Table of Contents
Suicide-Trolling
In military applications, simple trolling has its limits. When regular trolling is not enough to silence witnesses, whistleblowers and personal enemies, one can always escalate to suicide-trolling tactics to silence them forever.
Suicide-trolling, to its practitioners, is a complex (and hella controversial) “art” which encompasses a wide variety of life ruination tactics. As the name implies, it is a type of trolling where the intention is get the target to kill themselves, or at the very least go away for a very long time. This is accomplished by systematically destroying the psyche, spirit and soul of the target.
As the Anonymous Military Institute's chief mission is one of harm reduction, we strongly advise all of our students to refrain from suicide-trolling. We are just here to have fun, and learn about the threats we have to defend against on the field. We are not here to kill people. Any students caught in the act of suicide-trolling will be expelled from this institute.
How It Is Done
Suicide-trolling is not about simply baiting or encouraging the target to kill themselves. That is just normal low-brow trolling. In fact, experienced suicide-trolls will rarely outright tell the target to commit suicide, as that action can be used as Evidence of Intent in a court of law.
Rather, it is a systematic demolition of the target's life, designed to induce the feelings of helplessness & despair which lead to suicide. Usually it is plotted out in advance, due to the complexities and logistics involved in carrying it out. This involves hitting the target from multiple angles, sometimes over the course of many months or even years.
A comprehensive suicide-trolling campaign will (usually) focus on these areas:
Public Image & Reputation
The cornerstone of a traditional suicide-trolling campaign involves going after the person's reputation and public image. This is done by things like spreading rumors, or leaving negative reviews on social media. Call-in radio shows and community bulletin boards may also be used to springboard rumors. Some suicide-trolls go as far as to purchase a domain name of the target's name, and build entire websites designed to ruin their image. The target's own words can even be used against them, especially if you can twist a horrifying interpretation out of them by taking them out of context. These damage caused by these tactics can all be amplified by doxxing and bot farms.
This layer of trolling will oftentimes serve as the foundation on which the following layers build.
Career & Financial Stability
As many people are not phased by insults and gossip, the suicide-troll will take things further, and start to actively dismantle the target's life. The first thing to sabotage is usually the target's career. Most people do this by simply contacting the target's boss and/or co-workers, to further spread the rumors conjured in the Reputation layer.
If the target's boss or co-workers are not phased, or the target otherwise still has their job, then the employer itself will usually endure a wave of reputation assaults. Bad reviews may be left all over the employer's social media pages, and boycotts may be called for. Complaints may get sent to the Better Business Bureau, city permit boards, and law enforcement. The company web site may get hacked or ddos'd. If the employer still doesn't budge, then the suicide-trollers will move a further degree away from the initial target, and go after the employer's other service providers. In the media industry, this may involve going after advertisers.
Assaults on financial stability do not always involve the target's employer. Take the car, for example. Slashing tires or pouring sugar in the gas tank is not only a pricey fix, but the cost of the damage increases exponentially as the target is forced to miss work. Some tactics, like lawfare, hit the wallet directly as the target is forced to pay for lawyers and court fees.
By going after the target's ability to support themselves, the suicide-trolls can trigger an endless spiral of instability from which many never recover.
Personal Support Networks
A job, when it comes right down to it, is a type of support network. When a target is cost their job, other support networks (friends, family, religious groups, community organizations, message boards, etc) will be who the target falls back on.
Gossip, concern trolling, mirroring and triangulation are oftentimes all it takes to make these structures crumble away. Once the target is pushed into unemployment, those who take on the primary financial burden of supporting the target, will be targeted themselves once their identities are known.
Mental Health & The Psyche
Once the target's life has begun to crumble around them, the suicide-troller is in a position to upend the psyche. Getting to this point (especially with competent targets) is no easy task, which is why isolation is the name of the game. Some people don't have to be isolated with the above steps, but it certainly speeds up the process either way.
As soon as the target feels alone in their plight, helplessness sets in, and this is when the suicide-trolls go for the throat. Tactics at this point will sometimes get really sadistic. Messages and threats may be left in places, telling the victim how this is all their fault and it is never going to end. The victim may come home one day, and find all of their belongings inexplicably rearranged in careful deliberate ways. Important personal mementos and family heirlooms may be stolen at this stage, and sometimes even be returned damaged or desecrated. The victim's pets, if they have any, may even be killed at this stage.
When effectively combined with other tactics, this layer of trolling is usually what induces the final killing stroke.
Ethical & Legal Considerations
Trolling people to death brings many legal liabilities. In some jurisdictions, it is considered a form of assault. If the victim does do themselves in, and evidence links that suicide to a group of trolls, it can be prosecuted as a murder or manslaughter case. On top of that, it can also invite vigilante retaliation, and trigger an endless cycle of bloodshed and abuse.
There are also many ethical considerations, the primary one being: “Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with this on your conscience?”
Suicide-Trolling Victims
- Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka - Trolled to death by furries who wanted his web site.
- Leigh “Stackz” Maibes - Trolled to death by federal informants.
- Kurt Cobain - Trolled to death by his wife.
- Budd Dwyer - Trolled to death by rival politicians.
- Aaron Swartz - Trolled to death by Carmen Ortiz.
Find this page online at: https://bestpoint.institute/tactics/suicide-trolling