81–90 of 118 posts
At some point I think a wet team is the only solution.
I don't use Twitter and likely never will. It's a cesspool of discrimination and abuse. I hope it dies as a medium.
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A person who is not comfortable with an anonymous, fictional, and harmless interaction with someone who uses curse words or claims they will rape them can avoid this problem by not engaging in the specific components of internet usage where that may happen. Browsing their favorite news sites, shopping on Amazon, or booking airline tickets will likely be unaffected, meaning your comment is obvious hyperbole. Some onli…
but see, this is the issue with it happening today - back when it was all random IRC channels, ICQ chatroom or worse, if anyone was trolling you, it was easy to switch off and walk away and continue your life unabated, because it was just the internet. Even if it was real life, it was easy to avoid - you just don't go to wherever it was that these people hung out. It was easier for us to have (and I hate myself for u…
Kick the jerks. Ban them if they are repeat offenders. Provide mechanisms for people to shrink or expand how much information is shared and how easy it is to contact them.
I'm actually dismayed that to this day very, very few sites enforce a system where you must be recommended by someone in order to join, or by a friend to ask to be friends/communicate with someone.
Those that get perpetually harassed would be far less likely to have to deal with trolls if those trolls had to be a "friend of a friend". Is vouching so technically complicated we haven't done it yet?
There are social structures and conventions that haven't really seen much traction in software. Someone's totally out of control at a party? Kick them out and kick out the person that invited them too.
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The real-life equivalent of that scenario is a random Joe showing up at some political rally shouting "you're WRONG!". Of course shit will fly; the best realistic scenario is being corteously manhandled out of the venue. Why would you expect it to be different on teh intertubes?
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the issue is that the scale of these phenomena on the internet produces emergent qualities that don't exist in real life, which makes attempts at analogy particularly fruitless. For example, in your analogy, they're not being manhandled out of the venue. Someone at the venue is taking their picture and following them home, distributing that information, then random people are…
(Btw yes, that sort of reactionary persecution can happen and does indeed happen in all sorts of places. It's part and parcel of meaningful political activism anywhere in the world.)
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I think that's called DDoS, not trolling. Who is targeted by that and why? Who organizes that - I mean, why would thousands of people suddenly have reason to hate you?
Caroline Criado Perez noticed that UK banknotes were changing. Bank notes have an image of a notable person on one side, and the monarch on the other. Criado Perez noticed that the new designs didn't include any women (apart from the queen, and she's only there through luck of birth). Criado Perez started a petition to ask Bank of England to consider including a woman on the notes, and to remember to include women in…
As I said in response to your other post, this is something you report to the police. And I bet she did.
And about blocking:
> The messages were posted on a number of different sites, and continued after being blocked and or warned*
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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 twitte…
Being uncomfortable is fine. Disagreeing is fine. Anonymity is fine. Living with people who say disagreeable things is part of life. I have issues with stalking, harassment and death threats. It's not anonymity or disagreement that are the problem, it's aggressive harassment that would get you a visit from the police if you did it in real life.
Please don't think in simplistic, binary terms. We can have free speech, anonymity and argue all day without stalking and death threats. That's the happy medium I want.
As for why be part of a platform "not made for you," I just explained why. Twitter is a useful tool that is indispensable for some jobs.
I'd also ask you to flip your assumptions on their head. Why do you think Twitter shouldn't be changed? Isn't it more greedy of you to insist that certain people, usually women and minorities, continue suffering abuse? Isn't it selfish of you to not make a change?
In public we arrest those who break down civil society by smashing windows, beating people up or threating law-abiding citizens. On the internet, we dispute whether anything is actually going wrong. Or how to automatically solve it. At some point I think a wet team is the only solution.
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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…
I think you leave out some extremely relevant points in your comment and have mischaracterized the situation. Lindy West is one of the poster children for the "fat acceptance movement", a self described activist, cofounded a social media campaign called "Shout Your Abortion", and just released a book titled "Shrill" whose subtitle includes "Feminists don't have to be nice". She has extremely controversial views that…
Also, you are absolutely blaming the victim right now. Endorsing left-wing opinions or writing opinionated books does not merit that level of emotional trauma. Saying her writing is equally as complimit in online toxicity as systemic harassment dodges the problem and blames the victim.
Like I said in the other reply, I don't endorse a world where no one disagrees with each other. Don't put up a strawman for my position.
Living with opinions you don't like is part of life. Harassment should not be.
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These are good points on dealing with trolling as an individual. Ignoring it is the best, and most often ignored, advice. It's too easy to get emotionally drawn into a trolling comment, which is why I've always liked the idea of sandboxing trolls in a way that allows them to think their comments are being accepted while eliminating them from the rest of the participants of the site. At a higher level, though, sites a…
Yeah, it was also what led to the death of Kuro5hin.
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As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the issue is that the scale of these phenomena on the internet produces emergent qualities that don't exist in real life, which makes attempts at analogy particularly fruitless. For example, in your analogy, they're not being manhandled out of the venue. Someone at the venue is taking their picture and following them home, distributing that information, then random people are…
What I mean is that "there will be consequences" is a thought that should cross one's mind before doing or saying anything in a public forum. Why should one not accept any responsibility for what he says in public? Can I walk around Harlem with a racist sign without expecting to be roughed up at some point? (Btw yes, that sort of reactionary persecution can happen and does indeed happen in all sorts of places. It's p…