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The Inevitable Death of the Internet Troll
HughPickens.com writes James Swearingen writes at The Atlantic that the Internet can be a mean, hateful, and frightening place — especially for young women but human behavior and the limits placed on it by both law and society can change. In a Pew Research Center survey of 2,849 Internet users, one out of every four women between 18 years old and 24 years old reports having been stalked or sexually harassed online. "Like banner ads and spam bots, online harassment is still routinely treated as part of the landscape of being online," writes Swearingen adding that "we are in the early days of online harassment being taken as a serious problem, and not simply a quirk of online life." Law professor Danielle Citron draws a parallel between how sexual harassment was treated in the workplace decades ago and our current standard. "Think about in the 1960s and 1970s, what we said to women in the workplace," says Citron. "'This is just flirting.' That a sexually hostile environment was just a perk for men to enjoy, it's just what the environment is like. If you don't like it, leave and get a new job." It took years of activism, court cases, and Title VII protection to change that. "Here we are today, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not normal," said Citron. "Our norms and how we understand it are different now."
According to Swearingen, the likely solution to internet trolls will be a combination of things. The expansion of laws like the one currently on the books in California, which expands what constitutes online harassment, could help put the pressure on harassers. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Elonis v. The United States, looks to test the limits of free speech versus threatening comments on Facebook. "Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?" asks Swearingen. "Too many people do too much online for things to stay the way they are."
According to Swearingen, the likely solution to internet trolls will be a combination of things. The expansion of laws like the one currently on the books in California, which expands what constitutes online harassment, could help put the pressure on harassers. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Elonis v. The United States, looks to test the limits of free speech versus threatening comments on Facebook. "Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?" asks Swearingen. "Too many people do too much online for things to stay the way they are."
Every year a new generation of kids come on line, fueled with anonymity and alcohol, people post stuff they wouldn't say to someone's face. So fuck off the lot of you!
What about automated hate? Bots that sends hateful messages directed to all different types and groups of people? Would the bot-maker be liable for online harassment then?
Judging by this summary, the trolls are alive and well, I'd say.
Oh no, not this topic again... Trolls don't care about their tragets' gender. They just want the most harm for the least effort. Women generally are the ones who get offended and emotional about this stuff, and therefore are much easier and more exciting targrta. Men just ignore it or fight back. As they say, the easiest way to make someone stop bullying you is to ignore it and not be offended or bothered (or at least not show it). Either thay, or swing back if the situation calls for it. The bully will move on to someone weaker and raiser to get a rise out of.
The definition of harassment, at least where I live, is "unwanted sexual advances", meaning the distinction between flirting and harassment is purely based on subjective experience. Good luck trying to find a girlfriend without "harassing" anyone!
On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog. So how dog harassment numbers look like? Probably the same.
According to PA's Greater Internet Fuckward Theory (GIFT), it is gender-neutral and widespread. It is unfortunate, but that is the only way it could exists and still allow unauthenticated participation. To me, this unauthenticated quality that allows anonymity is a lot more valuable than eliminating GIFT asshatery.
Lets censor and police the internet not because of bomb and drugmaking tutorials and terrorism forums.
Lets do it because someone might insult females online.
Every single person that have spent any extended time online in an environment where you communicate anonymously with strangers have been insulted, harassed and so on. It happens because you eventually end up in a competitive situation(games or arguments).
But of course when xXxPonyWarrior2002xXx calls me a 'shit-eathing motherfucking fag-whore' and wishes me death from cancer and fire simultaneously it's friendly banter between two men. But when he calls GamurGrrl99 a slut it's suddenly a confirmation that all men are misgyonistic pigs and that we can't have such a thing as a free internet anymore because it's full of heartless trolls.
Can we first then agree one what exactly constitutes a troll?
I've seen a lot of news about trolls and trolling but it seems that it's rather loosely on an almost arbitrary basis. "Troll" has been used to described a stalker, an asshole, a person with an impolite opinion, a racist, sexist, bigot etc etc
From one online dictionary we can learn that "troll" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/troll?s=t) has nothing to do with online activity. Seems this word is now re purposed to what the urban dictionary has an entrie for: (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll)
"One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument."
Now by that definition which seems to be very much the case in many references is such a person deserving of punishment? prison? -our norms are dynamic. With enough trolls trolling will be the norm.
The article mentions human behaviour and I believe trolling is an aspect of bullying which is very much natural (although incorrect) and normal. I say this because it's a complete fallacy to tie "trolling" with stalking or sexual harassment.
We need some clarity on this rather than all this blanket FUD nonsense about trolling. When a person gets mouthy in real life he might get locked up for 24 hours for "disturbing the peace". This includes some pretty colourful language. If this is consistent against one specific person then that is harassment, there is a legal framework for this.
Has harassment stopped? bullying? -while not justifying it, I argue it never will cease because it's part of human nature.
Our only hope is to create a finer definition to stop this umbrella term which means different things to different people at different times without consistency; and furthermore we need a punishment befitting of the offence if there indeed was one at all.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Another generalization to the fucking word troll! Awesome!
STALKING IS NOT TROLLING. IT IS STALKING.
HARASSMENT IS NOT TROLLING. IT IS HARASSMENT
SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS NOT TROLLING. IT IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT.
CREATING FRAUDELENT INFORMATION TO DEFAME SOMEONE IS STILL DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER. AND FRAUD.
Stop trying to shut down the people who decided your fucking house in minecraft should look like a penis to you can make fucking anti troll laws. What's next? Anti not being nice and forgiving me to laws? Fuck you.
Next time someone does a smear campaign online and follows you, ARREST THEM, If I went around some town POSTING PICTURES ALL OVER that were private, fucking wrong, embarassing and put private info on it and other things, I WOULD GO TO JAIL AS THAT IS ILLEGAL
So it is on the internet too is it not?
TROLLING - When a comment is made to rile up or bait other people into a discussion. E.G People in Canada don't have roads.
That is a TROLL. It's also not a big fucking deal.
However 'BLAH BLAH THIS WOMEN IS A WHORE FOR CRITIQUEING GAMES, HERE IS HER SLUT ADDRESS'
That is INVASION of privacy, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, HARASSMENT, DISTURBING THE PEACE and many other things if you added more to it.
Learn the fucking laws people, and I mean you too police officers, and fucking use them properly. Fucking anti not nice to be law bullshit.
When looking at the big picture, the people who bring the most hostility to online communities aren't the traditional trolls. These people may "shitpost" and may engage in petty arguments or name-calling, but they're rather harmless.
It's the so-called "social justice warriors" who are far more harmful in practice. While trolls do what they do "for the lulz", the "social justice warriors" actually take what they do seriously. They are oblivious to the damage they cause to online communities.
The "social justice warriors" don't just post comments, like traditional trolls do. "Social justice warriors" do everything they can to actively censor anyone they choose to target. They attack, and attack, and attack some more.
"Social justice warriors" create the most toxic, awful, hostile communities around. Just look at Reddit, or even Hacker News. It's common to see the vile, repulsive harassment of people there who don't happen to hold the opinions that have been deemed to be "correct" by the "social justice warriors". Those places are much worse than, say, Slashdot, which has a much more balanced and fair moderation system that isn't as open to the abuse that the "social justice warriors" prefer to engage in.
As the old saying goes "We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias..."
But that's not true anymore is it? These "women" now exist on the internet, and as long as they keep trying to be "women" on the internet, people will call them out for it. People call "women" skanks because they fill their profiles with pictures of themselves looking like skanks. People harass "women" because they keep pointing out how unfairly they're being treated because they're "women".
There are now "women" in gaming, "women" in business, "women" fighting for "women" and more power to the "women". Why? If these "women" would just stop trying so damn hard, then there would be room for everyone.
But that'd mean having to compete with everyone else on equal terms, wouldn't it? The "women" wouldn't be able to rely on their pretty looks and the empowerment of other "women", and they'd receive no special attention from all the nerds on the internet. We'd all be equals, each anonymous entity carrying its own weight, relying on words to enforce their ideas. But we can't have that. Only "women" can be equal.
This isn't about sexual harassment, but controlling the internet, and implicitly people in general. A lot of the powers that be have decided that, like other forms of media, they need to sanitize it in the name of control. (even with games, google gamergate) They want a name and an ID behind every post, they want to create "accountability". They gleefully ignore the fact that any woman, gay person, person of color, persecuted minority can take on an anon alias and argue their beliefs, do their work on merit alone. Seriously, how do we even know that Satoshi, the bitcoin creator, isn't a black lesbian? The internet frees productive people from race and gender in a way that before was never even remotely possible.
So maybe, just maybe, the people who want to make it an issue now, are the doing it not because of some high morality, but because they are discovering they can't compete on merit. But the issue is way deeper that that. In today's world, a lot of media and games are controlled via copyright, but copyrights by their very nature require centralized control by those who control them to work. Yet the internet is doing just the opposite, it is moving into the direction of decentralized control, threatening a lot of people, who happen to have a lot of money.
He goes first, then follows the controversial poster, then follows the poster who says anything contrary, then goes the poster who doesn't toe the approved line.
Freedom of speech means tolerating some trolls. Better that than to lose that freedom.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
"Social justice warriors" do everything they can to actively censor anyone they choose to target. They attack, and attack, and attack some more.
I remember reading a little while back that the YouTube "Star Wars Kid" had become a lawyer and was working for some sort of culture ministry in Quebec. I thought "Good for him! He made it through a negative part of his life and now he's doing some good in the world!" But then a Canadian responded to the story and pointed out that "language and culture" in Quebec has a much more ominous meaning than it does in most other places. Essentially, this kid was purportedly working, not to promote arts & culture, but as a legal bully for some Quebec nationalist/separatist types who want to harass anyone not putting their signs in only French and to threaten anyone who didn't put "French culture" ahead of English culture.
That was sad to me. It seemed that the bullied had become the bully. Sometimes you can think you're doing something good. But even if you are pursuing a noble cause at first, you can cross over a line to the point where you start seeing your critics as evil and wanting to silence them by force. When you cross that line, you're no longer pursing a noble cause. Any merit in your cause goes out the window the second you decide to impose it at sword-point. At that point, you're just another asshole in a power struggle.
SJW's may think they're doing good. But to me they're just another bunch of assholes in a power struggle. And I would much rather live in a world where there are some internet trolls than a world where I have to walk on eggshells on the internet and watch everything I say, lest I be booted off for inadvertently offending some new group of victims that I wasn't even aware existed.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
If the trolls go away, there's nothing for the SJW's to defend, and they go away as well.
History teaches us that it is not so. When all the important topics are exhausted, the standard is elevated and previously petty points are blown out of proportions.
Wasn't troll supposed to mean someone that writes controversial or inflamatory things (even if they don't really believe them) just to get other people debating (fighting) about it so they can sit back and watch the fireworks. Now it's cyber bullies and people who harass women online. It sounds like the old/new definitions of hacker. This new English, it changes faster than Double Talk!
I can't wait to read some hate-filled slashdotter's pathetic tirade against women. Have at it, chaps.
Women: A ridiculous liberal myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that an enire gender seprate from male exists, is ludicrous...
Sadly I don't really have the time to do justice to such a classic troll.
"Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?"
Evidently, all systems of moderation and meta-moderation by users have proven ineffective. But the frequent scoldings we see here evidently show promise.
According to the actual study, men are the most common victims of trolls. Only if you restrict yourself to looking at sexual harassment, are women more likely to be targeted, and only by a small margin (3%).
It reminds me of when I used to watch my neighbors kids. They would fight over a toy. I would walk over slap both of them on the backs of the head (because they were usually punching each other). Take away whatever toy they were fighting over. Then tell them *MY* side is not going to put up with this crap and shut the hell up and dont move from those corners for at least an hour. Most clickbait stories want 2 sides. But there is usually a 3rd side. The wtf is wrong with both of you. I feel this massive urge to slap people upside the head and tell them I do not care about your social justice cause you are trying to create and they need a massive timeout.
Basically we get 3 groups. The quite 'wtf who cares' side, the pro-gg, and anti-gg. The one side is acting like misogynistic twits and stalkers. The other side is acting like militant fuckups and trying to shout down any opinion they dont like. I am squarely in the 3rd group of you both are acting like children, stop it. One side is using the 'anonymous' internet to smear their message around. The other side is using its pulpit of 'free journalism' to push their smear agenda with a side of censorship.
But if one actually follows the link, one reads that "Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%. In terms of specific experiences, men are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats." [emphasis added]
That blows are rather large hole in the thesis which the poster and many others seem to be implying, that internet harassment is primarily rooted in misogyny.
This is not to in any way justify the harassment of women. But if you want to know why there's a backlash, part of the cause (not a justification, a cause) may be the ongoing distortion of the facts about violence and harassment.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
When you want a particular solution, you continue to claim a problem exists over and over and over again until people believe it and demand the solution you want to provide. Hegalian dialectic 101, and in this case they (the State and the cronies putting people into offices) want Internet Censorship.
In fact the Government owns their own Troll armies, provides them play books, and pays them YOUR money (collected in taxes) to Troll. If we know that the US and UK Governments are doing this, we should assume that other Governments are doing the same. We also know that large corporations have hired trolls, and paid them to troll as well. What is constantly overlooked in discussions of "Trolling" is whether or not a Government/Corporate paid troll campaign is involved. It's a fair question, but our state controlled media does not ask the question.
In no way is this an attempt to claim that shitty people don't exist. The issue is, that the shitty people are not the majority and a good number of shitty people happen to be in the Government. "SJW"s are often co-opted by the Government (see COINTELPRO/Mocking Bird), and the Dunning-Kruger effect means that many of these SJWs are unwittingly behaving as agent provocateurs.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It's pretty simple. The next time a feminist blogger gets her panties in a bunch ask her what it would take for her to go away permanently. Under what set of conditions does feminism become obsolete?
I bet you she doesn't have an answer because she never wants to stop meddling.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Very typical SJW troll tactic. Exaggerate his position to the extreme and then *pretend* you knew that was what he meant. Smashing.
Yesterday's and today's comics on Dilbert show the proper response to sexual harassment.
dilbert.com/2014-10-22/
dilbert.com/2014-10-23/
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
...about the only thing that is worse than the SJW brigade is people who feel uncomfortable when they see people fighting and tell them both to stop as if everyone involved in anything resembling a fight are equally to blame for it. It's a damned arrogant attitude that you being annoyed by something is more important than whatever people might be fighting over.
Being attacked? Better not try to resist, lest some dick shows up and punishes you for "fighting" because he's annoyed by the noise.
In a written forum it is even more ridiculous, since you're making an active choice by reading about stuff. If #GG annoys you, don't read about it!
You, sir, is the silent friend of bullies everywhere.
Note: I'm not taking sides in the #GG ridiculousness, and your analysis may well be spot on. Regardless, that doesn't make the above acceptable.
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/...
GamerGate will never be covered "fairly" because it's not in the interest of anyone with a soapbox tall enough to do so.
Journalistic integrity is a fat fucking joke, and probably always has been. We've been buying the lie for decades because, surprise surprise, the people who benefit from that notion are in the perfect position to broadcast it to the entire world. They've got it great, so no one wants to risk exposing an ugly truth just because a few individuals weren't discreet enough about collecting their benefits. You bet your ass they're going to censor it and pretend it didn't happen!
I mean, really. The Hollywood types have got nothing on the self-important assclowns who call themselves "journalists", whether they roll with "New" media or "old".
The SJW "movement" is vile, but it's also extremely naive of the opposition to think that they'll get anywhere by exposing abuses of the press. They don't care, and they never cared. That battle is lost.
Maybe someday, with the democratization of news that's been brought on by the internet, average people will finally learn to engage ALL media with reasoned skepticism and critical thinking. THEN we can start thinking about ways to make the journalists honest.
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
You can ask that, but you won't get a sensible answer. What will happen instead is that they pick some other part of your post, only respond to that, and call you a misogynist, racist, or some other name. Or they'll give a generic like "When full equality has been achieved and women aren't harassed anymore. Are you opposed to equal treatment and ending harassment? Why do you hate women?" You can't even win if you are a member of the minority they are pretending to help; they'll just say "The reason you disagree with me is because society has treated you so badly that you have internalized all this self-hatred, so in addition to suffering over harm, you have clearly also suffered psychological harm."
You need to recognize that these people have spent their whole lives on honing their propaganda and debating skills; that's what political science and social science majors do. They plan strategy, they have entire books about how to raise an issue, discredit opponents, and get things done. They know every single point and strategy you might use and how to respond to it most effectively. They don't have to be logical or truthful, they just have to score debating points. And that's all it takes for them to succeed in politics and get lots of donations to their causes. And money and power is what this ultimately about: this is how they make a living and succeed.
These people are professionals. As a technology person, you have about as much chance of success against them as challenging a heavyweight champion to a boxing match.
Here is a very short but accurate summary for you. Feel free to repost it.
Some guy broke up with a girl and posted some unverifiable and irrelevant stuff about her on his blog. This started a campaign against her, with increasingly outrageous lies. It was said she slept with a journalist in exchange for a favourable review of her game, but the review doesn't exist and the journalist in question didn't write anything about her after they got together. The GamerGate keeps trying to claim it is interested in journalistic integrity, while repeating this lie over and over again.
Another women, Anita Sarkeesian, made some videos about how games tend to have fairly poor portrayals of women. She was careful to point out that most of it was due to laziness on the part of the developers, even calling the series Tropes vs. Women to emphasize the fact. Even so, this sparked a campaign against her by self-described "gamers" who thought she was attacking games and gaming culture. GamerGate supporters have tried to distance themselves from some of the worst of it (doxing, rape and murder threats, and recently a bomb threat against a university she was due to speak at), while posting conspiracy theories about she sent all these threats to herself... in order to lose money by not being paid to speak or something.
Other female developers who dared to speak out have received similar treatment, such as Brianna Wu. GameGate supporters have also organized somewhat successful campaigns to get advertisers to stop supporting web sites which condemned the treatment of these women. The label "gamer" has come to mean a misogynistic, unpleasant fanboy who masturbates over pixelated tits and nude patches, and should be abandoned by normal people who like games, half of whom are women.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The OP has a point, unfortunately.
Modern feminism lacks a common goal like the earlier waves did. There are so many dissenting opinions all under the umbrella of feminism, many (most?) of which are not about getting equality.
I'm all for equality and fairness, but I've become very wary of 'feminism', or at least what it has mutated into.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
And yet, anyone who says "treat women like people" gets labelled an SJW. The term is meaningless, saying "SJW" is about as irrelevant's and Rush's "feminazi", in that it riles up the haters but makes everyone else roll their eyes.
What you claim happens is absolutely false. People are not simply claiming that women should be treated like people, they are claiming that:
* Women get treated worse than everyone else on the Internet
Therefor the solution is to censor the Internet.
Due to societal pressures there is no way to prove such a claim, and it's completely not relevant to the solution. Censoring the internet would not prevent shitty people from doing shitty things. If that was true, we would have no crime in any country where a person has a home address. Yet we have lots of crime, and it does not relate directly to anonymity.
The crusade has nothing to do with protecting women's rights. In fact I'll argue that it has nothing to do with catching people that are behaving badly toward women either. If you have doubts, answer why online predators and human trafficking are either the same or worse today (in scale) than say 20 years ago before all of the laws alleging to catch on-line predators.
Many of the laws claimed to protect children have had the exact opposite effect, of protecting criminals. Meanwhile innocent people with good intentions have been harmed by these same laws.
Since we can demonstrate that the laws won't change the situation, you should be asking who benefits if laws are passed.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Among the healthy and mature, there's no right "not to be offended"; not for men, and not for women. There is 100% equality here.
Such offense is subjective; every possible attempt to minimize it by law boils down to an unworthy suppression of freedom, something that is unhealthy for society no matter how you go about it.
Even when a particular mode of speech, or some consensual/personal action, is pretty much uniformly despised, it's far better to know who says, and therefore has motivation to say, or does, these terribly offensive things, than it is for society to repress these people and then jump up in stark surprise when they move from unseen and unheard to resentful action as a means of kicking back against said repression.
Speech, in many cases, serves as a moderately effective safety valve. You never want to close such a valve and walk away. Because you get this.
If something you look at offends you, look away. If something you hear offends you, stop listening. If something people do offends you, don't participate. Your subjective feelings of offense can never rise to the relevance required to legitimately regulate the behavior of others.
Until something breaks your bones, damages your property/finances, or impugns your reputation, or these things similarly directly affect those for whom you perform the role of parent or guardian, the correct action is to turn to managing your own sensibilities -- rather than trying to control other people's actions.
Now, as to the immature and incompetent, in particular, children: Parents and guardians have a dual responsibility here. In order to be able to execute that responsibility, your home should be a safe haven in the sense of you being able to completely control who, and what information, gets in, and when they get in, and when they must leave. Society owes it to you to see to it that this capacity is readily available to you. Your home should indeed be your castle. To the extent it isn't, society has either failed you, or you have failed your charges. Schools and/or any other situation requiring attendence must likewise be supportive and safe, or society has lost its legitimate right to force your children to attend.
Immaturity:
On the one hand, it is your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not bullying, generally or specifically being an asshole to others. You are responsible for inculcating the understanding that immature and/or insufficiently abled minds can be taken to, and beyond, the brink by bullying, and then you must see to it that this understanding translates into reasonable behavior by your charges (which, by the way, will work to reduce many types of essentially pointless trolling later on.)
On the other, it is also your responsibility to see to it that your charges are not being bullied. You should know where your charges hang out, who they hang with, what the environment is like, and you should step in when that environment, in your estimation, becomes unhealthy. Stepping in may involve a note to someone else's parent or guardian, removing your charge from the harmful environment, or simply providing sufficient perspective so that the behavior is seen in the light of failure of the perpetrator, rather than any kind of lessening of the value or self-image of the target.
Incompetence:
If your charge cannot be taught to healthily handle the speech, displays, or consensual actions of others, then it is your job to see to it that they are not exposed to those things. It is not society's responsibility to turn the entire planet into a padded room for your charge. If you need a padded room, you should build one of your own.
For every story I have heard so far of horrible consequences to bullying, my reaction has been "Where were the parents during all this?"
And I have to ask: If your charges are not being raised with healthy self-images and a strong sense of self, what the fuck ar
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.