Shills

Bane of online discussions and communities everywhere, is the shameless shill. The shill is a one-man astroturf operation with one purpose and one purpose only: To covertly market for someone or something, while not disclosing who it is they actually work for. To the professional shill, no thread is off limits and no community sacred.

Similar to the agent provocateur, the shill can come in varying power levels. The shill may just be a surface level internet marketer, taking advantage of anonymity magick to blend in to a community to shill a product, tv show or memecoin. Other times, the shill may be a deep undercover political operative who has spent months infiltrating a news forum or activist community. These types of shills may disingenuously direct the group to cooperating with mainstream political campaigns, or even state-level agitprop.

When a shill is identified, it is absolutely imperative that they be isolated, and everyone made aware of the things they were shilling for. Many times, follow-up shills will show up to defend and/or replace outed shills, so be ready for them as well.