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BBC confronts Facebook troll

news.cnet.com

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Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#101

Post by __david__ »

lwhi wrote: post #97
jrockway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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.

In this particular case, when the reporter caught up with the guy he appeared to have a wife and young child. So he seems to have at least one "healthy meaningful relationships". He's probably not a complete jerk when face to face with people. It's probably more along the lines of this: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

It's called due diligence. What he did is prudent. What he suggested, that you take your name off the application, less so.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#103

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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?

I think it was meant to educate us, not him. I assumed trolls were spineless and used Internet anonymity to massage their egos. This guy, though, had no qualms with reconciling his online and real identities. This was interesting for me.

Further, for those trolls that do care about the perception of their real identities, perhaps pointing to something like this and saying "you sound like this guy" is enough to change behavior, albeit at the margin.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#104

Post by zargon »

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?

Tor (not TOR) uses directory servers to keep track of middle and exit nodes. You can get the list directly or via a variety of front-ends. See https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en#Bans

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#105

Post by iguana »

blake8086 wrote: post #93
lwhi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You mean like race?

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#106

Post by sien »

It's ironic on a site called 'hacker news' where everyone knows what the older 'proper' definition of hacker people don't seem to care or even to point out what the older, 'proper' definition of troll is.

Fortunately wikipedia still has in their definition:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4] The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted".

So, a proper troll on HN might pop and point out that functional languages, while pretty and amusing, are largely unused because their performance is insufficient and make a comparison about, say, perl, provoking people to correct them and argue the point.

Look up adequacy.org to learn about proper trolling.

This guy is just a jerk.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#107

Post by kbatten »

I fail to see the relevance of this.

In addition it somewhat upsets me that someone could get jail time for making an offensive comment. Depending on the jurisdiction or culture, I know I have said things that would be offensive to someone (specifically regarding religion.) To be faced with jail time over something like that does not sound like something I would expect from a western country.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#108

Post by Selvik »

tosseraccount wrote: post #87

Difference between US and rest of world. US has free speech. Rest of world doesn't. (yeah yeah .. "we have free speech except for obectional material" ... right. American develop an "idiot filter" and get good at using it: "dude's an idiot. whatever. move on". Europeans don't and find the need for authorities "e.g. The BBC" to police their brains. Big deal So what? Some clown is an offensive troll. I'd rather deal wi…

The situation is analogous to the difference between the immune system of someone with limited exposure to all the normal diseases of western civ (f.ex. theo-facists, nazis, white supremacists) and someone brought up with sterilized everything and an instant antibiotics cure if he sniffs once.

EDIT: Not saying that murderous leftist radicals can't do damage, but the west's left has mellowed.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#109

Post by abalone »

Maybe it's my American 1st amendment ideals but I'm almost more disturbed by the tone of the report than the troll (who is obviously a huge douchecanoe).

First of all, how did they track this guy down? Sure, there are legal ways of doing it if the guy is sloppy. But how does a report on the ethics of the Internet perpetrate a huge invasion of privacy without so much as passing comment on it? Disturbing implications for what actions are justified when directed at people with the "wrong" ideas.

Second, notice the reporter's repeated emphasis on the illegality of racist speech. He's not just shaming this guy. He's beating the drum of state censorship. Again maybe it's just my ideals but this is just obviously disturbing, maybe even moreso than trolls themselves.

I am not able to watch the whole program but judging from the synopsis it doesn't sound like it entails any substantive discussion of the ethics of privacy and censorship on the Internet, e.g. interviews with civil libertarians, which is what any serious report on trolling should include. As it stands it reeks of sensationalism.

Re: BBC confronts Facebook troll

#110

Post by blake8086 »

iguana wrote: post #105
blake8086 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You mean like race?

Sure, why not?
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