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What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

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Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#21

Post by threatofrain »

boopuyy1 wrote: post #13
parennoob wrote: post #5

I have yet to see an article about Internet trolls and cyberbullying that addresses the nuances inherent in a couple of points: 1. Disagreement is inherent to a lot of discourse. Social networks are not research papers -- some of the disagreement is going to be accompanied with strong displays of emotion. Where does the line between strong disagreement and bullying lie? If Anne tells Bob, "Bullshit, your arguments do…

I just thought it would be good to point out that you are creating a strawman. You've created an example that you acknowledge isn't cyber bullying, and use that to suggest that therefore cyber bullying can't exist in any form. It's a disingenuous argument at best.

A straw man is a misrepresentation of someone else's argument, and the poster did not say something anything so unsophisticated as what you have suggested. Your argument, on the other hand...

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#23

Post by buckbova »

DanBC wrote: post #17
buckbova wrote: post #11

Remove all perceived anonymity. Of course that sense of anonymity is what makes the experience richer and safer. I'd rather just live with the trolls. Is it that bad?

People are happy to make idiotic comments under their real names linked to their real identity. See the Sikh who advertised Facebook ("What's this raghead terrorist doing on my wall?") or comments under any news article (especially Daily Fucking Mail ("Kill the immigrants")).

They exist and are ultimately in the minority.

Anonymous apps tend to bring out the worst in people, especially with groups like teenagers and cyberbullying.

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#24

Post by Zikes »

DanBC wrote: post #16
CPLX wrote: post #8

I feel like an odd man out every time this topic comes up. Like I'm sure many others here I've been involved in online communities and discussions in some form or another since it was all green text on a black background, and I don't think things are any different now than they have ever been in any way that really matters. The secret to dealing with internet trolling is some combination of ignoring it, turning your…

Your "solution" means many people have to not use the internet. Sucks to be them, I guess. Meanwhile, people saying they want to rape you, or posting images of dead children to you, or posting your address and saying they're going to murder you, get to carry on without hinderance.

I think the solution will lie as much with law enforcement as with the social media platforms. In examples as extreme as yours, they should be treated like any other credible threat and reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency right away. Unfortunately, I have a hard time imagining my local PD will even know what Twitter is, much less how to pursue a case involving it. I think social media platforms need to ensure that law enforcement can easily (through the appropriate legal channels) access the necessary information on the sites to pursue such cases.

Unfortunately, far more cases are less extreme than yours. The line gets blurrier when you get down to persistent low-level harassment, where individual examples will look relatively harmless to an outsider but the victim is forced to face them as a whole. In those instances, it's the responsibility of the social media platform to allow the victim to properly document and report the harassers, and most definitely put up the appropriate barriers to prevent future harassment. Twitter's biggest failing on this point is in how easy it is to create "sockpuppet" accounts, such that as soon as one is banned they can continue uninterrupted from the next.

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#25

Post by gnicholas »

boopuyy1 wrote: post #13
parennoob wrote: post #5

I have yet to see an article about Internet trolls and cyberbullying that addresses the nuances inherent in a couple of points: 1. Disagreement is inherent to a lot of discourse. Social networks are not research papers -- some of the disagreement is going to be accompanied with strong displays of emotion. Where does the line between strong disagreement and bullying lie? If Anne tells Bob, "Bullshit, your arguments do…

I just thought it would be good to point out that you are creating a strawman. You've created an example that you acknowledge isn't cyber bullying, and use that to suggest that therefore cyber bullying can't exist in any form. It's a disingenuous argument at best.

Actually, it's not a straw man. Laws (or codes of conduct, at universities) like this actually do exist. In the US, they are generally unconstitutional, but challenging them is expensive and time consuming. For a fairly comprehensive listing of such laws/codes and an analysis of their constitutionality (again, only for US purposes), see Professor Volokh's blog, now part of the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/cat...

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#26

Post by stonogo »

DanBC wrote: post #16
CPLX wrote: post #8

I feel like an odd man out every time this topic comes up. Like I'm sure many others here I've been involved in online communities and discussions in some form or another since it was all green text on a black background, and I don't think things are any different now than they have ever been in any way that really matters. The secret to dealing with internet trolling is some combination of ignoring it, turning your…

Your "solution" means many people have to not use the internet. Sucks to be them, I guess. Meanwhile, people saying they want to rape you, or posting images of dead children to you, or posting your address and saying they're going to murder you, get to carry on without hinderance.

That behavior is illegal regardless of the medium. Report it to the police. It has nothing to do with the internet.

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#27

Post by boopuyy1 »

threatofrain wrote: post #21
boopuyy1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just thought it would be good to point out that you are creating a strawman. You've created an example that you acknowledge isn't cyber bullying, and use that to suggest that therefore cyber bullying can't exist in any form. It's a disingenuous argument at best.

A straw man is a misrepresentation of someone else's argument, and the poster did not say something anything so unsophisticated as what you have suggested. Your argument, on the other hand...

Not to point out the obvious, but "is she cyberbullying him?" and "Should her access to Twitter be cut off" are both clearly attempting to misrepresent the argument of the other side. Just because they are rhetorical questions doesn't mean it isn't obvious what the poster is implying.

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#29

Post by fweespee_ch »

jessaustin wrote: post #7

TFA mentions Twitter at the beginning, but doesn't follow up at all with how terrible their interface is and has been for targeted users. The "solutions" discussed in TFA require the coordinated voluntary actions of users and site administrators, and are therefore impractical. We need instant technical solutions. It should be possible to "un-@" any other user, with no questions asked. That is, after 'alice takes this…

> That is, after 'alice takes this step with respect to 'bob, no matter how many times 'bob includes the string "@alice" in his tweets, neither 'alice nor any of her followers would ever see those tweets or any other by 'bob. This would not be difficult, and would make Twitter much less threatening.

The problem with is then @alice controls whose tweets I can read if I want to follow her content. :/ Just because I want to hear what @alice has to say doesn't mean I want @alice to control whether I can talk to @bob.

I think solid ignoring features is really the limit to this approach due to that fact. [e.g. @alice ignores @bob, @bob never shows up in her feed no matter what]

Re: What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

#30

Post by zorpner »

stonogo wrote: post #26
DanBC wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "solution" means many people have to not use the internet. Sucks to be them, I guess. Meanwhile, people saying they want to rape you, or posting images of dead children to you, or posting your address and saying they're going to murder you, get to carry on without hinderance.

That behavior is illegal regardless of the medium. Report it to the police. It has nothing to do with the internet.

It has everything to do with the internet -- fundamentally, the last ten years of online technology are the story of previously borderline behavior types demonstrating emergent properties at scale. The ways in which people are regularly, even commonly, harassed online now are life-destroying. If you think the cops have the resources to follow up on thirty thousand death threats from all over the world you're being willfully naive at best.
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