"Please Die": Freedom From Speech

E-communities mirror those in the outside world. As they grow, they face the same tensions, pressures, political differences. At the moment, hostile environments are a growing problem as newcomers flood onto the Web. This is the first of a three-part series about hostility on the Net and how it affects the rest of society. (More below.)

"Please die," a Slashdot reader urged a few weeks ago after reading - and apparently disliking -- a column I'd written.

I didn't take it as a literal threat. Messages like that are uncommon via e-mail, but they aren't unheard of, either. I e-mailed back, curious as to why the guy expressed himself so aggressively, when he could simply have disagreed or, even more logically, just stopped reading. "You're not a Linux geek," he jeered. "It took you months just to install a Linux system."

This was all true, I wrote back, but hardly explained his blast. He blew me off, saying something lame about my not controlling what he said. In fairness, I doubt he knew why he'd responded that way. It was probably instinctive.

Electronic communities mirror the outside world. They face tensions, growing pains, political differences and the other usual evolutions.

E-communities are fluid. As they grow, they bring in newcomers who have different values, languages and customs, sometimes even different goals.

In all but the most restricted e-communities, hostility, anger and pressure are the by-products, a process as inevitable as it is unpleasant. It tends to create what are, to varying degrees, hostile environments, especially when it comes to public postings and discussions.

All over the Net, communities confront the same choice: freedom or civility. For anybody writing online, this is a familiar experience. Truly dangerous people aren't likely to post anonymous insults or send nasty e-mail. They have more effective weapons. Online flaming - not to be confused with disagreement - is almost by definition an act of social cowardice.

There are good arguments in support of flaming. Flamers can deflate the pompous, correct the inaccurate, educate the ignorant, level the communications playing field.

"Flaming is an equalizer," wrote an anonymous flamer on this site. "It puts me on a level with people like you, and keeps me there."

Flaming can even be an effective communications tool: "There's a style of argument I see practiced on the Net and almost nowhere else," wrote Ken, "a very precise, defensive style. I like it because it's based on scrupulously differentiating what you 'think' from what you 'know.' Flaming forces people to think about their opinions, he argued.

Ken has a point, but his is a benign interpretation of this new kind of social aggression and brutality. On this and other sites that encourage open discussion, online hostility is a significant problem, especially at a time when the need for open discussion about technology (Y2K comes to mind) becomes even more urgent.

The Net has been a hostile environment almost from the first; hostility is nearly a cherished tradition. The geek/nerd/programmer culture is probably statistically one of the least violent in the world, yet on the Net and the Web it's generated a consistently abusive atmosphere.

One of the most striking things about nasty e-mail and vicious public postings is that they're almost always rooted in surreal distance: the sender rarely thinks of his target as a human being. He's sending words to a remote computer system, unsure they'll even be read.

Once there's contact, the flamer is often amazed by a response. He almost always apologizes - 90 per cent of the time would be my guess, or replies in a more civil tone, or flees.

I get an average of 200 personal messages after a column appears here, sometimes more, sometimes less. About a fourth are written in disagreement, but usually only three or four are personal or hostile. There are typically even more public postings about my columns, and a dramatically larger proportion - between a quarter and half - are either sharply critical or pointedly hostile.

This bewildering dichotomy is expected by anybody who expresses an opinion regularly on a website. It was the same when I wrote for Hotwired and other websites. In fact, many of the e-mails I get constitute apologies for or laments about the sometimes vicious nature of public messaging online.

Not only does this odd reality, unique to electronic communication, create a hostile environment, it distorts reality since civil communications are rarely made public while attacks are often seen publicly. People reading columns, stories and commentary rush to defend the target or apologize for the assaults, rarely realizing that the attackers are a small minority though they appear to be dominant.

This misperception triggers a series of off-base notions about ideas, opinions and reactions that play off of one another, often inaccurately. Ideas that seem to be unpopular are sometimes popular; arguments that win widespread approval can seem widely condemned. There's no way for the reader to accurately or realistically gauge mood, temperament or perspective. Ideas aren't really tested in this way; they're aborted.

Worse, the ferocity of the environment discourages all but the most confident or determined posters. Flaming, like skateboarding, seems overwhelmingly an adolescent form of recreation. Whole segments of the human population - women, the elderly, those who speak foreign languages, newcomers, children - are excluded from the conversation or choose to avoid it.

Some are too vulnerable too join in; many are tough enough but they don't see much reason to bother.

So flamers discourage free speech, prey on the weak and dominate discussion. They have a "chilling effect" on the movement of opinions and ideas, a phrase more often associated with First Amendment law than the Net. Yet to silence or curb them is unacceptable, as it limits the inherently free nature - and information flow - of the best sites on the Web. There is no simple solution to this intensifying problem, or anything like a consensus.

To complicate the issue further, the great majority of visitors to most websites - certainly this one - are lurkers, information foragers who want news and information but are loathe to censor anyone, and are unwilling or unable to challenge the small cadre of flamers who've seized control of public discussions.

All of which presents a series of increasingly complex choices for people designing and running websites as well as for those working and posting on them. (Though truthfully, it's pretty hard to take seriously a message that says in its entirety, "You suck.")

Many public websites try to modify hostility by requiring posters to join and identify themselves. People who write anonymously are far more likely to post ugly sentiments than people who identify themselves and therefore assume at least theoretically responsibility for what they've said.

On this site, however, anonymity is seen as a cherished right - the only way for all posters, especially for those working for companies or government agencies, to weigh in without fear of reprisal.

Nameless posters - here called Anonymous Cowards - are considered sources as well as equalizers. Barrier-free sites have the freest information flow of any on the Web, and they're sometimes the most informative and newsworthy. The tradeoff is that they're also the most hostile.

On some sites, vicious posts get removed and vicious posters eventually ejected. Some provide hosts to steer conversations.

Slashdot's response has been to deploy one of the most elaborate self-policing systems on the Internet, with members of the site encouraged to join the process, act as moderators and and trigger software that automatically removes the most offensive posts from the screens of people who don't want to see them. A new system to discourage excessive hostility in public discussions has been in place for six months now. Posts never get deleted, but some are removed from mainstream view.

Although the moderation system gives users choices about just how much verbal aggression they want to encounter, it hasn't really curbed the site's overall hostility, just given users more ways to avoid it. Moderating systems ultimately can't hold people responsible for what they say, and don't take into account that the hostility isn't a side-show for many people, but the point.

This moderating is sometimes called "steering" or "over-steering," part of a broad movement on the Net that allows sites and individual users to limit their own horizons. Sometimes this is a response to the sheer volume of information, sometimes an effort to screen out unwanted points of view.

While flamers keep their right to assault, individuals - entirely voluntarily - create personal insulated zones where they can block anything unplelasant, challenging or disturbing.

The dangers are obvious. One of the Net's most significant contributions is to bring all sorts of people together. But the growing "freedom from speech" movement is spawning communities in which people will find only opinions they already agree with.

But more restrictive approaches pose an obvious tradeoff: less information, fewer public posts, no protective or leveling role for the posters.

As one who posts regularly and is on the receiving end of positive as well as snarky feedback, I'd go with preserving anonymity over advancing civility, if those were the only options.

Fortunately, there are more.

Tomorrow: Breeding Creative Jerks

Comments

I fail to understand....

[dieMSdie]

...why so many people expend the time and energy to post so many angry replies here every time Jon Katz does an article.

I mean, you can turn Katz off completely if you wish, it's in the Preferences. You don't even have to know he exists!

But no, it seems that some folks on here would rather get rid of Katz completely, and deny him any right to post on Slashdot. I don't always agree with what he has to say, but I never get angry over it.
Perhaps some people are imbibing too much caffeine? ;)

Flaming

[ucblockhead]

As one who posts regularly and is on the receiving end of positive as well as snarky feedback, I'd go with preserving anonymity over advancing civility, if those were the only options.

This statement caught me off-guard, because I've never actually seen a Jan Katz post. I've seen stories submitted by him, but I've never seen any other sort of commentary. I suspect that this is the true source of most of the flames that he gets. He doesn't appear as a member of this community. He appears as someone submitting stories from on-high, thinking himself too good to come join the common fray. (I'm not saying that is true. That is just the appearance.) I suspect that he'd get a lot less flack from people here if he were to do that.

Jon, why not post here, is response to people's comments? Better yet, read other stories on /. and comment on them. You've obviously got the language skills to do so. Jump in. I think you'll find that it can be even more rewarding then coming up with the perfect story in your basement. (On other conferencing systems, I've seen real reporters post, and respond, and the results were very rewarding for both sides.)

Personally, I've found that it is possible, with practice, to avoid most flamewars. (Through painful experience, believe me.) It is mostly a matter of learning not to respond to trolls, learning how to use diplomacy in posting, and mostly, learning not to take it all too seriously.

And one thing always to remember: you will never "prove yourself right" to the point where everyone agrees. Don't bother trying. Once you've stated your case appropriately, it is counterproductive to say any more.

Just remembering that will avoid a lot of flaming.

I also think it interesting that this story is posted here as it seems to me that /.s structure avoids the worst flamewars. Not so much the moderations system as the short lifespan of the topics. It is hard to keep the grand-mal flame-fest going when everybody leaves the topic after two hours.

Dual-purpose moderation

[Industrial Disease]

Sometimes this is a response to the sheer volume of information, sometimes an effort to screen out unwanted points of view.

Jon, please remember that moderation serves two purposes: screening out junk and raising the profile of good posts. I've read a lot of really thoughtful posts that I would have missed were it not for up-moderation. Sometimes, someone makes a good point deeper within a thread than I would have dug on my own. Other times, when comments overflow my thresholds, I can at least get some idea of the discussion from the highly-rated posts.

Why hate Katz?

[chuck]

Since this article was inspired by anti-Katz flame, let me postulate my own theory on why Jon Katz is such a target.

One would assume that if reading a Jon Katz article results in such venom, that the article itself has caused the flamer a good deal of personal pain. This is a situation I don't understand, as personally, I have never been insulted by a message or article that was not directed at me. I have seen uninformed, off-topic posts, but none of these feel like a personal attack against me.

But to some it does. So much so, it causes them to lash out in anger. No hostages taken, no feelings spared, it is the singular goal to return this pain and anguish to the one who caused it. Does this feel good? Frankly, I've participated in a flame war or two, and it just makes me feel empty. There is no reward, there is no catharsis, only futility.

I wonder why one would subject himself to such torment, especially in an environment where I can go to my preferences page, press a button, and never see another Jon Katz article again. Ever. Personally, I like Jon's writing, because I can see the value in stating the obvious when necessary, and more often than not, he puts words to thoughts I have had myself, that am grasping to understand. But I digress. Why would anyone choose to be tormented by Jon Katz? I can only think of two possibilities:

1. The thrill of combat. It is clear that many people attack merely for the joy of battle. If you can craft your words into a weapon, and use them to strike out across the ether, it indicates your prowess with the langauge, your tool of battle. ``Look at how clever and cruel I am!''
2. A sense of belonging. Let's face it. Hating Jon Katz does not make you stand out in a crowd. If you don't feel like part of the slashdot ``in crowd,'' because you don't like Linux or the GPL or something, it can be difficult. Especially if slashdot is your only connection to intellectual peers, to be separated by ideological differences is painful. I suspect that half or more of the anti-Katz camp really has no problem with Jon Katz at all! But by joining in the ``Please die'' bandwagon, they join a community whose only admission fee is a nastygram. Not bad, if you have a need to belong.

Now much of this might be bogus, and I will probably be flamed, too. I look forward to it, because constructive flames will help me continue to form my opinion on the matter, help me see parts of the argument I have ignored. I look forward to it, because destructive flames will make me laugh. Certainly it will not prevent me from posting again, as it will not prevent Mr. Katz.

Jon, write on!

-Chuck

Katz is "poor content"?!

[the red pen]

You want a why Katz should be removed? ... Without Katz, there's less content to reflect poorly on the community.

That's not really a reason. This is just a cleverly disguised "Katz sucks."

Katz's critics seem to feel mysteriously exempt from explaining why he sucks, implying that it should be obvious to anyone else as cool as they are. What little substance they offer is highly subjective: "he rambles," "his topics aren't news for nerds," "he's not part of the community." Notice that Katz critics love to talk about the Slashdot Community as if it were clearly defined -- which is isn't.

Truth be told, Slashdot is a cornucopia of "content [that] reflect[s] poorly on the community." AC's posting inane crap. Luminaries posting inane crap. Slashdot staff post bullshit rumors and then end up immediately retracting them. Coverage of Microsoft and Java will typically be smug and negative. Coverage of the Amiga, Linux and Perl will be fawning and uncritical.

All of this would thoroughly discredit a standard news site, but Slashdot has a different model. Rob and Jeff merely regulate the amount of content -- the "community" (posters, moderators) act as the filter. In a way, if the Slashdot staff is guilty on anything, it's not doing too little filtering, it's doing too much. (Of course, maybe Slashdot is supposed to be a site where only the best nuggets of information are posted -- in that case, it's failing miserably.)