Word list · 18 words
Words for spotting manipulation online
A lot of what reaches you online has been shaped on the way: campaigns dressed up as grassroots feeling, accounts that are one person pretending to be many, posts written to make you angry because anger spreads. Having a name for each tactic makes it easier to notice.
The list mixes internet terms with a few cognitive biases and argument tricks, because the tactics work by using ordinary habits of mind. None of these words proves that a particular post is manipulative; each entry describes the pattern and leaves the judgement to you.
Kept on this device only, for the daily recall in My words.
The words
Astroturfing
Concealing the sponsor of a coordinated campaign so it looks like spontaneous public opinion.
Internet & Digital Culture
Sockpuppet
A false online identity used to fake independence — voting, vouching or arguing on behalf of its operator while pretending to be a stranger.
Internet & Digital Culture
Rage Bait
Content built to provoke anger rather than interest, because outrage produces more comments, shares and revenue than agreement does.
Internet & Digital Culture
Engagement Farming
Posting content chosen for its ability to generate interactions rather than to communicate anything — replies, likes and quotes harvested as the actual product.
Internet & Digital Culture
Concern Trolling
Posing as a sympathetic insider in order to sap a group's momentum — expressing worry about its tactics while actually working to undermine it.
Internet & Digital Culture
Sealioning
Harassment disguised as debate — relentlessly demanding evidence and civil discussion until the target is exhausted, then posing as the wronged party when they snap.
Internet & Digital Culture
Catfishing
Catfishing is creating a fake online persona to deceive someone — most often into a relationship, but also for money, harassment, or simple experiment.
Modern Dating & Connection
Echo Chamber
An information environment, usually one you curate yourself, where only agreeing views reach you — beliefs amplified by repetition rather than tested.
Internet & Digital Culture
Filter Bubble
The personalised information universe an algorithm builds around you from your past behaviour, quietly narrowing what you are shown.
Internet & Digital Culture
Shadowban
Suppressing a user's visibility without telling them — their posts still exist for them, but reach few or none of the people they would normally reach.
Internet & Digital Culture
AI Slop
Low-quality, low-effort generative-AI content — competent on the surface, cheap to make, produced in bulk, and pushed at people who never asked for it.
Internet & Digital Culture
Dead Internet Theory
The claim that most of the internet is now bots and generated content rather than people — in its strong form, that this is a coordinated project.
Internet & Digital Culture
Bandwagon Effect
The bandwagon effect is adopting a belief, product or vote largely because you can see that lots of other people already have.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Framing Effect
The framing effect is choosing differently between identical facts depending on whether they're described as gains or as losses.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice, seek out and believe information that fits what you already think — while giving far less weight to whatever would prove you wrong.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Mere Exposure Effect
The mere exposure effect is the tendency to like something more the more often you encounter it — familiarity alone is enough to grow a preference.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Straw Man
A straw man is a debating move: you swap your opponent's real argument for a weaker, distorted version — one that's easier to knock down — and then attack that instead, as if you'd beaten the…
Logical Fallacies & Rhetoric
Red Herring
A red herring is a detail planted to pull attention away from what actually matters — and its famous origin story may itself be a fabrication.
Literary & Rhetorical