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House of Commons Could Force Social Networks To Identify Trolls

Posted by timothy on from the we've-found-a-troll-may-we-burn-her? dept.

concertina226 writes with this news snipped from Techworld UK: "Websites such as Facebook and Twitter could be forced to unmask so-called internet trolls, under new government proposals in the Defamation Bill. The move comes after a British woman won a landmark case to force Facebook to reveal the identities of internet trolls. On 30 May, Nicola Brookes from Brighton was granted a High Court order after receiving 'vicious and depraved' taunts on Facebook. The bill, which is being debated in the House of Commons [Tuesday], will allow victims of online abuse to discover the identity of their persecutors and bring a case against them. The move also aims to protect websites from threats of litigation for inadvertently displaying defamatory comments."

34 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. I don't think this will ever work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure you can get IP addresses, trace them back but anyone trolling professionally will do so in such a way that they'll be anonymous still. Internet cafes, 3G broadband, open wifi in the middle of times square.

    It's not as if they're going to be able to use the intertubes to locate which Starbucks you're in instantly and send in the black helecopters so you are cut of mid sen

    1. Re:I don't think this will ever work by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Funny

      What if they use a GUI interface in Visual Basic to track your IP address?

    2. Re:I don't think this will ever work by Fixer40000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry. That's what Norton Internet Security is for.

    3. Re:I don't think this will ever work by million_monkeys · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sure you can get IP addresses, trace them back but anyone trolling professionally will do so in such a way that they'll be anonymous still. Internet cafes, 3G broadband, open wifi in the middle of times square.

      It's not as if they're going to be able to use the intertubes to locate which Starbucks you're in instantly and send in the black helecopters so you are cut of mid sen

      Damn. Those bastards. They got him before he even had a chance to check his post for spelling and grammar.

  2. Troll is in the eye of the beholder by hessian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem is that "troll" is a term used to mean anyone who says something unpopular, as well as anyone who deliberately provokes other people into tantrums.

    The better question is whether we will have anonymity at all. I know from looking at the comments on CNN and other newspapers that a lot of sites would rather dispense with anonymity entirely.

    The problem with this is that it is de facto censorship of important opinions. Racial information (the ultimate taboo), anti-democratic thought, anti-mainstream culture and even occult religions all need protection.

    When we call declare someone with unpopular opinions a "troll" and look up their IP, these ideas won't get expressed on the big sites, leaving only small dissident blogs that 99% of the internet audience will never see.

    --
    Futurist Traditionalism
    1. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by Dan541 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I found someone on youtube who has the right idea about cyberbullies.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ZiRT8Nwkk

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    2. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is that "troll" is a term used to mean anyone who says something unpopular, as well as anyone who deliberately provokes other people into tantrums.

      No. That's what dummies have come to imply it means. They are using the world wrong. Sadly, many of these dummies are also slashdot moderators.

      A troll is someone who attempts to elicit an emotional response by using a seemingly sincere platform. As such, many see this as merely "unpopular" but they completely miss the entire point of the discourse. Some trolling is done to lead the ignorant and stubborn by the nose to an obvious conclusion to which the audience is seemingly too dense, ignorant, or stubborn to find on their own. This is pretty rare these days. In other cases, trolling is done by pathetic people who enjoy sucking the life out of beneficial dialogs. Meanings, its a sad, sad cry for attention. Usually the later are people who are seriously emotionally damaged and trolling is their primary source of social interaction.

      Which basically means, those who believe trolling means someone disagrees or finds a post unpopular are themselves likely a troll. Trolling does NOT simply you they have a different point of view or that an opinion is unpopular - ignoring the fact that most slashdot moderators these days are far too dense to comprehend the distinction.

    3. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by Grayhand · · Score: 2

      Actually they specify people that are targeting others and harassing them not just people being obnoxious.

    4. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by deathtopaulw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...someone who attempts to elicit an emotional response by using a seemingly sincere platform.

      This sounds like a definition of "art" I heard once.

    5. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by lxs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. Trolling is a art.

    6. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with this is that it is de facto censorship of important opinions

      You come into my house, or local pub, and start laughing and mocking someone who has just lost a relative and if you're lucky you'll be asked to leave and not return. That's not censorship, and transferring the situation to a virtual venue like a forum doesn't make it censorship either.

      There's always the risk of the slipperly slope, and personally I think that the vast majority of what people can say should be legal. I think Voltaire had it right; but that doesn't mean that you should be able to go wherever you like and say anything no matter how hurtful or depraved and expect to be welcome. Even Slashdot uses moderation to hide 'troll' views. A lot of shit still gets through but I doubt it'd be usable if they refused to allow filtering by moderation.

    7. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by a90Tj2P7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You should probably respond less to the headline and more to the article - this isn't a bill "to identify trolls", it's a bill about harassment and defamation. The very first thing in the bill, which is an amendment to existing defamation law, is that the statement has to have cause or be able to likely cause serious harm. And that's followed by exceptions for just what you're concerned about - matters of public interest, honest opinions, truthful statements. Even those of us who strongly advocate the freedom of speech don't deny that it can be abused, and that things like threats and slander should be legally actionable.

    8. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by Artifakt · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a linguistic artifact. Trolling in the sense of dangling bait in front of a 'fish' was pretty much what the word meant for those examples of trying to lead somebody to a conclusion, perhaps even with a quite decent purpose if you count getting ignorant people to fully expose their ignorance so it could be corrected, or similar purposes. But, when this word also conjured up images of a Troll in the mythological sense, of course it came to mean an ignorant, rude or uncouth lout., or even a monster . Thanks to Phishing, we can't go back to calling the first form 'fishing' either, not without confusion. All that's left is to start calling the first form of trolls "Wishniks", which I propose we start doing immediately.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    9. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by NonUniqueNickname · · Score: 2

      Must. Resist. Urge. To Mod. -1 Troll.

    10. Re:Troll is in the eye of the beholder by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      Then you might want to (attempt to) edit the current wikipedia definition, because they disagree with you, and so does /.'s FAQ (which says pretty much the same thing as wikipedia). Just because you're too ignorant to know shit from shinola doesn't give you the right to smear shit on my shoes. Just because you think a dog is a rat doesn't make it one. Not even if most ignorant people think dogs are rats.

      Ignorance should be fought. Period. Especially in one's self. Following the example of someone you know to be ignorant is just stupid. Educate them instead.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  3. That's not going to do much good. by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    People will just start trolling behind proxies/on public networks.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
  4. House of Commons by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

    House of Commons? The august body that allows heckling during speeches? Cracking down on trolling?

    Hmmm...

    1. Re:House of Commons by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not only that, but Members of Parliament have unlimited freedom of speech within the chambers. They can troll anyone they so please and no statute can be brought against them.

      Hypocrisy, thy name is a Member of Parliament.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:House of Commons by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Of course the parliamentary hecklers aren't anonymous, and there are rules about "unparliamentary language", which can be punished by a suspension from the house for some days.

      So there's no argument by analogy there against unmasking internet trolls and making them subject punishment where they overstep the legal line on harassment.

    3. Re:House of Commons by digitig · · Score: 2

      Not exactly. There are rules on what can and can't be said in the House of Commons, and although they're enforced by parliamentary procedure, not by statute, they are enforced.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  5. No they are not forced.... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They can also simply block all users FROM the UK and solve it that way as well....

    Companies always have the option to ignore laws from other countries and block the freedom hating country as a whole.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:No they are not forced.... by iserlohn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your freedom to swing your fists ends at the tip of my nose.

      Harrassment and libel have real victims and even if you do not agree with how easy libel actions are brought to the courts in England and Wales, you would agree with the need for some sort of law prohibiting people from causing harm in these ways.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    2. Re:No they are not forced.... by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I know you guys love your cameras everywhere, but a lot of other places people prefer EXISTING laws to catch criminals. If it's Harassment, then get off your arse and do detective work, Should we install cameras outside of your hose if someone sneaks up and sticks "WANKER" notes on your door?

      it's the same thing. Hire someone to find the jerk that is harassing, or the police can get off their butts and stop eating doughnuts long enough to do their job. It is not hard to locate someone who is doing this online without making new laws to force a company to roll over and do the cops job for them.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:No they are not forced.... by a90Tj2P7 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The fact that truth is not a defense is the single most fucked up thing I have ever heard and pretty much destroys any faith I have in the legal system.

      It's also shenanigans, because the very first defense listed in the bill is truthful statements:

      (1) It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true.

    4. Re:No they are not forced.... by cdrguru · · Score: 2

      Hire someone to find the jerk that is harassing, or the police can get off their butts and stop eating doughnuts long enough to do their job. It is not hard to locate someone who is doing this online without making new laws to force a company to roll over and do the cops job for them.

      Hire someone? Sorry, can't be done. At least not today. So maybe you have an IP address and can trace that to an ISP. Great. The ISP says they aren't turning anything over except under subpoena or to law enforcement. Fine, you get a lawyer and file a lawsuit against John Doe - who's identity will be disclosed by the ISP. Except they do not have the identity, all they have is the account holder and (maybe) an address. Oh, and don't take too long filing your lawsuit - some ISPs keep their DHCP history for a very short period of time - so the response to the discovery subpeona is "Sorry, we don't have that information."

      I assure you without some kiddy porn or a bomb factory nobody is going to allow examination of the computers at that address to figure out if one of them was used. You just don't have the weight of a RIAA lawsuit on your side. If there are multiple people living at that address you can NEVER figure out which one it was conclusively, not even with the standards of a civil lawsuit.

      Unless of course the perp brags - which is so incredibly common that it does make everyone's life easier. But we're assuming here they aren't bragging on IRC or AIM about what they have done and leaving chat logs all over their computer.

      I have tried this approach before and found out that it would take literally tens of thousands of dollars to get nowhere. It is an endless series of doors each one leading to a dead end and prying those doors open gets real expensive real fast. Half of the problem is the ISP which today believes it is their customer's right to do an unlimited amount of damage to other people while they shield the perp's identity.

      Law enforcement considers the whole issue to be a civil problem and will not participate in any way so you can forget about the cops as well.

    5. Re:No they are not forced.... by iserlohn · · Score: 2

      You mean there aren't already laws on the books which criminalize slander and libel?

      Sure, I agree there should be laws, but what I don't agree to is that there should be new laws just because the old ones don't specify "on a computer."

      If you bothered to read TFA, you'd discover that it is a bill amending the existing law of defamation - effectively modernisation of the law as it stands currently.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    6. Re:No they are not forced.... by a90Tj2P7 · · Score: 2

      Amending it how? To add "on a computer" to the list of places you can't commit libel or slander? I sure hope not - what an abject waste of taxpayer monies such a thing would be...

      Is taking 5 minutes to read it really asking that much? That's not what it does, and "the internet" isn't the only thing it's trying to address. But since that's the meat of your argument here, let's pretend it did - it would only have to amend the law if the existing law specified methods that were not covered by that mediums or process. Plenty (if not an overwhelming majority) of laws detail ways or mediums in which the violation has to occur, why is updating a grossly outdated standard that unreasonable to you? That's what happens when new technology creates new ways to do things. The legal system isn't a set of basic commandments, "thou shalt not slander" - laws explicitly enumerate the ways in which they can be broken, what damages can be assessed and how they are substantiated, etc. For example, let's say a spam law about postal mail was created a couple decades ago - it would explicitly describe conditions relevant to postal mail, why shouldn't it be amended to include email when it came out? Why should a law explicitly about telephones not have been amended to cover cellphones? The only time anyone talks about changing a law for new technology is because the existing letter of the law doesn't cover it. I don't know how a community with as much development and programming experience as /. always seems to assume laws "just work" like users think a program does. The new technology is outside the scope of the current code's conditions, and has consequences the old developers could not have forseen. Whether it's a script or a law, code for a growing and changing environment will likely need to be patched and updated.

    7. Re:No they are not forced.... by Artifakt · · Score: 2

      As I understand it, the concept that "Truth is not always a defense" in English libel and slander laws relates to cases where other, innocent parties may also be damaged and particularly where the person who committed the libel or slander knew ( or should reasonably have known) of such damage. If there's a slippery slope there, it's probably because the general public can evidently count as the innocent party - so someone could, in theory, claim that the police are incompetent, and while true, this could cause damage by undermining public confidence and inspiring criminals. But, even if the letter of the law may allow such an interpretation, has anyone seriously tried it in court?
                  Consider, for a more basic example, a person suddenly becoming famous as an athelete, and somone else raking up muck about their parents. It may be true muck, but was the goal to expose the truth, or to take the recently famous person down a peg or two, or maybe even to make some money by, say, rattling the famous athelete just before the big game and betting accordingly? It makes a certain amount of logical sense, in that the overall English system emphasises motive so often, to consider it here.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
  6. The process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think that this is an early draft text of the bill in question: http://inforrm.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/defamation-bill.pdf

    Reports on the bill are quite informative. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtdefam/203/203.pdf

    These documents are reasonably short.

  7. Was not just trolling.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This lady didn't just get trolled on some random anonymous forum. She was stalked and harassed in a manner that is almost certainly criminal, and without a doubt would be considered criminal if it happened in any other non-internet related forum. There really isn't any need for any special legislation as existing laws undoubtedly cover what happened here.

    Of course, this doesn't explain why Facebook dug their heels in. Nowadays I just expect Facebook to do the wrong thing in all cases, so I probably should not be suprised.

  8. I support this by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (instant -1 from slashdot crowd)

    For those of you willing to listen to my reason and not knee jerk hate me, you have to understand that there are certain people who very carefully hide IN ORDER to hate on their neighbors in SMALL TOWN forums. If you live in a big city, consider yourself immune. Otherwise please hear me out:

    Anonymity is important, for example, in Syria. Anonymity is important, for example, with Wikileaks and Anonymous and any whistle blowers, because of the power imbalance involved. Anonymity is basically besides the fact on national or international level comment boards, such as Slashdot: you might as well be anonymous, since only the force of your ideas matter, not your name.

    But in SMALL TOWN forums, among a couple hundred or thousand people who are neighbors, hiding and hating is a serious problem, and should be fought.

    Only in that context, a small town forum, do I agree anonymity need to be unmasked.

    There are people out there with serious problems, and they ruin small community forums with their abusive attitude by constantly steering all discussions to their strife. And it's always from careful hiding with these characters. You are talking about one troll who can basically sit on a forum and utterly destroy it, for a small community.

    Please understand that this is a real problem before you form an opinion on the matter:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/small-town-gossip-moves-to-the-web-anonymous-and-vicious.html

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:I support this by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yeah. and if you are bullied at school, you should switch schools. and if you are harassed at work, you should get another job. and if you are the victim of road rage, you should take another route to work. etc, etc.

      it's not actually the better choice to go after the bully, right?

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    2. Re:I support this by cpu6502 · · Score: 2

      >>>Anonymity is important, for example, in Syria

      It's just as important in the UK or EU or US. It worries me that more and more forums are forcing me to use my real name. I do not want the last ~20 years of my posts to be hanging-around on the internet, easily searchable by my employer or the government, just by typing my name. I want anonymity.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    3. Re:I support this by __aaeihw9960 · · Score: 2

      I agree with you. In the small towns near where I live (populations of ~ 650, 140, 40, 20), we have a local newspaper. This paper has a relatively lively comments section related to the print stories. The comments are always hijacked by someone who has a personal vendetta against the schools.

      It could be an article about how the sidewalks in the park have to be replaced, or about how the Johnson's have taken a 5 generation picture (both actual examples), and the same Anonymous poster leads the discussion with something about how the school board and teachers are bastards, and that the mayor of the largest of the four towns is out to destroy the world, etc. etc.

      In this instance, you have to remove the anonymity, because it kills any and all rational discourse. - A quote from the discussions on an article related to longer hours for a church secretary and daycare staff (again, small towns, not a lot going on):

      -----Loughla: Well, it's great that Sara will be there most of the day now, that means we don't have to rush to pick our kids up from daycare anymore. -----Anonymous: Yeah, well if the school board would get off its fat ass and make the teachers work we wouldnt have this porblem [sic]. -----Loughla: Okay, then, not sure how that applies in July. -----Anonymous: Fuck off socialist.

      TA DA!!