TOP 'FAN' IS A TROLL

Facebook followers may have noticed that the site has introduced a 'badge' that it attaches to some users of fan pages.  They call this 'Top Fans' and users who interact with that page the most are allocated the badge.  This has been running a few weeks and appears to be a fairly innocuous gimmick, albeit another creepy reminder that Facebook can track everything you do on their site.  It's a useful tool for us as we can see at a glance who engages with us on a regularly basis, but as with anything we've found that 'top fans' can also be your worst enemies.

Earlier this week we posted a few Scots-related memes following John McDonnell's disgraceful capitulation to the SNP over IndyRef2.  A number of comments were posted that were not directed against the SNP, but were anti-Scottish in nature.  Two of these were posted by users listed as 'top fans'.  One Scottish follower was understandably aghast at the abuse and needed reassuring that our page was unionist in nature, which of course it is.  This kind of vitriol really ought not to be levelled at fellow British patriots and is totally unacceptable.  We don't ban many people, apart from the odd troll, but if this happens again then 'top fan' or not you will be binned.

Speaking of trolls...

Flicking through the comments earlier today Karl noticed that someone was provoking a reaction on the Corbyn bike meme.  Lo and behold this troll was also listed as a 'top fan'.  The comment made by Glen Brown was removed and on examination her page was found to contain links to Momentum, Labour MPs, councillors, various left-wing and Remain pages, plus an unashamedly communist page.  As she is listed as a 'top fan' Glennis obviously spends a lot of time on our page, which is quite sad really, but that's up to her.  It is a little worrying that we haven't spotted her before, so if you see someone up to no good on the page, someone who is clearly there to provoke a reaction or someone who is directing abuse, please drop us a message and tell us who it is and on what post they've been causing trouble.  We'll look into it.

There was a time (the first 2-3 years) when we never banned anyone from the page as we were of the opinion that trolls were sad losers who were only wasting their own time (which of course they are).  'Do not feed the trolls' was a doctrine we encouraged, but naturally there will always be people who bite.  When the page began to grow and we attracted more attention from the left they began to report us to the Facebook police.  This did cause minor setbacks over the last couple of years, but we are now banning trolls on sight.  Your help in this matter is very much appreciated.

"Zebedee Wright" was one of the first trolls we ever banned, look at the state of it

Another good looking troll, by the name of Ben Smith-Davies