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BBC confronts Facebook troll

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Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#71

It's good to see Facebook has it's moderating priorities straight. Just for the record its: Holocost Deniers: Tolerated Breastfeeding Mothers: Not OK

This is an incredibly important point. There are two stances to take. First, FB can claim they are a “common carrier,” does not censor, and not responsible for what people post (just as the telephone company is not responsible for what people say on the telephone). Second, FB can pick and choose what is allowed but bears responsibility for what it allows to be posted. Whether you like or dislike their particular choi…

> Whether you like or dislike their particular choices, (...) they are accepting moral responsibility for what they decide not to censor.

Less charitable explanation: FB knows that basically nobody cares about nazis, especially after you've trotted out "free speech", while there is actually a measurable number of people who'd give up Facebook over breasts.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow thats actually crazy! designing a simple bootstrap website that "failed" and later on Craiglist reported it somewhere that your future may depend on?? can you share some more details?

No, the mortgage broker did a google search on me, my wife, and my corporation. They found NotifyWire.com where I released the details of the Cease and Desist letter sent by Craigslist. Since my income comes from my company (though mostly from consulting activities) the broker thought the underwriters might think my income future was in jeopardy. He told me mortgage underwriters are doing web searches on applicants,…

>He told me mortgage underwriters are doing web searches on applicants, which is the scary part.

Why wouldn't they? Why is it scary that they are?

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#73
post #51

I saw the whole episode this snippet came from, and I feel it should be mentioned that the whole thing was very much an assault on online anonymity. The angle was that people can be very immature and very nasty via the Web when their identity is obscured, which is hardly something to dispute. However, the programme seemed to be hinting that public forums should be more regulated to prevent this being possible, which…

Everyone who's for anonymity or pseudo-anonymity wants an all-or-nothing solution where they are totally hidden. The people who propose making everyone known want everyone to totally put all their information online with no protections. What annoys me is there's a very simple middle solution: You are anonymous to other users, but not the company running the site. If you do something like this, then the company has th…

You use the phrase "outed", which to me implies public exposure, so my post is based mostly on that premise. If that's not the case, please just clarify and ignore the applicable parts.

In theory that sounds nice, and to a certain extent there are some similar systems in place already...but I just don't see it working that well overall.

We already have a system like this for sex offenders, and it's got some serious issues. In such a system it would either be up to each site to have a public "troll list" or they would have to have some central repository. In the case of the former, anytime you look at a sites list you won't be able to tell which ones are just someone who made an offensive comment or two on a single site and "repeat offenders" who are on many sites lists. You'd have to collate the lists somehow and even then you'd have troubles of differentiating the various "levels", mistaken identity, etc. In the case of a central repository that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

Then there's the question of what constitutes an "identity" for the purposes of being able to post. A name? An address? Those don't seem suitable to me for such purposes, they're too fudge-able and temporary. A State ID# or SSN seem too personal and permanent. If the former are compromised, you can limit the damage somewhat, the latter less so. There's the issue of proliferation. Even if you use addresses, every single time you put your info out there is the increased risk of it being compromised. It's not unreasonable to want to limit the amount of times you expose yourself to the risk of security breaches.

There's the issue of the practical burden it would place on the sites. This isn't so much of an issue since it would be voluntary, but it's something to consider.

I think the ethical issue of whether it's ok to out someone who obviously has enemies on the internet is a tricky one. Again it gets to the issue of what constitutes an "identity" for these purposes. If it's too specific it becomes dangerous to release, or even store...and if it's not specific enough it becomes dangerous due to confusion, or loses it's sting.

There's also the question of whether it will really deter anyone. As much as they like to try and evoke the image of a deliberate prankster, I don't think most trolls really think things out that much. It strikes me as impulsive behavior. So they get hit on one site after an impulsive trolling and just move to another one.

Assuming that it's specific, I think the possibility of some sort of violent retaliation needs to be considered. You could argue one reaps what one sows, but I don't think that's an attitude that belongs in the consideration of organizing a society. We should value protecting everyone over punishing wrongdoers. A balance needs to be struck between removing the cause of harm from society and not discarding anyone.

Overall I wouldn't be surprised if such a system comes into being. Some walled gardens where members are authenticated based on a one way hash of some personally identifiable information, or a cryptographic key-fob or something...and if they cause a ruckus their access will be revoked. However I think such a system would have enough problems that it wouldn't take off except in isolated pockets that highly value having an exclusive discussion among a verified group, and there I think it would be more about that than preventing trolling.

For trolls, I think measures similar to what is mostly used now will continue to be the main defense. The ability to moderate, vote, etc.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#74
I have no experience in this area, other than having seen trolling on mailing lists, but my guess would be that a face-to-face confrontation with the troll would only give them further ammunition for subsequent enraged outbursts, or serve to make the situation even more dangerous/volatile.

Probably the solution is not to react to the troll, and for their outbursts to be met with silence. Don't read their content, and avoid forums or lists where trolling regularly occurs. When that's not possible report them to the list/forum admin, without engaging with the troll directly.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#75
post #40
post #20

Commenting on this particular troll is probably beneath the majority of us. However, on a general note, I think it is important to realize that every text message you send, every cell phone conversation you have, every post to the CNN forum you make, every tweet you send ... is directly attributable to your IP whether you use your own name or not. With Facebook and Google tracking everything you do, whether you are l…

I've run forums for a long time and bullying surfaces frequently. Most trolls use Tor nowadays. Only very rarely do I get traceable IP addresses that can be dealt with in any meaningful way, and that's usually when there is an invasion of trolls for a day or two and some drop their guard. The only time I've ever successfully stopped a troll was about a decade ago when I traced it back to a uni and was able to raise a…

FWIW we ended up tracking TOR exit nodes on Delicious, and then we used "account created on tor" as a flag to the bayesian.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I absolutely would make the same argument. The moment you begin to moderate your medium, you accept responsibility for it. I’m not saying anything in this discussion about whether FB is right or wrong to allow hate material, just that they cannot hide behind “We abhor it but believe we should not censor discussion.” UPDATE: I have no idea, but I am curious: Can you write porn on FB? Soft-core? Hard-core? As sugge…

Since facebook allows US users under 18 years of age, don't they have a legal obligation not to host porn?

They could host it behind age checks. It seems like it would be easy enough for them to perform automatically.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#77

It's good to see Facebook has it's moderating priorities straight. Just for the record its: Holocost Deniers: Tolerated Breastfeeding Mothers: Not OK

This is an incredibly important point. There are two stances to take. First, FB can claim they are a “common carrier,” does not censor, and not responsible for what people post (just as the telephone company is not responsible for what people say on the telephone). Second, FB can pick and choose what is allowed but bears responsibility for what it allows to be posted. Whether you like or dislike their particular choi…

As far as I understand it, the "censoring" starts when someone flags a photo for review. So if I see a photo of my friend breastfeeding and find it to be in bad taste, I flag it- it then goes on to FB for review and perhaps a takedown. No one seems to mention that in the breastfeeding scandal, SOMEONE had to flag the photo for review, which means that someone found it offensive. So it's not Facebook going through every single picture ever posted to find ones to take down, it's Facebook responding to user requests to take pictures down.

I wonder what the ratio of flagged pictures to removed pictures is. I imagine it's pretty high.

However, the original argument is flawed. Holocaust deniers fall under First Amendment rights, breastfeeding falls under obscenity law.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the mortgage broker did a google search on me, my wife, and my corporation. They found NotifyWire.com where I released the details of the Cease and Desist letter sent by Craigslist. Since my income comes from my company (though mostly from consulting activities) the broker thought the underwriters might think my income future was in jeopardy. He told me mortgage underwriters are doing web searches on applicants,…

> He told me mortgage underwriters are doing web searches on applicants, which is the scary part. Why wouldn't they? Why is it scary that they are?

Because they have no need to declare everything they base a decision on, and the decisions they make will often be made at face-value without consideration of any other information that might offer a more rounded view.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#79
post #51

I saw the whole episode this snippet came from, and I feel it should be mentioned that the whole thing was very much an assault on online anonymity. The angle was that people can be very immature and very nasty via the Web when their identity is obscured, which is hardly something to dispute. However, the programme seemed to be hinting that public forums should be more regulated to prevent this being possible, which…

Everyone who's for anonymity or pseudo-anonymity wants an all-or-nothing solution where they are totally hidden. The people who propose making everyone known want everyone to totally put all their information online with no protections. What annoys me is there's a very simple middle solution: You are anonymous to other users, but not the company running the site. If you do something like this, then the company has th…

SecondLife does this.

You have to use a real name, address and credit card to register an account. But in-world, no one knows who you are and there is no practical way for anyone to find your real identity. And for misbehavior (griefing or harassment), they can block you (by IP I guess) for days, weeks, or forever.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#80
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So maybe it's a photo/text distinction. Is anyone posting Nazi/skinhead photos on FB? Are they getting blocked?

I think you are still missing what I meant. I think it's a Content vs Pornography distinction. If we wanted to test it, I think the question to ask would be are they blocking explicit text as well, say erotic stories, or even just swear words? I know that some portions of their platform do automatically censor certain words (for example website comments), so it would be interesting to see to what level that policy is…

Oh---I did miss your point then, but I think the text/photo distinction would actually be somewhat easier for them to defend than a content/porn distinction; as I understand it, porn is content, as a matter of very well-settled caselaw.
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