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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?

#41

Post by Gracana »

qb45 wrote: post #19
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.

Those people you report to the police and if the police ignores you, that's the problem that needs fixing. In the good old days, people used to send you such threats by anonymous snail mail instead of twitter.

And we can fix that problem by using wide-reaching and invasive surveillance that allows the police to de-anonymize anyone once they get the go-ahead.

But that's probably (definitely) a terrible thing to do, so maybe it's better to find other ways to solve these problems.

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

#42

Post by fixermark »

darkclarity wrote: post #15
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…

I suspect a lot of the problems with trolling is inexperienced users not realising that the Internet is the technology equivalent of the wild west. They sign up for services, post all their details and make the sort of off-hand comments that wouldn't be picked up in close circles, except they are using a global publishing platform (social media).

The Internet continues to look less and less like the wild west, and as that trend continues (to torture the metaphor a bit), the expectation that users should go around with guns strapped to their hips will continue to diminish.

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

#43

Post by theseatoms »

apozem wrote: post #39
beeboop wrote: post #18

If you're so sensitive that your day is ruined or you feel uncomfortable by what a random, anonymous idiot says on the internet, you need to either A. Stay off the internet or B. Only participate in communities where you control who has the ability to post content you see (i.e. facebook). The world doesn't owe you a safe-space hugbox. Trying to censor people for being mean is just as shitty as trying to censor them f…

This "toughen up" sentiment sounds nice in theory but it's absurd in practice. Listen to writer Mindy West's story on This American Life about confronting one of her worst trolls [1]. Her troll made a fake Twitter account in the name of her dead father just to mock her. That's grotesque. Not being online or in a community not full of jackasses (what you derisively call a "hugbox") isn't an option for West. She's a wr…

What options do well-intentioned people have to fight back? Doxxing the doxxers? Maybe someone will eventually form an online version of the Guardian Angels [1] to combat this issue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Angels

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

#44

Post by zorpner »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #36
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.

> Your "solution" means many people have to not use the internet. Where was that said? I don't see this comment at all. "turning your devices off now and then" is akin to stepping out of a discussion when you start to take things personally. That doesn't mean you are banned from all conversations. It's healthy to take a break.

Given that modern harassment (particularly on Twitter) involves being targets by thousands of accounts over a period of months or years, how long do you think would be appropriate to turn your devices off for?

This isn't about someone "[taking] things personally" -- this is about organized groups making existing platforms unusable for their targets.

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

#45

Post by fweespee_ch »

jessaustin wrote: post #35
fweespee_ch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wan…

OK, split it down the middle. If you're already a @bob follower when you start following @alice or when @alice un-@s @bob, whichever happens later, then @alice's action has no effect on you. Even if @bob has been hidden from you by @alice's action, it only affects internal-to-twitter links like retweets. If you have a link directly to @bob or his tweet from Google or from an email, you can follow it successfully, and…

> OK, split it down the middle. If you're already a @bob follower when you start following @alice or when @alice un-@s @bob, whichever happens later, then @alice's action has no effect on you. Even if @bob has been hidden from you by @alice's action, it only affects internal-to-twitter links like retweets. If you have a link directly to @bob or his tweet from Google or from an email, you can follow it successfully, and that action removes the hiding effect for you. These extra complications would probably be good for @alice, since it would make it much less obvious to bullies that she had taken this action in the first place. (Yes, if @bob has observant friends, they'll notice eventually, but that's probably OK.)

That could work well enough. :)

Yeah, my main concern was a power user who people wouldn't want to unfollow abusing the feature to silence critics.

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

#46

Post by qb45 »

Gracana wrote: post #41
qb45 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people you report to the police and if the police ignores you, that's the problem that needs fixing. In the good old days, people used to send you such threats by anonymous snail mail instead of twitter.

And we can fix that problem by using wide-reaching and invasive surveillance that allows the police to de-anonymize anyone once they get the go-ahead. But that's probably (definitely) a terrible thing to do, so maybe it's better to find other ways to solve these problems.

Parent and me were talking about hardcore cases. There is no technological solution for people stubbornly following you everywhere and sending death threats.

Furthermore, from some anecdotal evidence, I think most victims in such cases already know who is harassing them.

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

#47

Post by Sir_Substance »

apozem wrote: post #39
beeboop wrote: post #18

If you're so sensitive that your day is ruined or you feel uncomfortable by what a random, anonymous idiot says on the internet, you need to either A. Stay off the internet or B. Only participate in communities where you control who has the ability to post content you see (i.e. facebook). The world doesn't owe you a safe-space hugbox. Trying to censor people for being mean is just as shitty as trying to censor them f…

This "toughen up" sentiment sounds nice in theory but it's absurd in practice. Listen to writer Mindy West's story on This American Life about confronting one of her worst trolls [1]. Her troll made a fake Twitter account in the name of her dead father just to mock her. That's grotesque. Not being online or in a community not full of jackasses (what you derisively call a "hugbox") isn't an option for West. She's a wr…

>We should all be able to participate in online communities without the fear of being stalked or harassed.

My priority is anonymity and freedom of expression. You're never going to be able to satisfactorily reconcile that with your priority of not making anyone feel uncomfortable.

Doesn't it then make sense to stick to different kinds of internet communities? You stick to facebook and real names, I'll stick to twitter with freeform handles? Why try to force change on platforms clearly not made for you? Isn't that just naked greed?

>Her troll made a fake Twitter account in the name of her dead father just to mock her. That's grotesque.

How far does this go? Should we enforce 100 points of ID on letters to the editor of local newspapers, in case I pretend to be someone on the other side of the world and write mocking things?

Surely at some point every sane person must learn to ignore things, or they'll have a heart attack trying to control every word spoken around them?

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

#48

Post by scrupulusalbion »

I always find it strange how people are seriously concerned with trolling. I understand that children, the emotionally immature, and the psychologically ill are actually harmed by trolling. However, those people are already at risk of being harmed by anything approaching verbal abuse. These are the people who have more important issues to deal with than trolling. These people are irrelevant in this context.

The people who matter to trolls are those who can't take a joke, who are super serious all the time; they want to be mad about something. Trolls merely give those people what they want. Flame wars ensue. Purposeful trolls are social pranksters and are conscious of their trolling; these can be reasoned with and are thus not serious issues to fora.

The actual trolls worth worrying about are those who troll yet know not their trollish behavior. These people begin arguments over trivialities and get called jerks/dicks/assholes. These people are much harder to reason with, because they will only listen when they are emotionally sober; bringing up their trolling just gets them deep into another argument. You can't stop trolls; they have to grow out of their own emotional immaturity.

Thus, as the unconscious trolls are themselves a subset of those harmed by trolling, they can and do harm others without understanding what harm they cause.

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

#49

Post by dominotw »

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?

Nice try NSA.

Seems kind of insane that people are willing to dox themselves on the internet.

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

#50

Post by arjie »

The article alludes to it, but there's some pretty neat work at Riot Games around improving player behavior. Here's a pretty good video:http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The-Science-Behind-Shaping-.... It's half an hour long but has some fun results. When you have a player base as large as Riot does with League of Legends, some sorts of experiments become possible.

Good fun.

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