How researchers tried to understand one of Twitter’s oldest trolling groups

The Washington Post - By Abby Ohlheiser March 2 2017

Three-year-old Madeline McCann disappeared from a resort apartment in Portugal in 2007 while on a family vacation. Her British parents were dining nearby. The McCann disappearance, which has never been resolved, became a major British tabloid story. The daily media frenzy has since faded, but a decade later, a tight-knit group of Twitter trolls who are convinced that they have proven the McCann parents’ guilt in their daughter’s disappearance still discuss the case online every single day.

John Synnott, a senior lecturer in investigative psychology at the University of Huddersfield in Britain, has long been interested in the McCann trolling, ever since he first saw it at work in about 2012.

“It was somewhat organized, it was repetitive, but the volume of information was the real surprising thing.” Synnott told me in a Skype interview recently. To find it, all you do is navigate to the #McCann hashtag on Twitter. #McCann will be there, as if embedded into the platform.   More at link.

sallypelt wrote:
Hang in there, folks. The "anti-Mccanns" and the McCann "trolls" have been assessed. It's now the turn of the "pro-McCann group"

"Dr Synott is now planning to extend the research by analysing the pro McCann camp"

This should be a corker!

Let's be right about it when they say the McCanns the trolls include all the McCanns in their trolling, Madeleine included.

The abuse their parents have suffered is well known even if the extent isn't. Doctored images of them, threats to rape Kate McCann at the London marathon, threats to fire bomb their home are the tip of the iceberg.

The grandparents and aunts and uncles have been accused of involvement, stalked online, had workplaces contacted and been called diabolical names.

The siblings of the McCanns have been discussed including people like Brenda Leyland (is that her name) writing tweets using the McCann hash tag and their first names (so they or their friends could easily find the tweets) addressing the tweet to them telling them how their parents hurt their sister, didn't care about them etc.

Then their are people on the periphery such as witnesses at the holiday resort who have been accused of involvement, prostitution, p.a.e.d.o.philia, part of a cover up, have been stalked online to the point that some trolls have claimed to know a teenage girls recent homework assignments. This is not just their friends, but staff at the hotel, journalists, business people who have helped. A woman who offered prayers to them online had images of her being raped made fgs.

Anonymous witnesses such as the man Jane tanner saw and child s-e-x attack victims have had demands for their names etc to be made known so the trolls can "investigate" them.

But let's talk about the biggest victim of the anti McCanns trolls, Madeleine McCann. They have demanded the Portuguese and UK police investigations be stopped, they have looked into declaring her dead, they have got copies of her birth certificate, discussed how they imagine the day they can watch her funeral on TV, mocked up age progressions missing posters to show a decomposing child instead, called her a Lolita, claimed pictures of her wearing children's make up ( you know the stuff you buy in the toy section in Hamleys)/ eating ice cream/ smiling are sexual, asked if she was a little s**t who flirted with the men etc, written a letter in her voice to her mother, rewritten Christmas carols mocking her disappearance, suggested people block the phone lines to crime watch when they do appeals for her, waste police time by bombarding them with crap conspiracy theories and freedom of information requests etc.

Sykes wrote:From Myths with thanks.  Sykes

Let's be right about it when they say the McCanns the trolls include all the McCanns in their trolling, Madeleine included.

The abuse their parents have suffered is well known even if the extent isn't. Doctored images of them, threats to rape Kate McCann at the London marathon, threats to fire bomb their home are the tip of the iceberg.

The grandparents and aunts and uncles have been accused of involvement, stalked online, had workplaces contacted and been called diabolical names.

The siblings of the McCanns have been discussed including people like Brenda Leyland (is that her name) writing tweets using the McCann hash tag and their first names (so they or their friends could easily find the tweets) addressing the tweet to them telling them how their parents hurt their sister, didn't care about them etc.

Then their are people on the periphery such as witnesses at the holiday resort who have been accused of involvement, prostitution, p.a.e.d.o.philia, part of a cover up, have been stalked online to the point that some trolls have claimed to know a teenage girls recent homework assignments. This is not just their friends, but staff at the hotel, journalists, business people who have helped. A woman who offered prayers to them online had images of her being raped made fgs.

Anonymous witnesses such as the man Jane tanner saw and child s-e-x attack victims have had demands for their names etc to be made known so the trolls can "investigate" them.

But let's talk about the biggest victim of the anti McCanns trolls, Madeleine McCann. They have demanded the Portuguese and UK police investigations be stopped, they have looked into declaring her dead, they have got copies of her birth certificate, discussed how they imagine the day they can watch her funeral on TV, mocked up age progressions missing posters to show a decomposing child instead, called her a Lolita, claimed pictures of her wearing children's make up ( you know the stuff you buy in the toy section in Hamleys)/ eating ice cream/ smiling are sexual, asked if she was a little s**t who flirted with the men etc, written a letter in her voice to her mother, rewritten Christmas carols mocking her disappearance, suggested people block the phone lines to crime watch when they do appeals for her, waste police time by bombarding them with crap conspiracy theories and freedom of information requests etc.

Re: Three university forensic psychologists say > 'Anti-McCann Trolls Cannot be Cured'
Post by Tony Bennett on 02.03.17 19:49

I have not yet finished compiling a letter of complaint to the University of Huddersfield about this seriously flawed research project.

Saturday, March 4, 2017
Dear Dr. Synott and the UK Media: I am not a Troll, I am Pat Brown



I just love how there is so much talk in the UK media about anonymous people on Twitter trashing the McCanns; how they don't have the cajones to come into the public because of the consequences. Really?

Hello, Dr. Synott! Hello, UK Media!

Know my name? Pat Brown? The Pat Brown who writes on Twitter under....what....Pat Brown? The Pat Brown who has the blog called The Daily Profiler where she has written many articles about the McCann case under the name....ummm....Pat Brown? . Who was interviewed by a Portuguese paper as.....yes, Pat Brown. That's right, that same Pat Brown who wrote a book called  Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann under the name....yeah....Pat Brown. Who had her book pulled from Amazon because the McCanns threatened to sue them and the McCanns named the author in the lawsuit as......guess.....Pat Brown.

Pat Brown is not hard to find. Google "Criminal Profiler Pat Brown". You come up with The Pat Brown Profiling website where you can find my email and phone number. Guess how many UK journalists or others writing on the McCanns contacted me, a real person, not a anonymous troll, to discuss the McCann case and the issues surrounding it during the last ten years?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, wait, I forgot about Anthony Summers, Looking for Madeline author, but he was just pretending to interview me as he had already included me in the troll section of his book.

In other words, there ARE people who doubt the McCann's abduction claim who have come forth publicly with their own names on Twitter and elsewhere...intelligent citizens of the UK, Portugal, and the US....even professionals and experts .....but the UK media is not interested interviewing them as it might let the public know that not only "a sardine munching deplorable Portuguese retired police detective" and some "loony Twitter trolls" question the McCann's innocence. There are also people who do crime analysis for a living who find that the McCanns should be considered suspects and believe Scotland Yard is conducting a sham investigation on behalf of someone, but not the citizens of the UK or Madeleine.

While there are certainly some trolls out there on Twitter who act rather badly concerning the McCanns, there are also many rational people who simply have a hard time swallowing the McCanns' protests and the biased "news" stories put out by the UK press.

I am Pat Brown. I am one of them. I'm waiting for your call.
xxxxhttp://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.co.uk/  

Notice to all members and guests: We are being watched

Post by Get'emGonçalo on 01.03.17 18:34
From Admin and Mods 1 Mar 2017

Recently we have seen a consistently high number of visitors. welcome

At the same time we have had more than 300 new members join CMOMM in the last couple of weeks!

However, it has been noted that a handful of those new members have posted material which seems designed to harm the forum. Their accounts have been deactivated.

The clear statement that the McCanns were NOT cleared back in 2008 - which we in CMOMM have known all along - has reignited widespread interest in Madeleine’s disappearance, both from the public and the media.

At the same time, we are two months away from the 10th anniversary of Madeleine being reported missing, at about 10pm on Thursday 3 May 2007. No doubt the case will receive a lot of publicity during this time.

We also have the release of our member Richard D. Hall’s fourth Madeleine McCann documentary to look forward to in a few weeks’ time.  

That means that a lot of people will be watching us in the next two or three months. Many new members of the public will be looking in. But so will journalists, lawyers and some of those who oppose all that we have accomplished on CMOMM in the last seven years and three months.

So I’d like to ask you all please to post in the civil manner for which we are known. We don’t do hate, we don’t do abuse. What we do is information, research, discussion and honest opinion.

We kindly request that if you see any new member posting dubious material, contact admin straightaway rather than get into discussion with them.

Help me and the Moderators, please, to present the best face of CMOMM at a time when ever more and more people are looking in on us. We are very grateful to those who do their best to defend this forum.

Many thanks

Jill

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