Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
theatlantic.com
Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
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Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#2Trolls were always winning the internet. From "RTFM" attitudes to anonymous user accounts. It's a troll playground. Don't get me wrong the internet was built to be/can be an incredible tool, but let's not misconstrue this is a new trend.
EDIT: I find the issue with the candor on the internet is lack of context 90% of the time.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#3Trolls were always winning the internet. From "RTFM" attitudes to anonymous user accounts. It's a troll playground. Don't get me wrong the internet was built to be/can be an incredible tool, but let's not misconstrue this is a new trend. EDIT: I find the issue with the candor on the internet is lack of context 90% of the time.
Trolls, in a broad sense, win life in the same way. "This is why we can't have nice things," is a practically universal sentiment, and much of our human endeavor is geared to managing the activities of its edge cases. Technology only empowers people, it doesn't make them better people... so this is the result.
The response will be a combination of social quarantine, and an upgraded intellectual immune system on the part of netizens. I think Trump's election and the damage his presidency is likely to inflict will be a bit of a turning point in the collective attitude to trolls in general.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#4What I see is some people dont like foolish words on a screen so they want to clamp down on open discourse to control dialogue because in their opinion its fruitless or mean or whatever they feel.
Some silly troll spamming idiotic statements is not nearly the threat that controlling dialogue on the net and deciding what is trolling and what isnt.
Socrates would be labeled a troll these days if he was on social media.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#5Trolls were always winning the internet. From "RTFM" attitudes to anonymous user accounts. It's a troll playground. Don't get me wrong the internet was built to be/can be an incredible tool, but let's not misconstrue this is a new trend. EDIT: I find the issue with the candor on the internet is lack of context 90% of the time.
I agree. It seems to me that the biggest difference is the extent to which the average internet user gets his content from other internet users (reddit, facebook, twitter, etc) instead of designated content creators with reputations to uphold.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#6What I see is some people dont like foolish words on a screen so they want to clamp down on open discourse to control dialogue because in their opinion its fruitless or mean or whatever they feel. Some silly troll spamming idiotic statements is not nearly the threat that controlling dialogue on the net and deciding what is trolling and what isnt. Socrates would be labeled a troll these days if he was on social media.
My screen is of a fixed size; my days are of a fixed length. If you want to put foolish words on your screen more power to you, but if they're on my screen or taking my time, that impedes me doing whatever I want to do with my screen or my time.
That is, the more dialogue that I'm uninterested in that I lack tools to filter, the more my dialogue is being controlled by DoS. That is the fundamental paradox of open discourse; I don't know what the right answer is, but naive open discourse isn't it.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#7Sigh The Trolls have been with the internet from the start. I would say that actually they are mostly contained (why? because its really fucking difficult to be anonymous. Plus you are more than likely to be prosecuted for whatever you've done)
So whats changed? more people are on platforms like twitter, and seem to think that fake internet points are real.
The vast majority of "trolling" is pretty low grade "die", "sexual slur", "lol rape", "exploitation of personal detail that you've shared" Thats not trolling, thats people just being arseholes.
They are anonymous people, they have no impact on your life, ignore them.
edit I should point out that yes swatting and doxxing still happens, and the impact is massive. but it is still rare.
The advantage of a twitter profile is you can delete it, and start again. I wish I could have done that in real life. It would have helped me escape the daily torment of my bullies at high school.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#8Sigh The Trolls have been with the internet from the start. I would say that actually they are mostly contained (why? because its really fucking difficult to be anonymous. Plus you are more than likely to be prosecuted for whatever you've done) So whats changed? more people are on platforms like twitter, and seem to think that fake internet points are real. The vast majority of "trolling" is pretty low grade "die", "…
I'd say it has a pretty profound impact on your life: share personal information online, get 'trolled', and then watch that encounter become permanently associated with your name.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#9What I see is some people dont like foolish words on a screen so they want to clamp down on open discourse to control dialogue because in their opinion its fruitless or mean or whatever they feel. Some silly troll spamming idiotic statements is not nearly the threat that controlling dialogue on the net and deciding what is trolling and what isnt. Socrates would be labeled a troll these days if he was on social media.
My screen is of a fixed size; my days are of a fixed length. If you want to put foolish words on your screen more power to you, but if they're on my screen or taking my time, that impedes me doing whatever I want to do with my screen or my time. That is, the more dialogue that I'm uninterested in that I lack tools to filter, the more my dialogue is being controlled by DoS. That is the fundamental paradox of open disc…
So your solution is to be given tools to enforce your cognitive bias reinforcing filter bubble? That's not a solution, that's a technology provided lobotomy.
A dialogue takes two - if you don't like the dialogue taking place, instead of attempting to quiet the other voices, perhaps just remove yourself from the dialogue.
Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say
#10Trolling is the new spam. Except trolls want your attention, not your money.
People said the same thing about spam. And it's largely been defeated (or institutionalized, whichever way you want to look at).
We're all still figuring out the dynamics of the attention economy... and I imagine that as we do, we'll find ways to minimize the impact of trolling.
I'd venture to say that that's the big lesson we have to learn from the current presidential cycle (aka troll-in-chief).