zombie troll

Typically found in online forum threads and in comments sections on various articles and social networks, zombie trolls are dedicated to creating division, chaos, and hostility in discussion threads, often to the point of creating permanent divisions, and influencing other real discussion participants to take the same aggressive and divisive positions, and to create the same chaos and divisions on other threads. Zombie trolls differ from regular trolls in that they play both sides of discussions in order to start fights. Zombie trolls have multiple social media and other discussion accounts, and use them to incite fights between the sides, often to the point of continuing fights on threads that everyone else has abandoned, meaning that one or more zombie trolls are actually trolling themselves into continuing fake fights. This is especially prevalent in political discussions, where zombie trolls will use their multiple accounts to play both sides, and make controversial statements known to cause division in an effort to destroy any productive discussions that might be taking place. Zombie trolls also pose as supporters for candidates during primary contests, where the candidates typically represent similar ideologies, and turn the candidates' real supporters against each other in an effort to create divisions that translate into lower voter turnout for general elections, and victory for the opposing side, which is quite often the zombie troll's preferred side.