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What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls?

bbc.com

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

#101

Post by bornwithabeard »

astrodust wrote: post #83
bornwithabeard wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Just ignore it" is the same as recommending someone leave a party when they're being sexually harassed, as if that's a satisfactory solution. It's punishing the wrong person. 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 sy…

I've written a response about three times here and just deleted it because I rambled for paragraphs something that could be summed up by saying: i have no fucking idea what the correct answer is.

I know services like Slack are kinda helping this along a little bit - I'm a part of one or two Slack groups that I've been invited to by other people, with a bit of a pep-talk at the start of like "here's the sort of shit that WON'T fly here..." that are just small single-interest focussed groups that have kinda organically grown, but it's definitely a rare situation.

I think it's just education for new users (kids), and making sure they fully understand how the internet works and being mindful of what information they share where and with whom. Trolls (in all their levels of extremity) will always exist - anyone claiming they know how to "get rid" of them are fooling themselves

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

#102

Post by qb45 »

Qub3d wrote: post #95
mdip wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a younger internet participant, I'm starting to see this in Reddit (ironically, backed by Y-combinator, which i've now moved to). It seems as a site gets more and more popular, Sturgeon's Law takes effect and the site approaches a point where about 90% of everything is crap.

> the site approaches a point where about 90% of everything is crap.

90% of human interactions are crap ;) Pre-Internet people lived in isolated bubbles and the mess we have now is just a demonstration what happens when too many people from one bubble start interacting with another.

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

#103

Post by qb45 »

st3v3r wrote: post #97
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…

"The secret to dealing with internet trolling is some combination of ignoring it, turning your devices off now and then, and realizing that the character you are interacting with online is not actually a real person." No. Gamergate has proven that "ignoring it" and "turning your devices off" is NOT the way to fix it. Neither of those things does anything.

I learned about the Gamergate drama from HN, well after the fact.

This solution seems to have worked for some people :)

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

#104

Post by chris_wot »

elihu wrote: post #89
chris_wot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was also what led to the death of Kuro5hin.

I believe K5 also stopped accepting new accounts for awhile. It's a shame; there was a lot to like about how the site worked. The collaborative review process seemed like the future of how science and journalism ought to work on the Internet. Instead it became dystopian parable of how such things don't work on the Internet.

Yeah, that sort of happens when someone photoshops the founder's wife's head on a pornstar. Twitter style harassment before Twitter was a thing.

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

#105

Post by Sir_Substance »

apozem wrote: post #86
Sir_Substance wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I didn't elaborate on this enough in the previous post, but please do not assume I'm trying to make no one uncomfortable or enforce real names or remove anonymity. That's a pure strawman. 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…

I guess I don't agree that twitter is as mandatory as you think it is.

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

#106

Post by elthran »

stegosaurus wrote: post #99

Journalists seem to make a habit of misunderstanding the term 'troll'. Trolling is a joke. Harassment is not. Joining a dungeon in World of Warcraft and wiping the group is trolling. Sending someone genuine sounding death threats on twitter isn't. There's a spectrum there somewhere, but more often than not it feels like we've lost another useful term to hyperbole.

Always this. The BBC seems especially bad for calling being insulted or offended by something on the internet "Trolling"

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

#107

Post by kefka »

elihu wrote: post #89
chris_wot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was also what led to the death of Kuro5hin.

I believe K5 also stopped accepting new accounts for awhile. It's a shame; there was a lot to like about how the site worked. The collaborative review process seemed like the future of how science and journalism ought to work on the Internet. Instead it became dystopian parable of how such things don't work on the Internet.

Not only that, but K5 also charged for accounts.

Right now, the login/password field is bugged so you have to type in the URL string to get to your account. ICU/brain dead is about right for K5 now, unfortunately.

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

#108

Post by kefka »

astrodust wrote: post #80
rwj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At an individual level, I agree. At the community level, I don't think it will be that easy. If trolls can destroy the SNR, the community will also be destroyed.

Exactly. If your solution is to "ignore trolls" then eventually you have to upgrade your ignore to the entire community. USENET is dead because they couldn't keep the troll/spammer population in check. Smaller forums with more control survived because they were more resilient and didn't offer as big a target.

Nope.

Usenet died because of 2 reasons: The burden of carrying alt.binaries The burden of pirate media on distributed Usenet servers from alt.binaries

They made a great point of attack for the MPAA and RIAA member associations. And traditionally, ISPs provided these services. I think it was 2006 when Comcast finally pulled the plug. Most other ISPs doesn't even offer a connection at all, which is a shame.

But that's why it died.

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

#109

Post by st3v3r »

qb45 wrote: post #56
zorpner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

"I mean, why would thousands of people suddenly have reason to hate you"

Because you're a woman on the internet, and said something.

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

#110

Post by st3v3r »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #47
apozem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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."

I'm 10,000% positive that it is possible to satisfactorily reconcile "freedom of expression" with not allowing rape and death threats. If you can't, then maybe you need to do some serious self examination.

"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?"

That is extremely easy to say when you haven't had this done to you.

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