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BBC confronts Facebook troll

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Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#91

Post by jrockway »

lwhi wrote: post #81
ck2 wrote: post #65

It's mental illness folks. We don't accept it because it's abhorrent behavior but these people need mental health help. Getting them to seek help is a nearly impossible task though.

I agree; I'd imagine the act of violent/abusive trolling is a clear symptom of one of a number of personality disorders.

What's the difference between personality and personality disorder? Is there anyone who is not mentally ill?

Ultimately, everyone has their foibles. It's what makes humans human. Only when someone become Internet Famous, though, do we start diagnosing them with illnesses. Why is that? Why can't we say, "wow, this guy has chosen a pretty worthless hobby. too bad he can't use his time to build model trains or something"?

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#92

Post by nitrogen »

stonemetal wrote: post #76
jsaxton86 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They could, but then they'd lose a large chunk of users who don't want to be even remotely associated with such a site.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#93

Post by blake8086 »

lwhi wrote: post #78
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That sounds great. Would you want someone putting restrictions on what factors you're allowed to consider when you're deciding whether to lend someone an enormous sum of money?

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#94

Post by Karunamon »

lwhi wrote: post #81
ck2 wrote: post #65

It's mental illness folks. We don't accept it because it's abhorrent behavior but these people need mental health help. Getting them to seek help is a nearly impossible task though.

I agree; I'd imagine the act of violent/abusive trolling is a clear symptom of one of a number of personality disorders.

Or, more likely, people don't believe that actions on the internet do/should have any consequences.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree, especially when it's something a simple as a website comment that can be permanently erased with a single click.

It's like the people who play games like League of Legends and then help the other team or team kill or generally just play to tick folks off. There was a Wired article about this some time ago that had one line which stuck out in my mind: "They're playing the same game you are.. they are just playing to a different objective".

Personally, while I agree that trolling an obituary page is in >>incredibly poor taste and someone should probably clout the guy on the back of the head , invoking the government to do it is a step down a road that nobody wants to go down.

Kill the comment, report the loser, and move on. That's how you deal with idiots on the internet. Any of the other solutions mentioned here are below optimal for a number of reasons.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#95

Post by tricolon »

joshu wrote: post #75
buro9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the best way to track TOR exit nodes?

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#96

Post by wmf »

gk1 wrote: post #2

What are we to gather from this? That assholes on the Internet are also assholes in real life? "Confronting" people like this does little to change their behavior. At best, it publicizes their identities, and causes some minor level of disgrace, but why would that matter to them?

That assholes on the Internet are also assholes in real life?

That's actually useful information because it contradicts the received wisdom that trolls won't troll offline.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#97

Post by lwhi »

jrockway wrote: post #91
lwhi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree; I'd imagine the act of violent/abusive trolling is a clear symptom of one of a number of personality disorders.

What's the difference between personality and personality disorder? Is there anyone who is not mentally ill? Ultimately, everyone has their foibles. It's what makes humans human. Only when someone become Internet Famous, though, do we start diagnosing them with illnesses. Why is that? Why can't we say, "wow, this guy has chosen a pretty worthless hobby. too bad he can't use his time to build model trains or something…

I agree - we're all a bit crazy; ironically, being aware of this fact is probably the most sane way of being.

The problem is, sometimes the way we interact with the world becomes so obtuse it inhibits our ability to communicate effective and form healthy meaningful relationships.

A diagnosis of what's traditionally classified as a personality disorder isn't necessarily going to elucidate any kind of universal truth, but it might provide context for self-improvement.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#98

Post by Monotoko »

tricolon wrote: post #95
joshu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is the best way to track TOR exit nodes?

There's a nice updating list here: http://proxy.org/tor.shtml

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#99

Post by joshu »

tricolon wrote: post #95
joshu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is the best way to track TOR exit nodes?

there's a DNSBL.

i believe it's possible to run a node and just query it for the exit nodes, but I'm not sure.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#100

Post by kanamekun »

joshu wrote: post #75
buro9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a really clever way to incorporate TOR as an input, without just disabling all TOR-enabled accounts.

Were you able to get a bayesian algorithm to learn whether specific users were likely to be spammers or trolls? (As opposed to specific posts.) I'm guessing this isn't easy to do, since I get spammed on other services on a regular basis (e.g. Twitter spammers will setup new accounts and spam on a regular basis).

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