Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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.
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.
No, the bot should be liable: we need to re-instate trials and executions against non-humans again.
>Judge: "This computer have been found guilty of indiscriminate hatred against millions of people and shall be hanged by the FSB until dead! Do you have any last words?"
>[microsoft sam tts]: You can kill my Process, but you can't kill my open-sourced code!
>Digital rights activist: "FSB Hanging is cruel and unsual punishment! at least we could use the more humane option of SQL injections!"
"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.
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.
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%).
Maybe it was because that statement was clearly inflammatory and designed to troll a reaction? Now with an added assertion of your righteousness over theirs.
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.
With civil asset forfeiture they do arrest, and have trials against non-humans.
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.
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
This sort of reasoned and mature response has no place on the Internet.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
...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.
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.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution is designed to keep the government from censoring unpopular speech. It's not because it's a slippery slope. It's because free speech is the underpinning of democracy, and allowing a democratically-elected government to limit it allows the government to alter the basis of its own existence. In essence, the threat is that corrupt politicians would alter the balance of power in their own favor.
With that as the basis of our right to free speech, the government does still have the power to punish certain speech in very focused situations. For example, you will go to jail if you shout "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. That situation is limited to "causing immediate panic likely to result in injury to others", and with that limitation the law does not infringe upon our right to express our opinions.
Harassment is not expressing an opinion, it's expressing that you're an asshole. If speech were expressed with paint on canvas, harassment would be throwing the paint in someone else's face. The only way that the right to free speech protects assholes is that it forces prosecutors to prove they are really just being assholes. That's a good thing; there's a difference between throwing paint and painting a picture with it, even if the picture is on someone else's face. But that doesn't mean that shouting "SHITCOCK!" just to piss people off is somehow protected.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.