
Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say - smacktoward
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/guys-its-time-for-some-troll-theory/521046/?single_page=true
======
pdeuchler
The internet is as it always was, the only difference is more people, and more
importantly more people without technological prowess and forum/bbs/irc
experience, are accessing it and moving increasingly larger chunks of their
life to the internet.

As someone who fell in love with the internet when I was young because _nobody
knew I was young_ , it constantly surprises me when people put intimate
details online and then become outraged that they are targeted or harassed.
The internet didn't magically make everyone equal, it made everyone equally
anonymous (to at least their fellow users, privacy down the stack
notwithstanding)... that's why it was/seemed like an egalitarian paradise.
Everyone was equal, _including the trolls_ , because nobody knew who you were.
Is it that surprising that once people started telling others who they truly
were discrimination, harassment, and invective started showing up again? The
internet doesn't magically make social, political, religious, and ideological
rifts magically disappear, it just seemed like it did because nobody could
associate users with their backgrounds. Now that we know who everyone is, the
internet just makes you encounter more of these rifts due to it's global
nature.

But when your first experience with the internet is twitter, facebook, or any
other social media this lesson is not only dismissed, but outright refuted.
The internet is synonymous with identity to those people. They come completely
unprepared and completely open, expecting the internet of the 90's. Obviously
things are going to go sideways.

In my ever so humble opinion this is the disconnect that is causing a lot of
fervor around "trolls" and "harassment". Those that have been battle hardened
by the early internet saw how to treat trolls: you ignore them ("don't feed
the trolls") because they didn't actually have any ammo. We've given them ammo
now, so here are the consequences.

~~~
noobermin
The majority of people who say "don't feed the trolls" have never been the
focus of a trolling campaign, I've found. It is easy to claim this when you
aren't under constant violent harassment and scrutiny. It is not fair to
expect everyone else to have a "battle-hardened" stoicism when you've probably
never experienced such a life.

I've never experienced such harassment myself and used to sing the "ignore"
mantra too, until I tried to imagine myself in the shoes of those who receive
frequent harassment, and I'm not sure I would be able to ignore at the same
level they are expected to.

Also, I'm not sure you are arguing whether a cause of the issue is identity
being coupled to your internet presence, but I'm not sure we can go back to
the internet of the early 2000's or late 90's, so we need to deal with the
world as it exists now instead of thinking appeal to tradition will solve
issues we have today.

~~~
bandushrew
I have multiple internet presence's.

My "real" presence is empty of anything except professional presence.
LinkedIn, github etc etc. My "real" presence never engages, never debates and
is effectively not there except when it engages with the real world via
resumes etc.

My actual presence is scattered across the internet in multiple pseudonymous
social networks and eagerly discusses topics I am passionate about.

It occasionally attracts harassment etc, but I dont care cause they cannot
reach out into my real life and actually harm me.

~~~
jackvalentine
I don't say this to troll you but googling your HN name reveals more than
enough to know your real name, where you live and start linking it all to
other non-programming hobbies (piano!).

~~~
mirimir
Yes, that can be problematic. But hey, maybe it's misdirection ;)

Who do you think Mirimir is?

~~~
jackvalentine
I'm sorry but I'm not here to check your opsec for you.

------
pervycreeper
If we define "troll" as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly
aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content, then the
entire class of authors of the genre of news article decrying trolling and
harassment are themselves trolls.

>Of course, this is already happening, just out of sight of most of us

Why would they consider that to be such a big problem, if it's not bothering
those who are wont to be bothered? The true motivation for these comments is
clear, but remains unsaid: what "trolls" are posting is outside the control of
these would-be authorities.

The technology community must pick between enabling universal surveillance and
censorship, or protecting the privacy of the vulnerable, including those who
hold minority opinions and express themselves in ways that could be deemed
"unpleasant".

~~~
Goronmon
_If we define "troll" as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly
aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content, then the
entire class of authors of the genre of news article decrying trolling and
harassment are themselves trolls._

Isn't that a bit of a tautology? "If I expand the definition of the word
'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling' then authors who decry trolling
become 'trolls' themselves."

It's not an exceedingly convincing statement to me personally.

Though you've used one of the adjectives I think best describes the nature of
'trolling' and that's "bad faith". Personally, I feel the most useful
definition of 'troll' is someone who argues/antagonizes/insults others not
because they are trying to make a point or start a conversation, but merely to
provoke a negative response.

~~~
coldtea
> _Isn 't that a bit of a tautology? "If I expand the definition of the word
> 'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling' then authors who decry
> trolling become 'trolls' themselves."_

No, it's not tautological.

The parent doesn't propose to "expand the definition of the word 'troll' to
include 'authors decrying trolling'". He proposes defining trolls as "as
anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting,
false, or otherwise unproductive content".

Which is as (or close) to how it has always been defined, and how the authors
of TFA use it.

So what the parent suggests is not some "expansion of the definition of
trolling", much less one to include "those who complain about trolling", and
in no sense a tautology.

~~~
Goronmon
_The parent doesn 't propose to "expand the definition of the word 'troll' to
include 'authors decrying trolling'". He proposes defining trolls as "as
anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting,
false, or otherwise unproductive content"._

If you assume that the word troll does _not_ mean "anyone who posts
inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise
unproductive content" then someone claiming it does is pretty clearly
expanding the definition of the word.

 _Which is as (or close) to how it has always been defined, and how the
authors of TFA use it._

I actually disagree with both of these assertions. Sometimes people expand the
word troll to encompass too large a group, but that doesn't necessarily change
the definition and I definitely don't see how the article uses it in that
manner.

Though, I can definitely understand the desire to expand the definition of the
word 'troll' into usefulness. It does make it easier to dismiss other's
complaints.

~~~
weberc2
> If you assume that the word troll does not mean "anyone who posts
> inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting, false, or
> otherwise unproductive content" then someone claiming it does is pretty
> clearly expanding the definition of the word.

I don't think the OP is advocating for any particular definition, but pointing
out that the authors of these articles seem to be using a definition of
"troll" (whether or not it's expanded is irrelevant) which would encompass
said authors.

------
jknoepfler
I don't understand this article at all. I participate in two large
professional forums (one for poker, one for development). The professionals
are winning the internet there. There are dedicated subforums for trolls and
random bs, which are pretty funny sometimes, but serve as an outlet for the
garbage.

I browse hacker news... It is what it is, I'm happy with it as a content
sharing platform. My biggest gripe is the obvious advertorial/astroturfing
that I think is probably something hn offers as a service, but I'm not stupid,
so I ignore it.

I get news through economist.com and npr.org and scattered other sources. I
don't feel overwhelmed by trolls, except when I read yet another fucking
headline about gluten.

My social media is so boring and predictable I'll probably delete it all
shortly. I've never had a problem there, but I respect that some people do.

I shop on the internet frequently. I get trolled by counterfeit goods
sometimes! Also by fake reviews, but that's what professional forums are for
in the post cluetrain world.

I get scholarly articles on the internet every other day as part of a
professional masters program. Sometimes open comments on academic articles
read like troll fests, but not really.

I participate in open source on github, that's not being trolled to death
(Although big os project maintainers may disagree).

And on and on... The internet (as I know it) isn't being won by trolls at all.
So what is the article actually about? Twitter? Comments on news sites (lol)?
The pessimistic attitudes of "technologists"?

~~~
aantix
Oh man, have you ever tried to have a political discussion on Facebook? Even
citing sources, trying to be diligent... And then, the only response you get
is... "that's not right!". And that response is somehow given equal weighting?

I actually wish Facebook, the place where a majority of Internet discussion
probably occurs, WOULD institute a dislike button and suppress those comments
that get down voted too much (like Hackers News or Reddit).

Right now, it's either a "thumbs up" or a neutral stance, and that's just not
enough to accurately describe the level of discourse occurring.

~~~
astrodust
The problem with services like Facebook is they give everyone equal footing on
any topic no matter the person's expertise on the subject, their relationship
to the matter at hand, or their overall attitude towards discussions in
general.

This means a black person who's been repeatedly victimized by police has no
more credibility than some white dude who thinks everyone's making it up and
it's a bunch of cry-babies going on about nothing.

It means a cryptography expert can get shouted down by some idiot that's just
parroting something they read on CNN that's dangerously misinformed.

There's a lot of factors in play here but the "like" button skews the
conversations towards things that earn votes which are not necessarily things
that are true, accurate, or meaningful.

Sometimes the truth is ugly and painful and that's hard to like.

------
steauengeglase
Really it all boils down to a lack of community. Yeah I know, it sounds like
something the dad from Leave it to Beaver would say.

My favorite example goes back to the days of Quake(World). It was a
surprisingly bright and sunny place. You'd pop on to a few community run
servers to say "hi". Maybe play a few rounds of whatever mod you were into.

When bad actors showed up, they were punted. If they came back they were
literally gunned down (whoever had admin access would put them on a team by
themselves and everyone would finish them off). As a result of having access
to self-policing the number of bad actors were generally low in a healthy
community.

As time wore on the goal became customer retention. I can remember publishers
selling this as "curated team building" around the time the first X-Box came
out. It all went downhill from there. You weren't a member of a community
anymore, you were a license holder and a subscriber, and soon the very concept
of community largely dissolved.

A likely "better" internet isn't a world of several thousand descending on a
single comment thread. It's a hundred at most aimed at the goal of useful
interaction. The internet as it stands doesn't need more pan-continental
megalopolises, it needs neighborhoods of people seeking common interaction.

~~~
anant90
Hey steauengeglase!

>> A likely "better" internet isn't a world of several thousand descending on
a single comment thread.

I cannot agree with you more! We have been thinking about this problem for a
while, and recently started
[https://www.commonlounge.com/](https://www.commonlounge.com/) because we
genuinely believe a community-based approach is the right way to win the
battle against trolls.

Most people don't realize how much care a community moderator needs to put in
a community to keep it a healthy place, and building tools to make their job
easier usually takes a back seat at most "community platforms".

------
syphilis2
I don't like the loose language used in this article and others that uses
"trolling" as a catch-all for online harassment, violence, privacy violations,
and more. It's misleading and gets people riled up as they talk past each
other. Conflating 'baiting someone into looking stupid online' with 'sending
threats to their family members' muddles the conversation. Worse, it erodes
the meaning of the term. I'd call it cultural appropriation but that'd be too
obvious.

~~~
wott
Unfortunately (because I agree with you), that's the common meaning of the
word nowadays. I guess we have to deal with it, and speak of _oldschool troll_
for the original meaning from now on.

------
wvenable
The real problem is that bytes are effectively free. Here I am, using up your
bytes right now. Using up the bytes on Hacker news. The only limit is my own
time, effort, and energy.

You think this means that we're all equal; we all have equal access to sharing
bytes. But the problem is that trolls have infinite time and energy to post
bytes. They have significantly more power and influence than you do because of
that simple fact. Trolls could, if they wanted, completely bring down hacker
news with just endless content and it would be near impossible to stop.

I've had to deal with real determined trolls on some of my own sites that
simply have infinite time to post, to write code to post, to obfuscate
themselves -- a single troll can shout out dozens to hundreds of other people.
This is why the trolls are winning.

~~~
kordless
It is an irrational belief that trolls have infinite time and energy. This is,
in fact, the very idea of irrationality, who's concept indicates additional
work must be done to determine outcome of choice, either by individual or by
group. Note that I did not disagree with your assertions here, but simply seek
to restate them in slightly different terms so they may be visualized by
others more effectively.

Trolls may encapsulate irrational ideas, which may be visualized as memes,
inside multiple illogical statements which may be designed to directly
conflict with each other's truths. Evaluating one of these statements as a
"truth" may cause the other statement to evaluate to false. Trolls may utilize
statements in which evaluation of truth is not desirable to the entity
visualizing the truth. Any attempt by the recipient to evaluate truth or non-
truth of these statements may lead to additional work being conducted to
achieve a desirable outcome, such as "winning an argument".

Additionally, these "double bind" memes, or internal visualizations, may
effectively spread the irrationality to other actors if they are constructed
correctly. These viral memes take root and spread when the new irrational
actor posts more irrationality in the form of similar or modified logic
patterns.

This process, manifests as a viral meme (or what I hypothesize as an entity):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)

Trolls remove choice from individuals and groups by causing the individual and
groups to work against each other. The only way to prevent this is to educate
people on the concept of double bind statements, their use in removing choice
for others, and the possibility that these concepts may spread virally, on
their own accord, in a population which may or may not be conscious.

My primary suggestion for combat trolls in a quick and easy way is to simply
not visualize removal of choice for another in your own internal frame. In
other words, visualize choice for yourself in the future if you must, but
avoid visualizing the actions of others! Stating your refusal to be illogical,
or irrational, is usually enough to send the trolls scurrying away.

Note: A double bind and a double _BLIND_ are two different concepts. Double
_binding_ someone has been likened to "crazy making" due to its effect of
blocking decision making processes from occurring in a given entity:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind)

~~~
wvenable
> It is an irrational belief that trolls have infinite time and energy.

Infinite is certainly a hyperbole; but trolls typically have more time and
energy to devote to destruction than you do. I have experienced it. Some
trolls are mentally ill -- I have had to deal with that as well.

I honestly don't know what else you're trying to say here but you did use a
lot of bytes to do it.

~~~
kordless
It's what I call rational irrationality. ;)

------
kebman
That fact is, there are no more trolls than before. No really. There aren't.
Not even since the time of Socrates, and we all know what happened to him.

There are however a lot of people who'd like to silence pesky individuals and
organizations who have recently started winning even more pesky debates, such
as all those anti-establishment rednecks, patriots, anti-immigrationitsts and
right wingers who got Trump into power.

Can't have that. Must put pressure on Google and Facebook to censor (wait, I'm
trying to come up with something suitable - hm... Yes, let's call it...) "hate
speech" and "fake news". Yeah, that's it!

Now we have the means to shut them up once and for all. Let's softly censor
all people saying bad words on YouTube with things like (hm find new ideas
here) demonetization and restricted mode, and let's cow these people once and
for all so our narrative can win. Meanwhile let's use our corporate power for,
let's say on behalf of the people, to put pressure on the governments to back
down on the things that they were voted in for in the first place.

There's only one problem. When you make peaceful dissent impossible, you make
violent opposition inevitable. Not my words. JFK's. We absolutely must have
democracy and freedom of speech. One doesn't work without the other. If you
can't win an argument, then accept it and move on. Or try to find another
angle. Limiting free speech to win debates is not the answer.

~~~
fao_
> We absolutely must have democracy and freedom of speech.

You're conflating "Freedom of speech" with "The right to be listened to" and
"The right to have a platform". The government isn't going to hunt these
people down because they have expressed Foo views, nor is, for example,
Google. Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. as _private companies_ are allowed to
decide what they do and do not want on their platform (Excluding certain
illegal materials, of course). When they do this, they are not violating the
freedom of speech of the individuals whose views they remove.

EDIT: "anti-establishment rednecks, patriots, anti-immigrationitsts and right
wingers who got Trump into power."

Would you really call those people anti-establishment? They voted _in favour_
of the corruption of the political system and the succumbing of the tattered
remains of it to the forces of lobbying and large businesses. That certainly
doesn't sound "anti-establishment" to me. Usually the term "anti-
establishment" is used to refer to people who are _opposed_ to large
corporations, rather than the demographic who _voted the CEO of several of
them into office_.

~~~
empressplay
There's an inherent contradiction in the arguments here.

You can't on the one hand say "people have the right to use Twitter free of
harassment" because it's ubiquitous, but then on the other hand say Twitter
has the right to censor or ban people whose views it as a company doesn't
like. These are contrary positions.

Either Twitter is a "common carrier" and thus has the responsibility to ensure
its users have a common standard of experience and ability to access
regardless of their political views, or it's not and thus it can both censor
users _and_ not respond to their specific concerns because nobody has an
inherent right to access it.

You need to choose one of those two.

~~~
duckMuppet
That's wrong though. Even if Twitter were common carrier, the rules of
experience and ability to access is still open to rules and interpretation.
Under common carrier, some content can be and is censored for certain groups
of individuals.

Common carrier also specifically lists certain communications as being
prohibited, namely, that which obscene, intent to abuse, threaten, or harass
another person.

At that point, it becomes the interpretation of what is harassment? Is it
being swatted or stalked, or as it seems to be the trend that now, language or
the crime of non similar thought can be considered harassment.

------
bingomad123
When you define anyone who does not agree with you as a Troll that phrase kind
of gets meaningless.

I meet regularly main stream journalists who complain about Trolls winning on
internet but talking longer makes me realize that these people actually hate
the fact that their "card carrying journalism" is actually made totally
worthless by ordinary individuals on street writing a blog from their bedroom.

I am from India and I know specific examples of media personalities trying to
shut down totally legitimate blogs by calling them "trolls". Example:
[http://mediacrooks.com/](http://mediacrooks.com/) Bunch of them even came to
silicon valley and tried to lobby with social media giants that _their
opinion_ must get more visibility than other internet user.

Personally I dont think bad guys are winning, I think Internet has truly
helped marginalized people express themselves without being judgemental about
their opinions and without giving more importance to any authority.

~~~
baobabKoodaa
Troll used to mean someone who just tries to provoke reactions online.
Nowadays almost every time I hear the word, it's actually used to describe a
person who expresses an unpopular opinion. It's an easy way to ignore
criticism and disagreement: anyone who disagrees with you is just a troll.

------
ivanhoe
No, Internet was always like this (even worse), just there was much less
people on it, and expectations were different. Back in the days of USENET
there was a lot of quite unpleasant people you'd run into occasionally, but
we've seen it as a part of the scene. Like going on a punk concert and someone
spills a beer on you or a fight breaks out. It's not nice experience, but it's
the part of the show, partially it's what makes it what it is. In my view it's
not trolls who are destroying the Internet, but those who are trying to
regulate every single aspect of it, instead of teaching people to more self
respect and defiance as a way to deal with assholes. And author is right about
that one, it will turn all human interaction into a superficial social
equivalent of Potemkin villages where we'll be afraid to speak up without 2
pages of legal disclaimers first.

~~~
sp332
It's not true that nothing has changed. Facebook and Twitter will show you
posts that they think you're likely to interact with, and hide other stories.
That didn't happen on Usenet. Those services will also recommend that you
follow/friend other users with similar interests, which automatically builds
up mobs. That's not how the Internet used to work.

~~~
houst0n_
Right but if people are never going to click on stories they're not interested
in then does it really matter? Can we really blame increasing silo-mind on
certain demographics not seeing links that they demonstratively wouldn't have
opened anyway?

~~~
sp332
Yes, I would say that just browsing a table of contents gives you an idea of
what's being talked about and what's getting the most attention, even if you
never click through anything. And I don't think the algorithms are that good.
It's probably just sorting people into a few discrete buckets.

------
Mendenhall
What I see is some people dont like foolish words on a screen so they want to
clamp down on open discourse to control dialogue because in their opinion its
fruitless or mean or whatever they feel.

Some silly troll spamming idiotic statements is not nearly the threat that
controlling dialogue on the net and deciding what is trolling and what isnt.

Socrates would be labeled a troll these days if he was on social media.

~~~
geofft
My screen is of a fixed size; my days are of a fixed length. If you want to
put foolish words on _your_ screen more power to you, but if they're on my
screen or taking my time, that impedes me doing whatever I want to do with my
screen or my time.

That is, the more dialogue that I'm uninterested in that I lack tools to
filter, the more _my_ dialogue is being controlled by DoS. That is the
fundamental paradox of open discourse; I don't know what the right answer is,
but naive open discourse isn't it.

~~~
rjbwork
So your solution is to be given tools to enforce your cognitive bias
reinforcing filter bubble? That's not a solution, that's a technology provided
lobotomy.

A dialogue takes two - if you don't like the dialogue taking place, instead of
attempting to quiet the other voices, perhaps just remove yourself from the
dialogue.

~~~
st3v3r
That's what they're trying to do.

But I'm getting really, really, really tired of people conflating the "other
side" stuff with the trolling stuff. Look at all the stuff sent to Leslie
Jones last summer. Do you honestly think that was meant to be a dialog? Of
course not. That was trolling. That was harassment. And that is what people
are trying to filter out.

~~~
Mendenhall
If i say "leslie jones sucks" am I trolling or do I think she actually sucks
at her job. If a million people one after another go on leslie jones profile
and say "leslie is a horrible actress" is that trolling ? harrassment ?

If someone says "Trump sucks" should they be filtered out ?

Do I think its a dialogue, heck no. Do I think it should be filtered, double
heck no.

~~~
st3v3r
No. I am rejecting your reply. Go back and look at what happened to Leslie
Jones, then try again. This is not simply "Leslie Jones Sucks".

~~~
Mendenhall
You are conflating. I simply asked a question. I did not say that is what
happened to Leslie. I do notice you avoid the question like the other who
responded. That to me is very telling.

~~~
dang
It looks like your account is teetering on the edge of using HN primarily to
argue about politics and ideology. That's not what this site is for, and we
ban accounts that use it this way—we have to, in order to preserve the
intended use of the site, which is stories and conversation that gratify
intellectual curiosity.

~~~
Mendenhall
Hmm this kind of surprises me, but do what you feel is best. I am not attached
to ideology or politics.

The post you responded to was me wanting to find out where respondees would
want to draw the line on what is harrassment and what is open discourse
online. I think this is extremely on topic, relevent and devoid of ideology.

As far as arguing I dont see it in my posts. I usually make one comment then
read responses. I will take your warning to heart but I dont really see my
post style changing.

~~~
dang
When I look at your account history, it's mostly civil, but it does look like
you're (bordering on) commenting primarily on political issues. The key word
here is 'primarily': that's our present criterion for whether the site is
being abused or used as intended. I realize the reason for that takes some
explaining, so let me try again.

HN is for stories and conversations that gratify intellectual curiosity
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).
That implies a wide range of things that are interesting just because they're
interesting. We want people to comment here because their "oh!" circuitry gets
activated—not their "burning issue" circuitry. (I'm using that word
metaphorically.) It's not primarily a question of the topics since these
things overlap, but of the spirit of the discussion.

------
primitivesuave
I stopped reading after the third paragraph when I realized the entire basis
for this article is a survey given to 1500 "technologists" with a loaded
question that basically equates to "is trolling getting better or worse?".
First of all, not everyone who could be described as a "technologist" is
qualified to answer that question, and people are naturally biased to say
things are getting worse. I have seen non-opinionated ways to research
trolling, e.g. at a hackathon I saw a couple high schoolers use IBM Watson's
sentiment analysis API with Twitter feeds.

In a sense this article is just a more educated form of trolling - someone
with an opinion grasps at fallacies and bad statistics to back it up, and uses
the Internet to disseminate it.

~~~
generic_user
I think online journalism as a whole has turned into a form of trolling.

Or maybe we are in a post Journalist world now.

The value of a story is based on how many clicks it gets. Thats what makes
these sites money. It does not matter if you click because the story makes you
angry or you think its insulting just so long as you click and you get the
advertising. And as far as standards go there are none. Just make up some
stuff that riles people and come up with a click bait headline and on to the
next story.

~~~
houst0n_
I think that depends on your sources. TheIntercept doesn't fit into that
bracket to me. Bias? Maybe, but bias isn't a problem if you read a diverse set
of sources. Bias isn't a problem, opinion isn't a problem; reading one source
and complaining its 'fake news' because it's bias isn't the same as yours is.

~~~
generic_user
I agree that there is still a spectrum of quality. And certain Journalists and
publications can still establish a reputation for reliability and quality.

But the problem is the business model. No one has been able to come up with a
solution to make money on quality. Its all volume advertising. NYT is
competing with BuzzFeed for eyeballs. Its a competition to come up with the
most clever hook and target peoples emotions to drive traffic.

In the print days there was a small number of publications and it was very
expensive to start one. The more serious publications published monthly. Its
totally different now.

Think about that up until just a few years ago serious Journalists had to
produce about one piece a month and they had supporting staff and a budget.

There is very little now that comes close to the quality and analysis that
there use to be.

~~~
houst0n_
I'm not so sure print is dead yet :)

I read the FT weekend, private eye, and sometimes monocle as my fill of
physical periodicals but I think throwing all journalism into the same box as
your avg daily mail/buzz feed AP copy/paster isn't really accurate. These
aren't journalists they are 'content curators' or whatever the term is these
days.

I'll use some of those sites to see what's happening quickly -- the bullshit
around a story isn't too important when I'm just looking for headlines. things
like 'terrorist attack in paris' are statements everywhere which is about all
can expect from such places; more in depth stuff I go longform and sometime
even podcasts or books written later.

Instead of raging war on stuff that's been going on for years in the press why
don't we just balance out input ourselves instead of playing into this drive
to delegitimise the press, which only seems to benefit the government. We need
a press to hold things accountable since the judiciary and senate have already
been steamrolled.

------
alexkavon
Trolls were always winning the internet. From "RTFM" attitudes to anonymous
user accounts. It's a troll playground. Don't get me wrong the internet was
built to be/can be an incredible tool, but let's not misconstrue this is a new
trend.

EDIT: I find the issue with the candor on the internet is lack of context 90%
of the time.

~~~
the_af
> _From "RTFM" attitudes_

While agree some internet users are a bit too gung-ho with RTFM, I think it's
unfair to lump them with trolls. While veterans can be harsh and unfriendly,
the RTFM response is often warranted (though, again, it could be phrased more
nicely -- and the default assumption should be that the person seeking help is
well-intentioned). Otherwise, many online communities would be completely
overrun by people demanding help with minimum effort on their part.

"RTFM" is not trollish behavior, because trolls have a different goal: to
disrupt communities, start flamewars and generally annoy the hell out of
people. It's not merely being "unfriendly"; in fact some trolls fake
cluelesness instead of anger.

~~~
michaelchisari
I disagree. I think that hand-holding beginners can be one of the best
services a community can provide, and it can go a long way to growing the
community.

That doesn't mean everybody needs to be teacher/mentor/educator. But the
people who don't want to be can also just keep out of the conversation,
instead of rudely pointing to some 300 page manual and telling someone with
passion and interest to screw off.

~~~
the_af
Hmm, RTFM is not aimed at beginners (and note: I do agree with the sibling
comment that the aggressiveness of the response leaves a bad taste. I do agree
pointing to a 300 page manual, without any guidance at all, is unhelpful).

RTFM is aimed at help vampires (recommended reading:
[http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/eoc/help_vampire.htm](http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/eoc/help_vampire.htm)).
Help vampires do not grow a community; they destroy it. These are people you
do not want in your community anyway. Unlike actual beginners, who learn and
then proceed to become valuable contributors (unless of course they are
treated harshly by veterans, in which case they simply leave), help vampires
are never helpful. They ask the same question again and again, don't pay
attention to any cues, don't read anything, and seldom provide context or
follow-ups to their problem. And when you've wasted time with one (more often
than not fruitlessly), the next one comes in. And they are legion. The end
result, like the first article I mentioned claims, is that your community of
well-intentioned volunteers is destroyed. So a polite RTFM is often the best
response: if the person was an actual beginner, they'll read TFM -- and
follow-up questions are often welcome, since they show the asker has actually
made an effort. If not, they'll leave and you haven't wasted any valuable
time.

In fact, help vampires are often indistinguishable from trolls, in that they
have the same community-disrupting effect.

RTFM has always been part of the hacker culture (also see: How To Ask
Questions The Smart Way, [http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-
questions.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)). It has
nothing to do with trolls.

~~~
michaelchisari
Sure, I could see that being a problem, but if the question that the "help
vampire" is asking is a valid one, then you have to remember that all online
conversations have an audience, and that your response is as much to the
audience as it is to the person you're directly responding to.

Even just politely linking a similar question and response is better than
responding with RTFM.

> RTFM has always been part of the hacker culture

That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing, or anything worth keeping.

~~~
the_af
Help vampires do not ask valid questions very often. It's very unlikely a
community will have RTFM as a standard response to valid questions (i.e. those
that provide context and show effort on the part of the asker), with one
exception: when the question has been asked countless times already, and the
asker could have seen it if they had made the minimum effort of reading the
community's FAQ. In which case, RTFM -- or rather, a link to the FAQ -- is the
best response.

> _That doesn 't necessarily make it a good thing, or anything worth keeping._

But it does make it not trollish behavior, which we were discussing. Hacker
culture was not trollish, this was always part of hacker culture, therefore
it's neither new nor trollish behavior.

I think a variation of RTFM, let's call it GentleRTFM, is both worth keeping
and necessary.

~~~
unholythree
>...one exception: when the question has been asked countless times already,
and the asker could have seen it if they had made the minimum effort of
reading the community's FAQ. In which case, RTFM -- or rather, a link to the
FAQ -- is the best response.

This is actually the RTFM-ish situations I hate the most; specifically as
someone searching a forum and finding a thread or threads close to my own
question, only to find the only responses are rudely unhelpful.

I get not answering an insipid post, or a mod locking/deleting one but
replying to a question you find dumb or repetitive is a waste of time to
everyone involved.

Just like "Don't feed the Trolls," I feel one shouldn't raise the post count
of a time sink.

~~~
the_af
I suppose not answering at all is an acceptable solution; a RTFM response does
imply a certain irritation directed at the asker (for not doing their
homework). In the case of help vampires it does nothing more than signalling
irritation to other community regulars, since the clueless undead -- by
definition -- won't RTFM or even know what that means.

Answering with a link to the canonical question doesn't seem rude to me,
however.

------
mybrid
I think the scope of this trolling concern needs to be expanded to include the
latest science on confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

The fake news of Hillary running a child prostitution ring out of a pizza
parlor is an example of where people are creating protected spaces for
confirmation bias online. Such a story is ludicrous. After Trump won the alt-
right created a coded language where common words are substituted for slurs.
It is human nature for birds of a feather to flock together and part of this
includes creating a negative environment to weed out all but the most
dedicated. This human behavior can be found at executive levels at Fortune 500
companies where cussing and swearing not allowed at the employee level
represent barriers for people, most notably women, who don't appreciate the
troll, obnoxious behavior. It is well known that climbing the corporate ladder
requires an ever increasing capacity to put up with caustic trolling behavior.

------
pcmaffey
Trolling is the new spam. Except trolls want your attention, not your money.

People said the same thing about spam. And it's largely been defeated (or
institutionalized, whichever way you want to look at).

We're all still figuring out the dynamics of the attention economy... and I
imagine that as we do, we'll find ways to minimize the impact of trolling.

I'd venture to say that that's the big lesson we have to learn from the
current presidential cycle (aka troll-in-chief).

~~~
Edmond
There are folks like us working on this:
[https://www.cipheredtrust.com/](https://www.cipheredtrust.com/)

The trick is a scalable means to do identity verification on the
internet...basically a way to do it that preserves user privacy and security
and it is dirt cheap so everyone can leverage it.

~~~
michaelchisari
I'm curious about something... I've seen reports that when places started
using Facebook comments, they found that the lack of anonymity didn't prevent
trolling, in fact, it made everyday people more hostile.

Is it just about identity? Would that do anything more than just removing the
occasional death threat, instead of actually addressing the more pervasive
trolling?

~~~
pcmaffey
Given that identity is the basis for most trolling, I'd say identity is a poor
proxy for trust. Despite what Facebook and the CIA / NSA may want us to
believe, there's no evidence that a lack of anonymity/privacy leads to greater
accountability.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'd argue that it's _reputation_ , the prevalance of _impunity_ with present
systems, and the problem of introducing _consequence_ for misbehaviour, which
is the core.

These can be changed without requiring full identification and disclosure. And
there's a very long history of principled (and some unprincipled) pseudonymous
discussion.

~~~
Edmond
Co-Sign 100% ....in fact anonymous identities is part of the service we're
offering:

[https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/#anonymized-
identities](https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/#anonymized-identities)

It is the perfect balance between privacy and accountability.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are wrong ways to offer anonymity:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imz...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imzy_experience_well_that_escalated_quickly/)

------
KaiserPro
_Sigh_ The Trolls have been with the internet from the start. I would say that
actually they are mostly contained (why? because its really fucking difficult
to be anonymous. Plus you are more than likely to be prosecuted for whatever
you've done)

So whats changed? more people are on platforms like twitter, and seem to think
that fake internet points are real.

The vast majority of "trolling" is pretty low grade "die", "sexual slur", "lol
rape", "exploitation of personal detail that you've shared" Thats not
trolling, thats people just being arseholes.

They are anonymous people, they have no impact on your life, ignore them.

 _edit_ I should point out that yes swatting and doxxing still happens, and
the impact is massive. but it is still rare.

The advantage of a twitter profile is you can delete it, and start again. I
wish I could have done that in real life. It would have helped me escape the
daily torment of my bullies at high school.

~~~
accountface
On the contrary... these trolls have SWATted, stalked, ddos'd, called, doxxed,
and harassed normal people.

They've spammed business, social media accounts, email...

For some people the impact on their life is very real.

I can't use my name publicly on the internet because of trolls. This impacts
my life in a huge way.

~~~
problems
I hate this attitude of "blame everything on the trolls". You can't use your
real name on the internet because using your real name on the internet is
basically asking for trouble. You have to defend yourself in the same way you
have to look at ads and read media critically and don't believe everything
someone says on the phone or in the mail. It's really nothing new, it's just
on the internet this time. Scamming and spectacle has always been a good play.

People are simply not trustworthy, especially in large numbers, the internet
just provides more exposure, so "don't be dumb" applies even more. Defending
yourself is simply part of living in society.

~~~
CarolineW
You say:

> _People are simply not trustworthy, ..._

In my experience the vast majority of people _are_ trustworthy. The problem is
that the tiny minority of people who are _not_ trustworthy are winning the
internet because they have time, and shout loudly. More, some of them do
obnoxious and potentially dangerous things.

That's why people get upset - because it is a tiny minority that spoil the
whole thing. If only we could stop that tiny minority ...

~~~
chrisdbaldwin
Sorry to burst your bubble, but citing your experience with people is
equivalent to trolling. Your anecdotal evidence doesn't agree with what's been
studied in Behavioral Economics.

The problem is not that a tiny minority are untrustworthy; the problem is that
a large majority lie (a little bit) often and by nature.

~~~
problems
I think this actually explains a lot of what's considered "trolling" when it
comes to political topics.

Many individuals stretching the truth for their side _just a little bit_ adds
up to a warped picture in total and gets blamed as if it's a goal.

------
greggman
I find there's just in general a huge tragedy of the commons issue. Not just
trolls but bad incentives in general

One example is people actively mis-tagging things. Go on soundcloud.com, look
at the charts. Pick Techno, notice at least 5 of the top 50 songs are not
techno in any way shape or form. Instead the artists just wanted to try to get
on any chart possible and so tagged with as many tags as they could dream up.

I've seen a similar thing on other sites.

I have no idea how to solve that. I suspect soundcloud is not interest in
hiring people to police and some how negatively incentivising the behavior.

They aren't the only site that has this problem. Stack overflow solves it with
their point system and above a certain level you can edit/change tags but it
requires volunteers to do the editing and finding a way to incentivise those
volunteers to do a good job. (and I know many people are not happy with those
volunteer's judgments)

------
giardini
I used to laugh reading about politics in Abraham Lincoln's time: distribution
of news was, at best, iffy and journalists made up stories to suit their
political/social viewpoint. Remarkably like today. The Internet is indeed
wondrous. Thanks to the trolls, we're back to where we were in 1860 again.

"Fake news isn’t a recent problem in the US — it almost destroyed Abraham
Lincoln":

[https://qz.com/842816/fake-news-almost-destroyed-abraham-
lin...](https://qz.com/842816/fake-news-almost-destroyed-abraham-lincoln/)

------
jwtadvice
I remember when the internet was primarily shock videos and Newgrounds flash
animations, and really crappy expages raw HTML webpages with flaming GIF
animations.

That internet was horrible. It was filled with goatse, tubgirl, lemonparty,
crush videos and much more.

The internet today doesn't have that. But it is politicized. And just like
mainstream media control of the politics has created a race to control
platforms and communities.

The internet has fracturous communities that break down into camps of people
who are collectively gas-lighting one another. And in spaces where there is an
established groupthink - anything that questions that groupthink is
immediately a threat to the entire ecosystem of that space. And so the term
"troll" has come to mean "anyone that doesn't agree with the groupthink."

Yesterday someone suggested that I was a traitor to my country and would be
hunted down because I fact checked a group hysteria. I've been called
everything under the sun and have received all sorts of threats. But in that
community I'm the one who is labeled a troll.

(I've been criticized, and even temporarily banned from HN on the premise that
I was a troll. In that case, I had been explaining and defending the Chinese
case for their sovereignty over territory in the South China Sea. It was not
bearable on this forum.)

~~~
houst0n_
I'm getting pretty worried about all this stuff. When did we lose the ability
to discuss things with people who have a different stance?

------
paulpauper
I think it's the opposite: I hardly see any truly malicious trolling these
days, especially since 2013. What the author attributes to trolling may just
be someone expressing a view that goes against the grain, but is not
deliberately intended to provoke a negative reaction and or in 'bad faith',
which is a closer definition of what trolling is. The reason why there is less
trolling is because many forum communities and social networks have filters
and much stricter moderation and much less tolerance for trolls, than a decade
or longer ago. From anecdotal experience, in 2004, trolling was much more
prevalent on forums, but now admins and users have much less tolerance for it.

~~~
ergothus
I'll agree the tolerance for extreme trolling is down, but I envy you your
shelter: From trash talk to insults to casual "I'll drop this outrageous-but-
believable statement and quietly leave", I see non-extreme trolling as
mainstream anymore.

And I define "trolling" as "taking actions or communication with the sole goal
of gaining pleasure from someone's misery and/or outrage"

------
alphonsegaston
Is this really a problem of technology though? Seems more the artifact of a
modern culture so predicated on con-artistry and spectacle, that abuse and
manipulation have become the dominant form of expression.

Technology makes this easier for sure. But I think it's the futureless world
of hucksterism being articulated to everyone that makes behaving this way
attractive to so many people.

~~~
moomin
Yeah, it pretty much is. If you're going to credit the development of the web
and related technologies with the economic benefits it has delivered, we need
to take it on the chin for the damage it has caused to our society.

Every time we disrupt an industry, especially media, we are by definition
shaping society. It's about time we as technologists started being honest
about that.

~~~
alphonsegaston
That's a fair observation. You break it, you bought it.

------
Kequc
The reason why trolls do what they do is because of people with the mindset of
this author. Trolls cannot enjoy the internet because they are browbeaten by
someone willing to type an entire article about their own thoughts. It's a
deluge of terrible opinions and people with too much time to type them all
out. The weapon to defeat that is to give them something ridiculous to rail
against, so that their efforts are wasted.

The fact this has worked for such a long time and that just about nobody
seemingly has caught on. Means that yes, now there is an entire community of
people who do it. It's just part of the internet now and it's growing and
it'll continue to get bigger.

Sorry people. I'm not a troll myself, I largely just get off the internet now.
But the reason it's bad is because of this author, not trolls.

------
kartan
If I understand correctly what has happened recently, state-sponsored media
disruption is the problem.

While the Internet was a place for nerds, it was uninteresting for mainstream
powers. Nowadays is a good target for states wanting to influence elections,
for companies that want to sell their products and for organized religion. Old
tricks in a "new" medium.

If a power can mobilize millions of troops, or expend millions on discrediting
climate change. Why should they respect the Internet?

~~~
dredmorbius
It's the paradox of epistemic systems: as they become larger (or the audience
more attractive), they attrack those who would use them for manipulation.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/)

------
ElatedOwl
I'm surprised at the concern over trolling compared to shilling.

If someone wants to be an ass whatever, but CTR and similar seems like a much
more serious problem to me.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I haven't found sources or people being confirmed as CTR shills after the
election was over. If you could provide some I'd appreciate these. I agree
shills can be a problem but I haven't found conclusive evidence of their
influence.

~~~
ElatedOwl
Sure, he's a compilation post from Reddit.

[https://np.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/56u8vz/new_evide...](https://np.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/56u8vz/new_evidence_of_ctr_on_reddit_from_podesta_emails/)

~~~
gatsby99
Good read

------
sebringj
I don't think we can cut off trolls because of free speech. Its not even a
good idea as some trolls aren't even trolls, they are just loud. Instead, if
personal filters were controlled via browser settings or something independent
of the actual provider, you could maintain privacy yet have nice content as
well. An AI filter would be a good candidate for that.

~~~
st3v3r
Wrong. Most internet forums are privately owned, and thus the concept doesn't
apply. Plus, trolling and harassment isn't free speech. Conflating the two is
insulting to those who are fighting for actual free speech, in places where
they will be arrested for advocating that.

~~~
sebringj
I have a hard time knowing who is a troll as there are times when people
become one but not in their normal behavior. I remember recently there was a
study on that listed here which was interesting. Also, your negative tone for
example could be interpreted as trolling if you put lots of those types of
responses, not saying you are of course, but some AI might give you a false
positive on extreme opinions.

What I meant was not the person trolling but the person viewing content, just
being able to have their own filter, where the filter is not controlled by
some 3rd party but under your own so let's say the 3rd party couldn't suddenly
remove the option. More about control than privacy in that case.

------
jumpkickhit
It think the problem is now too many people are on the internet.

Back in the 90's, it was a great place to hang out. In the 2000's, you had fun
sites with great user commentary like Fark, Digg, Slashdot, and Reddit.

Now everybody and their kid has a cellphone with internet access. Your average
person is an asshole, so that's reflected online because of how saturated it
all is now.

~~~
defined
This is a good point.

You know Sturgeon's Law? Something along the lines of "90% of science fiction
is crap, because 90% of everything is crap?"

Well, if you more or less agree with that, there is just so much more of
everything that there is so much more crap.

Another commenter expressed this as a signal-to-noise ratio problem. It is
that, but it is also that O(N) is bad news for very large values of N.

~~~
dredmorbius
Surgeon's Law is poorly behaved at Web Scale:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1yzvh3/refutat...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1yzvh3/refutation_of_metcalfes_law_revisited_network/)

------
Khaine
The term troll is meaningless these days. The term is an umbrella for a number
of different things, from traditional trolling, harassment and posting stuff
other people disagree with.

With the rise of reddit and facebook, its possible to live in a bubble, an
echo chamber and anything that takes you out of that bubble is considered
trolling.

I remember in the late 90s everyone thought that the openness of the internet
was going to tear down walls, as you got to expand your bubble. All its done
is re-enforce the bubbles people live in.

I think this post outlines what is happening
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-
anything...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-
except-the-outgroup/)

------
Chathamization
I would be interested in seeing more places try posting limits. It's easy for
someone to shoot off hundreds of thoughtless messages, but it takes time and
effort to make a single thoughtful post. A minority trying to do the former is
going to inundate those doing the latter. And for those (probably most of us)
who do a bit of both, it's likely that our less thoughtful and more rapid fire
output is going to dwarf our thoughtful output (just because the latter
requires so much more time and effort).

Even in the cases where someone provides a lot of thoughtful output, a
minority of active users can often drown out the majority of visitors. It
would be interesting to see what kinds of communities would develop if there
were efforts to encourage more even output.

~~~
BeetleB
>I would be interested in seeing more places try posting limits.

This was proposed years ago on Reddit: Limit # of votes/posts per user per
day.

Never implemented...

~~~
dredmorbius
I like the concept, though I very strongly suspect it would be gamed.

Creating a system for _imposing a cost_ on _persistent identity_ \-- not "real
name" identity, but some form of valued persistence -- and _then_ imposing
rate-limiting, could be useful.

Reddit _does_ put posting limits on new and unverified accounts, by subreddit.
To the point of only one post every 5-10 minutes, if I recall (I've tripped
that filter a few times).

Or as I've said a few times: "Who are you?" is the most expensive question in
information technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're screwed.

------
shomyo
> People who i don't agree with are winning the internet

fixed

------
woodandsteel
I think the only way that trolling can be defeated is if people are educated
in productive discussion, including why it is beneficial and how to carry it
out, and also in how to respond to trolls without simply attacking back.

~~~
dredmorbius
Acculturation is a component, hence Netiquette, the September Effect, and then
of course, the Eternal September.

Acculturation only scales so far.

------
EJTH
Welp, rather have trolls "winning the internet" whatever that means, than have
mainstream journalism "win the internet". All this autistic screeching from
journalists, these days, because they are loosing their foothold, lying didn't
help win the election and it won't "win the internet" either.

------
mrmrcoleman
The internet is a reflection of the people using it.

------
dataduck
The content of this article, and the reason for such articles, has been
covered before:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20140625080831/http://thelastpsyc...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140625080831/http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/05/cyberbll.html)

As ever, trolls are not who you should be worried about.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
I'd argue that bots and the ad-driven revenue model are more destructive. It's
responsible for clickbait articles like this.

------
return0
If you give people a big wall and free spray paint, of course they 'll fill it
with dicks. Unlike real life, there is nobody to paint over them. Trolling is
a natural part of the internet, its the price for having relative freedom, i
dont have a problem with it. If that puts off people who don't have the
capacity to tune it out, all the better.

~~~
defined
Sure, but if the big wall is a map, and you're trying to find something on
that map, all the dicks make it so much harder to find it that giving up in
despair is often the reaction.

It's hard to tune out a cubic mile of dicks when you're looking for a pearl.

~~~
ashark
Well, in that case the Internet "map"'s problem is less the dicks drawn here
and there than its being covered on every square centimeter by ads. Oh wait, I
think I see the part of the map I needed... oh, no, just another ad designed
to make me think it was part of the map.

------
thomastjeffery
If you walk in a room, and a bunch of teenagers are being noisy, do you leave,
or call the cops?

If your favorite social network doesn't give you enough privacy to avoid
trolls, or even abuse, _go somewhere else_.

People complain that trolls have the advantage of privacy, and recommend a
police state as a solution.

Privacy is a tool. Use it. Don't let anyone take it away.

------
tehabe
In my opinion we saw troll too much as a technical problem and looked for
technical answers. It had to fail.

------
dominotw
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co5jTvGlt6Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co5jTvGlt6Y)

Whenever I hear troll I think of this video from kitchen nightmares. Puts
picture in perspective.

------
doktrin
related :

[http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/how-internet-trolls-
won-t...](http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/how-internet-trolls-won-
the-2016-presidential-election.html)

[http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/memes-4chan-t...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/memes-4chan-
trump-supporters-trolls-internet-214856)

------
coliveira
They say this after years of study of FB and Twitter, but anyone who
participated actively of USENET already knows that this is the inevitable
outcome.

~~~
dredmorbius
Or early days of The WELL. From its own admins.

------
LeoNatan25
It seems that trolls are also winning leadership positions across the world,
so why wouldn't they win the internet as well?

~~~
dredmorbius
Perhaps there's a related sociological or psychological dynamic?

------
igivanov
I think many of those trolls are actually bots or human-bot combinations.

------
jessaustin
Well the Atlantic trolled HN, so it's possible...

------
ccvannorman
We should build and implement TrollTrace.com to use tracking and metadata to
expose trolls on the Internet. Don't worry, it would only be used for trolls,
not for regular "good" people.

------
dustingetz
A troll is anyone with an incompatible worldview. That's why when /r/democrats
starts posting in /r/republicans everyone says everyone else is trolling.

~~~
houst0n_
If I'm having a rational discussion with someone who disagrees with me then
I'm automatically a troll? I tend to feel the trolls are the hordes of people
calling for me to be executed or using nothing but insults instead of
contributing meaningfully.

Everyone is free to their own worldview, shutting down discussions with "I
hope you get raped in hell n*" isn't what I call a different worldview, it's
what I call an arsehole.

~~~
cbhl
The ability to have a rational discussion comes from a place of [typically
white, male] privilege, though. If you are being sexually harassed, racially
discriminated against, or are otherwise in a psychologically unsafe position,
you're not going to be in a position to "back up your opinion with facts" or
"explain why you feel the way you do" or even listen to someone who calmly,
rationally explains that "he's never made me feel uncomfortable", or "why
didn't you report [being raped to the police] / [being discriminated against
to HR]" or "I don't see race".

~~~
houst0n_
Well I'm just taking about Not being spammed with loads of shite instead of
genuine prejudices as you point out. I have a hard time really understand the
race thing as a Brit thigh. I think the colour thing is a predominantly
American problem; while I'm sure there is discrimination in the UK Ive never
witnessed black folks here getting a hard time any worse than anyone else and
Ive lived loved and employed people of different colour to me most of my life
and it's not something I've ever had to really even contemplate.

------
DictumExNihilo
What if most of them aren't "trolls" at all, but rather people who have
something to say that is important to them and they choose a method to say it
that upsets some people?

The base assumption is that many of them are old-school variety: they seek
disruption for its own sake. Suppose for a moment that this base assumption
should not be taken as axiomatic. What else might motivate such a person? Some
of you are quick to jump to the conclusion that money is the only other
motivation. But money isn't what motivates everyone. Lots of people create
art, for example, and receive little to no money for what they do.

What if some people are trying to motivate others to think about the things
they believe, say, and do? Their medium need not be literature, paintings,
music, sculpture, and so forth. A sarcastic tongue can teach too. It can
spread ideas and challenge assumptions. Writing a lengthy essay that nobody
will read may be a counterproductive use of time.

People roll their eyes if one brings up philosophy in a casual setting. I see
a lot of things people call "trolling" as small performances of philosophy.
Not all of them are effective, virtuous, or well-informed. But some are. The
ones that really get under our skin are the ones who actually understand us
the best, they know our weaknesses and exploit them. There is too much focus
on who they are and whether or not they're getting paid (because they probably
aren't) and not enough on what is being said. In a lot of cases, what isn't
said is just as important. If the "troll" wants you to think about your own
positions, he may just omit several critical details on purpose and let you
fill in the blanks.

Diogenes didn't make people happy when he walked about in broad daylight with
a lantern looking for "an honest man", he made some of them laugh, and made
others angry. Socrates made enemies by arguing with people and showing them
that they didn't really know why they believed as they did. I've had more
productive conversations with people in my life when I took an adversarial
position to them under the veil of anonymity, even though I agreed with their
position. If I can argue a position I don't agree with and hold my own, the
other guy comes out of it with new ammunition to defeat it too (or more
ambition to find some), and they often teach me a few tricks along the way.

It is entirely too easy to dismiss a person if all you think they want is to
make you mad with what they've said.

~~~
st3v3r
"What if most of them aren't "trolls" at all, but rather people who have
something to say that is important to them and they choose a method to say it
that upsets some people?"

If the only way you can express your dislike of a black actress is to compare
her to an ape, maybe just shut the fuck up.

"It is entirely too easy to dismiss a person if all you think they want is to
make you mad with what they've said."

And it's entirely too easy to ignore the problem of real trolling and
harassment if you think it's just people with "differing opinions".

~~~
DictumExNihilo
>If the only way you can express your dislike of a black actress is to compare
her to an ape, maybe just shut the fuck up.

??? You got me, yes, this is exactly what I do. There's a secret Nazi hiding
in every bush and behind every corner ready to pounce and I'm part of the
great Internet conspiracy of secret Nazis.

>And it's entirely too easy to ignore the problem of real trolling and
harassment if you think it's just people with "differing opinions".

Harassment is totally the same thing. And if a hundred people show up to make
fun of the dumb thing you said, it was an organized conspiracy to hurt your
feelings and not myopia about potentially millions of people who normally see
stuff and don't interact with it until it's too dumb to ignore.

If you've got people sending you death threats or violating TOS of sites,
obviously report them. If they say rude things that have absolutely no value
at all, ignore them. But if they're actually trying to pick an argument with
you in good faith, they may not be a "troll" after all. There's FAR too much
where people have slid into thinking that anyone who has a different opinion
and expresses it in an unpleasant way is out to "troll" or "harass" them.

I mean, look, you just attacked me, a complete stranger, who has never done
any of the things you brought up because I dare suggest that some belief you
hold is wrong. How's that for proving a point?

