Matt Goerzen studies trolling techniques and cultures as part of the Media Manipulation team at Data & Society. He's also applied many of the techniques in the art world, for example by once developing an absurdist AdSense campaign ostensibly designed to sell a hideous sculpture to art collector Shaquille O'Neal, but more accurately designed to piggyback off of free clickbait media attention to inform readers about psychometric ad tech practices. He has written an academic study of contemporary artists who function as what he calls"critical trolls," arguing that trolling can be seen as an extension of the politicized attentional strategies used by the 20th-century avant-garde. His current work at Data & Society focuses on mapping the way white supremacists and state actors have appropriated trolling techniques for use in influence operations as a form of"bottom-up agenda setting.
Appearing at: