Editing Serdar Argic

{{Short description|Turkish spammer and Armenian Genocide denier}}
'''Serdar Argic''' ({{langx|tr|Serdar Argıç}}) was the alias used in one of the first automated [[newsgroup spam]] incidents on [[Usenet]], with the objective of [[Armenian genocide denial|denying the Armenian genocide]].

==Usenet posts==
For a period of several months in the first half of 1994, the Internet user under the pseudonym of "Serdar Argic" (with "sera" Usenet ID) posted messages in any Usenet [[newsgroup]] thread involving the country of [[Turkey]], arguing that the [[Armenian genocide]] had not occurred or that [[Armenians]] had committed [[genocide]] against Turks. Describing him in ''[[Net.wars]]'', [[Wendy Grossman]] said:

<blockquote>Serdar Argic, who apparently managed to run a daily search on all of Usenet for mentions of Turkey, and followed up all such messages with lengthy and historically inaccurate diatribes about genocide against the Turks.<ref>Wendy Grossman, ''[[Net.Wars]]'', NYU Press, 1997, chapter 11 [http://www.nyupress.org/netwars/pages/chapter11/ch11_03.html (a)], [http://www.nyupress.org/netwars/pages/chapter11/ch11_04.html (b)]</ref></blockquote>

Argic's postings soon numbered in the tens of thousands, and averaged over 100 posts per day,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://imperium.lenin.ru/~verbit/scs/Mutlu_whatis.html |title=Hasan B-) Mutlu |publisher=Imperium.lenin.ru |date= |accessdate=2008-09-04}}</ref> the highest post count of any single Usenet entity at the time. He posted to several newsgroups, especially soc.history, soc.culture.Turkish, and misc.headlines. Because of the posting volume, repetitiveness and minimal responsiveness to follow-up posts, most observers concluded that it was the output of a program, or "[[Internet bot|bot]]", which scanned for any new appearances of the keywords "Turkey" or "Armenia" in certain newsgroups and replied with saved pages of political text.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jaedworks.com/shoebox/serdar-eye.html |title=Serdar Argic in Eye Weekly |publisher=Jaedworks.com |date= |accessdate=2008-09-04}}</ref> The bot would automatically post a reply even if the original message had simply mentioned a [[Thanksgiving turkey]] but was cross-posted to a soc.* group. The posts sometimes contained direct responses to specific statements, indicating some human intervention.

===Response===
Internet users sent complaints to [[UUNET]], the Internet service provider hosting the account of Serdar Argic. UUNET never took any action based on the complaints, since  Serdar Argic was posting from a host downstream from the host they fed (anatolia!zuma) over which they had no control. Serdar Argic became known as the '''Zumabot''' due to the name of his host.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jaedworks.com/shoebox/zumabot.html |title=The Zumabot's Tale |publisher=Jaedworks.com |date= |accessdate=2008-09-04}}</ref>

Usenet messages can be cancelled, which prevents their further propagation.  However, at the time, there was a fear of the free use of third-party cancellations, as it was felt they could set a precedent for the cancellation of posts by anyone simply disagreeing with the messages. Cancellations were rarely performed at the time, because spam was not the problem it became in subsequent years.

The Serdar Argic posts stopped in April 1994, after UUNET cancelled the subscription of anatolia.

==Popular culture==
[[Ken MacLeod]] referred to Argic in his novel ''[[The Star Fraction]]'' as a [[slang]] term for "the lowest layer of paranoid drivel that infested the Cable, spun out by degenerate, bug-ridden, knee-jerk auto-post programs. [[Kill file|Kill-file]] clutter." In his novel ''[[Accelerando (book)|Accelerando]]'', [[Charles Stross]] describes one character as "a kind of Serdar Argic of intellectual property."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.accelerando.org/_static/accelerando.html |title=Accelerando |publisher=Accelerando.org |author=Charles Stross |date= |accessdate=2008-09-04 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20080519054317/http://www.accelerando.org/_static/accelerando.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate = 2008-05-19}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of spammers]]

==References==
<references />

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Argic, Serdar}}
[[Category:Usenet spammers]]
[[Category:Deniers of the Armenian genocide]]
[[Category:1990s in Internet culture]]