Web Trolls Winning As Incivility Increases 457
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."
Bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
Its not worse now than it's ever been in the past. Get the fuck over it
suggestion (Score:3, Insightful)
or didyou think that operation mockingbird was a one-time deal?
Not Government (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fine with sites regulating trolls. I'm less fine with government curtailing freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive it may be.
My 0.02 (Score:5, Insightful)
One person's definition of "troll" ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some people... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yup. A better title would be "Troll study demonstrates general population too easily offended."
Re:Some people... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Problem already solved (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Predictable (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:My 0.02 (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately that doesn't quite work either - look at the Twitter trolls, who spew forth such abuse that several high-profile twitter users cancelled their accounts. The trolls didn't give up, but simply moved on to another part of the web (or different twitter users). So we can ignore them, but only by ignoring the sites and services we want to use.
Of course, I'd say the trolls did those users a favour by getting them to stop using twitter!
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not Government (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is trying to figure out when a Troll is just a Troll vs. Free Speech of an unpopular idea.
Slashdot is a prime example of this. While a lot a trolls are actual troll, there are times when someone hits a few emotional points to the viewers that will get them flagged as troll.
Pro Religion, Pro Microsoft, Anti GNU, Anti Linux, Pro DRM. Posts unless extremely well explained will get modded down to troll.
But there are other areas where opposing views are considered trolls and meant to be kicked out vs. stated as an open opinion.
My rules for trolls, are posts that are overly negative, without any logical basis.
Define Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:If they disagree you're a troll (Score:2, Insightful)
"their left leaning stupidity"
see? that right there invalidates everything you said.
the major news media trends centrist.
its only according to the far right wing / Fox News definition of bias that they can be considered "leftist"....ie, "they disagree with me, therefore they are liberal commie tyrants".
Re:Not Government (Score:5, Insightful)
Pro Religion, Pro Microsoft, Anti GNU, Anti Linux, Pro DRM. Posts unless extremely well explained will get modded down to troll.
Even with a careful explanation most of those will be censored^Wmoderated as trolls.
paid commenters, PR bots, shills (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Satire is not trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [urban75.com]. 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.