Government-funded trolling

From eg

The first steps to government-funded trolling were taken by the UK government in early 2007. It decisively sided with so-called 'trolls' in the battle to determine who takes charge of feedback on government services and performance:

"Whitehall officials regard it as inevitable that information-sharing forums will develop to discuss the quality of public sector performance, including individual GPs and teachers, as well as bad garages, rogue builders, and holiday destinations." In other words, 'trolls' complaining about everything seem to be absolutely essential to government working at all.

They say "these new phenomena are likely to increase productivity across the economy, partly by driving out inefficient providers, and making consumers more informed." In other words, the bad players will be 'driven off by trolls' not by government itself... The diversity of views extant even in just modern definitions of left and right suggest that there will be many factions involved, not just two.

To facilitate this, they are leaning towards "providing funding for grassroots sites dedicated to information sharing" instead of trying to have bureaucrats run their own wikis and so on. Official statements by the UK government list "information sharing" as a priority though this has been subject to scrutiny.

The UK committee seems also well aware of the same issues in public visibility of identity of active participants and subjects of debate: "We have to ask whether information or data sharing is an aid to empowerment, as I believe, or the next step to the big brother state." This would appear to be a signal that the 'outing', 'anonymity', and other identity debates are over, that 'trolls' can remain anonymous if they want.

Just as in the balloting booth... see political privacy.