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Researchers Developing An Algorithm That Can Detect Internet Trolls
An anonymous reader writes Researchers at Cornell University claim to be able to identify a forum or comment-thread troll within the first ten posts after the user joins with more than 80% accuracy, leading the way to the possibility of methods to automatically ban persistently anti-social posters. The study observed 10,000 new users at cnn.com, breitbart.com and ign.com, and characterizes an FBU (Future Banned User) as entering a new community with below-average literacy or communications skill, and that the low standard is likely to drop shortly before a permanent ban. It also observes that higher rates of community intolerance are likely to foster the anti-social behavior and speed the ban.
Automated censorship. Eh, saves us the trouble, I guess
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Trolls are usually above average literacy and trying to skilfully cause a fight. It's easy to identify "illiterate" people and humans are way too quick to judge someone who cannot spell as having nothing to contribute or (worse) malicious, but these are not trolls. This is just another classist meme where the person is judged positively by the overcomplexity of their language and convolution of their sentences, as this must mean they have been educamated right.
BTW I went to a £30k/year British boarding school, so I have no axe to grind, nor insecurity about describing things as they are.
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
within the first ten posts after the user joins
So, this algorithm only needs nine more posts than a troll will actually make per throwaway account, then?
That's some mighty fine police work there, Lou!
... at the term "Future Banned User" (FBU).
Isn't that just a nice way of saying "somebody our algorithm flags as a complete asshat"
Your mistake is in using the "classic" definition of "troll" - somebody who sets out to deliberately cause fights on a forum. Trawl through the archives of Slashdot and you will find many instances of this kind of trolling - and yes, the people doing it are often highly literate (and, when they do it right, sometimes very funny with hindsight).
But the term "trolling" has gone political these days and is routinely used to describe any form of online behaviour that the speaker doesn't approve of. So everything from outright criminal behaviour (eg. threats of immediate violence) at one end of the scale through to disagreeing with a forum's established groupthink (however respectfully) at the other.
And yes, it has become a favourite term of the intellectually insecure, whenever they want to shout down an opposing point of view without engaging with it. In fact, conflating those two extremes I mention above under the same term is outright beneficial for the easily offended, as it allows them to group polite dissenters together with the mouth-foaming loons.
There goes Gawker.
Yes, well, they should definitely ban people who can't point a fucking camera, and probably have them arrested
Anybody who tells the truth that the scum in power don't want you to hear, apparently...
In days when someone can be attested for quoting from a published book by Winston Churchill I have to agree.
Researchers have detected researchers detecting an algorithm detecting researchers researching.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
https://xkcd.com/810/
Seems relevant.
Looks like my days on the internet are numbered.
and volunteer to help test. We have a steady stream of trolls available for review, a truly endless supply.
spacefem.com
I can see, how this may defeat (ab)users trolling for fun and not suspecting automated detection before it hits them (though, with only 80% accuracy, I dread the thought of the methods expanding out of the virtual realm).
But what about people "trolling" professionally — paid and/or otherwise compelled into it by a state or corporate actor pretending there to exist some kind of "grass-roots" movement? How would it deal with thousands of fake accounts mounting a coordinated assault, posting (while "liking" and "following" each other)?
Some times you may be able to catch accounts posting identical things at the same exact time (and ban them all in bulk), but Russians seem to have fixed that bug in their bots now...
This is turning into another battle like that, in which spammers have fought the best Information Technology minds into a standstill. I doubt, progress against forum-spammers will be much better than that — not when mere technology, however clever, is up against interests of a reasonably powerful state.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Your talking about racism, this article is about internet trolls They are not the same. A person with a different view is not a troll. A person with a different opinion then you is not a troll. Ive been tagged a troll because of my views a few times.Many here will post as anomoue because they know there opinions will be viewed and tagged as a troll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
Jack of all trades,master of none
Nonsense. Next you'll be suggesting that the technology might be intentionally abused to silently bias "unmoderated" conversations about [REDACTED], which would be a frightful step toward &^%- - -
[REMAINDER OF COMMENT DISCARDED AS TROLLING]
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Unfortunately, many people think that if you express a different viewpoint or opinion than the masses that you're trying to start an argument or a fight. Why is society so hell-bent on crushing dissenting opinions? And not merely silencing them, but villifying them?
I've often been tagged as "trolling" because I don't agree with the crowd. If you knew me personally, you'd know very well that I'm not trying to start a fight, just expressing my opinion. Just because it is not the popular viewpoint doesn't mean my views aren't valid.
Here on Slashdot, I often see people flagged as being trolls just because they don't follow the masses. You'd think a site full of outcasts and oddballs like programmers and technologists would be more accepting of alternative views, but the exact opposite seems to be the case.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
yes, and now we get into the same sort of pointless useless territory as arguing about what "hacking" means
Because both "troll" and "hacking" have been made into pointless useless words through the magic of "common use" by common people who have no clue what they were supposed to mean.
"An algorithm that can detect trolls" is a meaningless statement. If it is an algorithm, it needs a definition to work from. That definition is not going to be based on historical or accurate usage of the term. In fact, the summary gives you a good idea what it will be based on:
So, the "definition" of "troll" is going to be "people who display unpopular or angry behavior when confronted by an intolerant social media environment." Gee, anyone slashdotted recently? "Community intolerance" is not the problem, I guess, it's the reaction of people in a supposedly open forum to that intolerance.
There will be no direct definition as such. It will be an empirical model based on correlation between use of angry or unpopular phrases and the subsequent ban of the poster. That's the new "troll". Say enough stuff that people don't like, you're a troll.