concern troll

• concern-troll

concern troll (plural concern trolls)

1. (Internet slang) Someone who posts to an internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming "concern" about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group's credibility, or alternatively to give up on group projects entirely.

concern troll (third-person singular simple present concern trolls, present participle concern trolling, simple past and past participle concern trolled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To troll as a concern troll would.
   • 2015, Max Longley, For the Union and the Catholic Church: Four Converts in the Civil War

     Foremost among the critical governments were the expansionist northern Italian kingdom of Piedmont, which had territorial designs on the papal domains, and Piedmont's ally Great Britain, whose policy was to concern-troll for alleged papal misgovernment in order to delegitimize Pius's rule.

• "From the diaries. More cute concern trolls by Republican campaign workers -- kos"
• "Making Mischief on the Web, Time Magazine, Dec. 16, 2006 Definition of concern troll published in mainstream media.