Slashdot Mirror
Web Trolls Winning As Incivility Increases
mdsolar sends this story from the NY Times:
The Internet may be losing the war against trolls. At the very least, it isn't winning. And unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls' collective sway. That's the dismal judgment of the handful of scholars who study the broad category of online incivility known as trolling, a problem whose scope is not clear, but whose victims keep mounting. "As long as the Internet keeps operating according to a click-based economy, trolls will maybe not win, but they will always be present," said Whitney Phillips, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and the author of This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, a forthcoming book about her years of studying bad behavior online. "The faster that the whole media system goes, the more trolls have a foothold to stand on. They are perfectly calibrated to exploit the way media is disseminated these days."
I'm fine with sites regulating trolls. I'm less fine with government curtailing freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive it may be.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The only reason trolls win is we give them the reaction that they are looking for. If people just ignored them more often instead of getting all bent out of shape, the trend would go away. Trolls would quickly get bored because they won't have an outlet for their frustration. Trolls are nothing more than school yard bullies that never quite grew up.
The scope of the problem isn't clear, the goal is ill-defined. What, exactly, are trolls winning?
I think the only one "winning" anything here is the author trying to sell her book by engaging in much the same inflammatory business as the trolls she purported to study.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
... is often another person's legitimate opinion. If large sites, the government, and advertisers get to determine what is "trolling", we're toast. So much for the "I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it". The new Intarweb - 100% Politically Correct, no dissent allowed, citizen. I for one won't welcome our new anti-troll overlords.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
A troll is still a person, and you can beat a person with a sack full of oranges.
I would normally agree that people get offended too easily, but that's only when people express their honest opinion.
Trolls are a different matter; they only do it for the lulz. Their whole purpose is to create discord. It's a pointless, unproductive waste of time, and the fact that people get jollies out of deliberately aggravating other people bespeaks of a certain level of sociopathy.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
This problem is already solved. It's called the "ignore user " button. Push it and you no longer see the posts from the offending troll. Troll can see your posts, but you can't see theirs. So troll has unpleasant (for a troll) experience of seeing a conversation carried on as though what he was posting simply didn't exist, because it didn't for anyone who regarded him as a troll.
If a troll is like porn, we know it when we see it, then this solution works very well. Everyone sees and ignores the troll, depriving the troll of their motivation for trolling in the first place.
The only problem we have is sites don't use the available technology.
I have been on sites where this virtually eliminated the troll problem. Of course the automated accounts that are spamming viagra require something else, but that is not what the article was complaining about. The article was complaining about civility.
I really have to wonder if there are ulterior motivations at work here. Trolls are the new "we must save our children" rallying cry, an argument designed to force people into ID ing themselves, tagging themselves as "legitimate" so they can be better tracked and monetized. I feel like these pieces are set pieces, ready to roll out as soon as their beneficiaries and creators think their might be some temporary, rising sentiment against anonymity on the web.
Current example- Robin William's daughter's recent Twitter experience.
Sure, a troll gets one off but that is all anyone will see of him.
There is no free speech without anonymity and giving it up because some asshole made someone cry is ceding my freedom to assholes. That wont' be happening.
1. Place immature people (of any physical age) in an anonymous, no consequences environment.
2. Give them the ability to address people whom they would never have the opportunity to approach outside of a virtual environment.
3. Supply a conduit such as Twitter or Facebook or email that requires very little effort compared to writing and mailing a physical letter.
The result is completely predictable.
It's a pointless, unproductive waste of time, and the fact that people get jollies out of deliberately aggravating other people bespeaks of a certain level of sociopathy.
Nonsense. The kind of amusement that comes from trolling fulfills a need. Not unlike other wastes of time. such as watching professional sports and pleasure reading, there is a gratification from being a troll. Crafting your skills and taking it to the next level fills the troll with a sense of accomplishment. There are metrics involved in this pursuit just like any other to measure the effectiveness of the troll. I won't tell you what my goals are or what results give me the most satisfaction as a successful troll but there is gratification nonetheless.
-Anonymous Troll.
Trolling is necessary evil and the last line of defense against monolithic group thinking. Humans are hard-wired to seek consensus and to avoid conflict, both are beneficial traits, but when combined can and do lead to worst kinds of groupthink. Our ideas and understanding, be it social sciences, morals and religion, or even hard sciences are only as good as out ability to question it.
For example, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a trolling organization, but almost everyone here would agree that what they do can be categorized as "greater good".
That's because that is what most people actually are when not forced to be polite. Trolling is people being honest about what they actually are rather than phony pretenses of politeness.
For Christs sake... stop misusing the word "Troll"
It's has a very specific meaning, but everyone uses it now as a derogatory term for anyone on the internet they disagree with. That is not what a troll is.
A Troll, very specifically, lurks, and posts to try and get you to over-react. A troll will rarely overtly offend you. Often a troll will be on your side! Egging you on, to get you to blow up at others. Sometimes a troll will simply IM you to point out other people that are deserving of your rather. A troll is an instigator, troublemaker, rabblerouser, etc...
What a troll is not, is a contrarian. I'm a contrarian, I like to argue my point. I seek out those I disagree with or subjects I feel are incorrect (Like this post!) and I argue my point. I like having people disagree with me, and like to refine my arguments. It's something I enjoy. Contrarians enjoy debate.
Trolls do not care about debate, they care about the emotional anguish of their victim. I rarely, if ever, see a real troll anymore. There used to be clubs of them all over the net, but not really anymore. You can find them on Reddit at times. A troll, for example, may be African American and go to an African American forum and argue for white supremacy. Not because he supports it, but because he knows that's what will get a reaction.
And in regards to the main point of this article... It's total BS. Argument and Debate are good things. The internet is still relatively new. People that couldn't talk before, can now. That's great. By its very nature internet debate is non-violent, which is fantastic. Let the debate continue.
TFA assumes all 'trolls' are doing so just for the "lulz"
that's certainly not the case...these articles written by tech illiterates are ruining our industry (or at least making it difficult by not covering the problem properly)
Public Relations and other media companies pay grey-hat contractors to "boost their social media presence" meaning post fake comments by fake accounts or just by having paid monkeys doing it
Disquss & the facebook.com plugin for sites both have this problem
even here on /., look at a thread about Uber, there will be many high UID comments from random-named Google+ accounts linked to /.'s system
if you're examining online "trolls" and you don't factor in sock puppets, you're missing half the problem
Thank you Dave Raggett
The role of satire is to comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable, or so Doonesbury said. Trolling does not do that. It is either cheap attention grabbing for shit and giggles, or more often, an attempt to intimidate a certain group of people into leaving the Internet.
If you disagree then explain to me the subtle social commentary of posting photoshopped pictures of Robin Williams' body to his daughter. Or bombarding a feminist website with gore, and rape porn.
The majority of trolling these days is about bullying people of opposing viewpoints into submission. They only seek their victims' attention in order to affect that.
The jester is not a psychopath. The joker is. There are trolls and there are griefers. One laughs at misfortune, the other thrives on it. There needs to be a distinction before unjust laws might be enacted under which nobody will be able to experience Natalie Portman's hot grits: that would be the real tragedy.
Exactly.
The fact that "online" is tacked on to the end is the give away that Phillips is talking out of her ass. Just like every other "on a computer" makes it new and unique claim, online trolling is just more of the same. We all know people who do it every day in real life. We have national personalities like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Howard Stern, and Jerry Springer. Heck, the entire Fox network is dedicated to trolling. People think that Fox is a right wing network. They only think that because they are being successfully trolled.
I'm a troll (not so much on Slashdot) and this is nothing to do with the reason why I troll. I'm not rude either, even when trolling.
Neither the GPP nor TFA are talking about real trolling. They are referring to griefers and spammers, and calling them all "trolls". True trolling is an art form. It is far more than mere griefing and harassment. In fact, a perfect troll is often not even recognized as a troll until it is far too late, and the stream of responses has taken on a life of its own.
For the best explanation of the art of trolling, you should read the The Subtle Art of Trolling. It describes the famous "How I Envy American Students" troll. which generated in excess of 3,500 responses and the greatest coup of all was when an innocent american student lost not only her internet account but was also expelled from high school for abuse of the computer systems. Somehow she had managed to get the blame for causing the troll.