I really do not know how many of you know nor remember of what appeared to be an arduous online skirmish on YouTube between the years of 2006 and 2008. There was an aggressive propaganda and abuse campaign by what seemed to be "ordinary" online Turkish users that would specifically target peoples bordered or were close to Turkey. Those included Greeks, Armenians, Serbians, Kurds, Bulgarians, Russians, Ukrainians and at times Iranians. What they would do was they would infiltrate videos relating to history, culture, religion, politics and sport and immediately escalated with negative voting,abuse, slander and inflammatory remarks. At first many users thought that those were just spurious tossers or 12 year olds acting hard.

As time went on from one YouTuber to another they caught on that there was an organised nature to those bots, shills and trolls. Surely, they could not be bots, shills and trolls in MOST videos and comments they made, watched and commented on themselves? And that was when the first counterattacks by the early pioneers began so to speak. At the time mind you internet users were weary and nervous about interacting with other online users given the much published scams, worms and viruses by the mainstream media they were quite cautious about getting involved and those "pioneers" lead the way. After delving into the situation some "ordinary" Turkish users were outward ultra nationalists and one ultra nationalist organisation in Turkey was the Gray Wolves. They even resorted to trackers, viruses and hijacking accounts. Other methods were to appear as one user, for instance, but instead slightly misspell their name and pretending its them; pretending to be a Greek, Armenian, Serbian, Kurdish, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Iranian user; Pretending and masquerading to be one these users to display a negative stereotype in cyberspace as well as spreading propaganda with those accounts, flagging videos and accounts; and claiming copyright claims(!!) to videos. Mind you there was not much hard evidence to go around that it was the Gray Wolves in particular even so the slogans and propaganda were so very close to it.

After the initial retaliation the bots, shills and trolls began to directly post and amass other "users" to post further abuse, slander, negative voting and inflammatory remarks on the personal pages of the YouTubers accounts as well as private messages. It escalated even further when they got to upload defamatory videos of certain users and gather other trolls, shills and bots to circlejerk.

So how was this dealt with? Ok here we go and in not a particular order:

• Say something! Do something!
• Connect with other users that had experienced the same or similar situations and share together.
• Support and protect each other! If you notice your buddy, mate or fellow being flooded with bots, shills and trolls and what they are saying is true get in there! Whether its with a positive vote or comment or both!
• Become familiar with network settings, protocols and other related network administration constituents. If you remember what I wrote before you would know why!
• Advise and update your fellows, mates and buddies on such issues
• Swallow your pride and confront them even if it appears embarrassing or whatever. Try! Have a go!
• Know a troll, shill or bot not only based on their username
• Expose them!
• Trolls, shills and bots have "quotas" so by flooding them it stifles and frustrates their workload.
• If you know how to dish it, dish it hardcore! Be also prepared to "take it" too. This could make their posting excruciatingly infuriating!
• Tarnish their founding fathers/members and their taboos. This is better if its done in defense as its them who tarnished their group and nationality by targeting you in that way, right!?
• A taste of their own medicine! Return the negative votes, flooding circle jerking etc. Instead of a circle jerk, have something like a comedic session. Trolls, shills and bots work on saving face, image and prestige and its a big no-no to make put the joke on them. Plus might as well laugh about it.
• Know who is who
• Mirror and backup your posts, threads and accounts.
• If they claim "copyrights" somehow get a lawyer to liaise with voat and even warn them of litigation. It compels a website to act accordingly to laws to avoid bad publicity and be of good character.
• Be careful when they are trying to stroke your ego, they are trying to get you to swallow their propaganda.
• When they are cornered they change from the abusers to play the victims
• When sharing the facts and the truth negative votes are badges of honour.
• Consider the number of negative votes and abusive comments from them for a topic and keep reinforcing these
• You could predict the level of activity of trolls, shills and bots from current events so be ready!

When they start to threaten to ban voat or another website from their country its working. When they are pretending to be attacked by faux or hijacked accounts its working. When the inter webs and cyberspace are clean you know its all good.

As a special treat search Turkey bans YouTube 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube check what it is written about Turkey.