, they try to incite. The agent provocateur is a type of dishonest scoundrel, with a two-phase mode of attack:
Phase One: They first infiltrate a group (activists, labor union, infosec team, religious body, etc), putting on the guise of a supporter long enough to be able to move freely within the group. At a rally, this can be as simple as walking up to the frontline with a sign, and hanging around for 10 minutes. With other groups, it may take months (or years) of infiltration work to get into position.
Phase Two: Once inside enough to pass as a member of the group, the agent provocateur then attempts to bait the group into behaving counter to its interests. The agent may use concern trolling to weaken morale, or send the group on a wild goose chase. Going back to the rally example, the provocateur might start trying to bait the crowd into violent actions. In these cases, the provocateur is oftentimes a member of law enforcement, trying to create pretext to “lawfully retaliate” against the crowd. The provocateur, under the guise of a personal confidante, might try to trick you into implicating yourself and your comrades as part of an illegal conspiracy, as a form of lawfare. Or the provocateur, in a corporate setting, might try to encourage a sellout to their chief competitor.
There are many forms the provocateur can take, but their tactic is the same: To provoke you and those around you into doing things that are guaranteed to come back and bite you in the ass.
Agents in Military History
Agent provocateurs have long served governments, cults and vigilantes. It was a technique even known to the Ancient World, as many spiritual texts include stories or parables involving provocateurs. One such story is in the Gospels, when the Pharisees & Herodians attempt to bait Jesus into inciting his followers to challenge Caesar.
Many recent governments have been known to use the provocateur against civil dissident movements. 19th-20th century Great Britain, Russia and Germany, were notorious for this, but it seems every country is getting in on it nowadays. In the United States, the use of provocateurs was a core COINTELPRO tactic, and before that it was employed by rail and mining barons to suppress strikes.
Agents in Anonymous
While agent provocateurs have existed in Anonymous since the very beginning, the collective's understanding of them has taken quite some time to catch up.
Anonymous v. The Church of Scientology
The /i/nsurgency was made aware to these tactics en masse in early 2008, during Project Chanology. Those who were familiar with fighting the Scientologists before, warned Anonymous of OSA's tendency to use agent provocateurs during anti-Scientologist events.
Indeed, just about every major protest that happened outside a Scientology clinic that year, had at least one or two randos. These usually came in one of three forms:
- The first form would be over the top, and usually have signs inciting violence, while sometimes even trying to incite actual violence directly.
- The second form was far more subtle. This form wouldn't try to get Anon to do anything. They instead would just intentionally act really toxic/rude/abrasive (especially if news cameras or reporters were around) to make the whole collective look bad by association.
- The third form was the most subtle of all. These ones went above and beyond to present Good Behavior, usually pretending to be a sympathetic citizen, a victim of the Church, and sometimes even impersonating other Anons. These agents played the long game, infiltrating deep into all of the imageboards to dox Anons, and to pit Anons against each other by orchestrating elaborate suicide trolling campaigns.
Anonymous v. Wall Street
Agent provocateurs were again seen in large numbers during Occupy Wall Street and the related protest movements around it. This is because “activist communities” in the US have been an astroturf creation ever since the days of COINTELPRO. All of the professional parasites in those communities latched on to Anonymous, subverting it from the inside while sucking it dry. This flood of agent provocateurs was ultimately more destructive than the OSA provocateurs before them, as these new ones ushered in the era of The Fediverse.
Anonymous Today
AnonOps recruitment numbers are at an all-time low in 2024. Part of the reason for this, is the agent provocateurs have come to run the show. Various alphabet agencies, all competing for limited federal funding, operate armies of provocateurs on Discord and the imageboards. These provocateurs deliberately incite dumb teenagers to say stupid things, so they can “bust” them and get financial rewards for “fighting domestic terrorism” - while creating another slave for the prison-industrial complex.
These types of illegal entrapment operations have made it near-impossible for AnonOps to get work done, and act as a perpetual drain on morale. The provocateurs come from civilian backgrounds as well. Criminal informants looking for immunity are known to pull these types of charades. Even bunny boilers are getting in on the provocateur act to augment their swatting routines.
Sadly, Anonymous has tragically lost the ability to recognize agent provocateurs on the field. Sociological studies by this Institute indicate that only a tiny fraction of Anons have kept up with the many mutations made by the agent provocateur, leaving AnonOps with a perpetual Achilles' Heel on the modern battlefield.
Find this page online at: https://bestpoint.institute/hazards/agent-provocateurs