Because of them Jean Messiha and Marlène Schiappa had to pass their Twitter accounts in private. Pierre Ménès, for his part, received more than 25,000 messages in one evening. For a big week, the Pessi, an eccentric community of Internet users specializing in digital raids, have been shaking Twitter. A common phenomenon on the internet, decrypts Laura Gabrielle Goudet, lecturer at the University of Rouen and expert in digital discourse.
Where do digital raids come from?
It is difficult to identify a precise origin, but the Pessi inherit the history of digital raids from the Internet. Before 4chan, we can cite, in the 2000s, the Something Awful site. Its members were organizing themselves to massively connect to websites and have them shut down. In France, we heard about the 18-25 forum on jeuvideo.com, in 2017, or Gamergate in 2014 [ndlr : équivalent du MeToo du monde du gaming]… In general, these raids take place on targeted websites, or on Facebook and Twitter. But, more recently, we have seen “positive” raids on Twitch: streamers encouraged their audience to go to the account of another, less known, to raise their profile.
Who is participating in this kind of assault and why?
The typical profile of a troll is male, very young, in his early twenties. Communities organizing raids do not always form to defend common ideas. What counts, above all, is the fun side and the connivance. Finding yourself together, in a community, being able to do a group action … In the case of the Pessi, we see that this community spirit is very present, with the use of common terms like “goat” [ndlr : The Greatest of All Time], “Be worthy”, or the use of memes.
So it is difficult for the Pessi to speak of “digital activism”?
What emerges from their action, it is rather a malaise, a fed up. The idea is to finally be able to do justice yourself, because we are disappointed by politics, we are disappointed by people in whom we trusted and who find themselves accused of sexual assault like Pierre Ménès. . Marlène Schiappa, Jean Messiha were also targeted by the Pessi and crystallize, in a way, this disappointment. It is the tribunal of the plebs!
The Pessi have a golden rule never to insult. Does that make their raids less serious?
No. To tell the truth, I am even worried about these “benevolent raids” that some Pessi lead to help Internet users. When you receive fifty messages from strangers, there is an effect of astonishment. So whoever takes 4,000 messages can have even more serious consequences. Imagine in real life receiving 4,000 letters in your mailbox! Even if there are no insults, in the raids, the number is frightening.
From a legal point of view, raids are prohibited. Are they really being punished in practice?
It is complicated. The first reason is the difficulty in finding the person behind the anonymous account. When we know this difficulty, deploying a whole search system to find an Internet user who has made a tweet among a burst of 20,000, it seems delicate.
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