Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Says It's Beating the Trolls (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: After making it easier to report abusive tweets and increasing the size of its anti-troll team, Twitter believes it is getting 'bad behavior' under control. As well as bullying of acquaintances and work colleagues, Twitter has also been used to attack celebrities, the gay community, religious groups, and more, with many people feeling driven from the site. It seems that the decision to take a very hands-on approach to troll tackling is starting to pay off. The head of Twitter in Europe, Bruce Daisley, says that the tools that have been introduced have had a real impact on trolling. He goes further, saying that there is a direct correlation between the release of new safety tools and reporting mechanisms, and the drop in unacceptable behavior.
Why didn't the earlier story about internet freedom make any mention of this Twitter banfest, Slashdot? Why was there never a /. story about Vice (where the internet freedom story came from) itself hypocritically silencing the masses by wiping out its own comments section, ensuring that only themselves and approved plebians will have a voice on their site?
/. story about the ridiculous UN Women/Broadband propaganda report that tried to promote the idea of "cyber-violence" (an awkardly obvious pretense to a desired government crackdown) which proved so embarassing that they had to pull it from public view (and no /. story when that happened either).
Why was there never a
It's abundantly clear that there's an activist arm of the tech news media (which Slashdot, sadly, clearly wants to be part of) that isn't anti-censorship or anti-bullying at all, as long as they get to be (or choose) the approved bullies and censors.
Trolling is an attempt to prevent debate and the exercising of free speech.
No, trolling is the attempt to elicit a reaction and have people make fools of themselves in front of others.
It is often disruptive, but I cannot say I have heard of a single case of trolling intended "to prevent debate and the excercising[sic] of free speech".
It's not actually that hard. You can express controversial views politely, without trolling.
Hardly. It doesn't matter how polite you are, if the topic does not sit well with consensus. You will know that your views will be attacked without anyone reading and trying to understand them, no matter how polite you are. And knowing that, the only purpose would be trolling.
That being said, I do not necessarily see it as a bad thing. People being goaded by someone sincere, polite and humble can be a beauty to watch, especially when it leads to people attacking conclusions no one drew or opinion no one held.
In my opinion it is an underrated art form, much like sarcasm that is obvious to everyone except the recipient.
I completely disagree.
A public debate isn't a free-for-all where anyone can say anything. If you don't eject the trolls then the trolls will drive people away. You've still got the de-facto censorship which you claim prevents public debate except now new the targets of censorship are chosen by the nastiest, craziest faction.
You are falsely equating doing nothing with being open. That's unfortunately not the case: you're just letting someone else do the closing for you.
You're picture of public discourse sounds more or less equivalent to perfect freedom: it can't exist because... Well, the perfect freedom debate is long hashed over and I expect I'm unlikely to give you new insights to that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How did you manage to quote me, copy the quote inaccurately, notice there mistake and add (sic) without seeing that the mistake was your own?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC