No, no, no, says Richard A. Luthmann, a lawyer who practices politics on Staten Island with a blunt-edged hatchet.

It is not trolling, Mr. Luthmann said, to set up phony Facebook pages to embarrass candidates — such as one in which a Republican Assembly candidate in a conservative district calls for more housing projects, or another, in which a liberal Democrat City Council member “welcomes” a welfare hotel for drug addicts and criminals.

While Mr. Luthmann neither denies nor admits creating the pages, he insists that there would be absolutely nothing unusual if he had.

Moreover, he said, trolling is the wrong term for such tactics.

“It’s what is called a dirty trick,” Mr. Luthmann said, who misappropriated a term from Plato to deem Facebook spoofing a form of “noble lie.”