What is Flame Spam? What is Flamming?                                                                                             back

Flame Spam is that which occurs when one individual or entity deliberately violates the rights of another using a Website, Webmedia, Webnews and/or eMailings, in a way that is meant to cause them harm, whether by violating the victim's privacy, electronic privacy, legal or civil rights, or destroying their reputation, maligning them, discrediting them, depriving them of economic advantage and so forth.  When the behavior rises above the normally accepted standards of Internet behavior, e.g.- leaps beyond what is acceptable conduct, it is deemed "Flame Spam", or "FLAM" for short.  Various levels and degrees of FLAM take place on the Web.  No matter what degree of FLAM, FLAMMERS all appear to have one thing in common: the desire to cause damage to another's reputation using the improper content they've found means to publish.

Definition of the term: Historically, the term Spam has been used to depict all forms of unsolicited email.  In the case of Flame Spamming, the word Spam was expanded to mean all unsolicited commentary about a business or individual whether found on a website, in email, news items, chat content and other web media and print media forms.  Historically, the term Flame has been used to describe a continuing effort to "burn someone" using "poison pen" emails. In the case of Flame Spamming, the word Flame is meant to refer as using the unsolicited commentary to "burn some person or business" using "poison pen" content on websites, in emails, news items chat content and other web media forms.

Together, the two words refer to a deliberate or intentional effort to harass and "burn some person or business" using unsolicited commentary in content found on a website, in email, news items, chat content and/or other web media or print media forms.

Forms of FLAM:  Flam can take shape by any of the following methods: (1) inappropriate website content, (2) abusive emailing directly or by an electronic mailing list, (3)usenet posting, (4) news release or news group posting, (5) message posted to an electronic bulletin board, (6) chat room conversation, (7) print or electronic press article, (8) general email and/or other medium (print or electronic). 

Rather than referring to a single disputed statement, Flame Spam refers to a continuing "deliberate effort" to publish information about someone that is deliberately inflammatory, defamatory, deceptive, slanderous, inaccurate and / or otherwise abusive of them, their reputation and/or their rights, and otherwise intends to cause them harm by falsification of information in any manner, including omission and deception, and/or by contrivance of information that is misleading, misrepresentative or otherwise inaccurate for the purposes of casting a negative inference upon the victim. Flame Spam campaigns (Flam Campaigns) could range from a single content page to an entire series of different kinds of information publication.

Flam Campaigns come in three varieties, generally speaking: a) Commercial Flam; (b) Criminal Flam; and (c) Political Flam.  Commercial Flam can take the form of "anti-competition", business conspiracy or just general practice of the business in question.  Criminal Flam is that which is undertaken by an individual or business that includes some aspect of criminality, such as Hate or Bias Speech, Extortion, or actual theft.  To the extent Commercial Flam includes one of the attributes of Criminal Flam, or vice versa, it can be both.  Lastly, Political Flam falls into "intranational", "international", "anti-competitive" or "directed". 

International Political Flam gives rise when one national interest deliberately FLAMs another  for religious, business, criminal or other political reasons.  Intranational gives rise for the same reasons or for the purposes of winning an election or deposing an opponent.  Anti-competitive Political Flam generally gives rise in the case of an incumbent political figure using FLAM to quash a competing political interest's campaign hopes, and Directed Political Flam generally takes place when, in any of the three prior cases, a third party stands behind the scenes and directs the participants to flam a victim.

Flame Spamming may not necessarily be restricted to original publication of such "flames".  It may also include conspiracy by any third party to mirror, host, co-locate, provide haven to, falsely confirm, participate in, spread or republish the same information, despite likely knowing that the information was intended to cause damage to the victim. In that case, the third party may be subject to identification on the FSORG LIST, particularly if they have been noticed.  We send notices to some public organizations if they carry FLAME SPAM content that has been identified by an alleged victim, to inform them of the FLAME SPAM content and to give them chance to research it, respond to us and, if appropriate, take it down.  We rely solely upon the representations sent us by the party requesting addition of the original source URL, and do identify that fact to any party we notice, so they and the originator do not engage in legal action against FSORG. 

Included in alleged Flame Spam are instances where press or media publishers deliberately spread inflammatory, defamatory, slanderous and / or other abusive information about persons or entities that was intended to damage that party.  We do not omit any organization identified to us as a "CARRIER" when sending out notices. Certain factors worsen the criticality of Flame Spam, among which are: HATE and BIAS content, deliberate misinformation, misquoting, and criminal threats and threatened assaults (which may include publishing modified pornographic images, using information to engage in theft, engaging in extortion in connection with Flame Spam, impersonation electronically and so forth).

The worst forms of FLAM are committed by organizations designated "Sponsor of Hate", and any who on our list bear the terms "Armed and Dangerous", as certain international Terrorist organizations use the web and engage in FLAM campaigns against their perceived enemies.  All Sponsors of Hate FLAMMERS and Armed and Dangerous FLAMMERS should be considered extremely dangerous and contact with them directly avoided at all cost.