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Trouble at the Koolaid Point

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Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#201

Post by mturmon »

dllthomas wrote: post #193
jvanenk wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really really REALLY read the article.

In what way does the parent comment indicate the author did not read the article? The article discusses options as a target of trolling, the parent seems directed at bystanders.

The article also mentions that there becomes a competition among the bullies to see who can find the most effective tactic. ("The more dangerous social-web-fueled gamification of trolling is the unofficial troll/hate leader-board. ....")

This adds a lot to the severity. Ignoring it is not enough.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#202

Post by VLM »

scribu wrote: post #165
VLM wrote: post #158

Brand problem and anonymity mismatch. Plenty of people hate brands. Microsoft, Ford, Chevy, Walmart, Green Bay Packers. You try to turn yourself into a brand, you're going to pick up hate because you're a brand not because you're a person and hating brands is culturally seen as a great idea that should be emulated as much as possible. So trying to fix hatred toward humans is pretty much a waste of time when the root…

That's an interesting take on the matter. An internet where all online identities are decoupled from offline identities seems possible, at least in theory. The idea that using your real name online makes you act more responsibly doesn't seem to work anyway. But wait. That would only solve part of the problem - trolls targeting women, minorities etc. Even if you have a fictional online identity, once you have visibili…

I think your last paragraph misses the entire point of my post... No matter how many people hate General Motors, the spokesmodel of the latest TV commercial is not likely getting death threats.

Its always the people who insist on making themselves the brands, that self-promote themselves as a brand, that attract the death threats and nut cases, just like any other "brand".

If you can separate the brand and the person in a way even the trolls can understand, let them hate the anonymous brand all they want, what does it matter?

Maybe a sports analogy helps? Everyone in the state of Wisconsin viciously hates the brand of the Chicago Bears and the journalists encourage it as much as possible. But no one sends death threats to Mr. XYZ who is a ticket collector at gate 3. One is a brand and hating brands is seen as a universal good (other than on social media, whoops). The other is just some dude making his way thru life, no problem.

(edited to give you another example. Look how /b/ on 4chan behaves toward women on /b/. Not women in abstract or women in journalism, I'm talking about humans with two x chromosomes talking on /b/ itself which is about 99% male trolls (and lots of lurkers). Frankly, /b/ behaves pretty nicely and civil almost gentlemanly toward women actually on /b/ AS LONG AS she doesn't go all self promotional "gimmie attention look here I am a girlie on /b/ everyone look at me because you're mostly guys and I are a girl so you must worship me its all about me me me me" and then they turn on her like starving wolves beginning with "show us (you can guess) or GTFO" and it generally kinda devolves from there, in fact it gets quite a bit worse, and very quickly. They now hate her because she is now a brand and not a person. Find me a trollier place on the internet than /b/ (good luck) and I bet they behave the same way, people treat people like people, and some people treat some brands like dirt, worse than dirt, worse than you can imagine dirt being treated, and if the brand happens to be an intensely self promotional person instead of an abstract entity or corporation or idea or whatever then things are really going to suck for that brand-which-happens-to-be-a-real-woman. Or TLDR if you want to be treated like a person on 4chan on /b/, its really easy no matter who or what you are, just behave like a person, not a brand or a PR rep or marketdroid. The internet is very nice to people, and occasionally utterly shockingly brutal to brands. Go choose your destiny...)

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#203

Post by dllthomas »

mturmon wrote: post #201
dllthomas wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does the parent comment indicate the author did not read the article? The article discusses options as a target of trolling, the parent seems directed at bystanders.

The article also mentions that there becomes a competition among the bullies to see who can find the most effective tactic. ("The more dangerous social-web-fueled gamification of trolling is the unofficial troll/hate leader-board. ....") This adds a lot to the severity. Ignoring it is not enough.

Note that I'm not saying ignoring it is the best approach. I just don't like seeing a bare "RTFA" when the issue raised was not specifically addressed in the article. (Even if it can be arguably inferred from the article, some pointers at the steps of inference are worthwhile - things are not equally obvious to everyone).

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#204

Post by dllthomas »

cmdkeen wrote: post #65
kansface wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.

Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should…

The parent wasn't a comment about the article directly, but on a thread that was discussing acceptance or rejection of subreddits for "domestic abuse and snuff". I don't know that these constitute "online harassment".

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#205

Post by mturmon »

dllthomas wrote: post #203
mturmon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article also mentions that there becomes a competition among the bullies to see who can find the most effective tactic. ("The more dangerous social-web-fueled gamification of trolling is the unofficial troll/hate leader-board. ....") This adds a lot to the severity. Ignoring it is not enough.

Note that I'm not saying ignoring it is the best approach. I just don't like seeing a bare "RTFA" when the issue raised was not specifically addressed in the article. (Even if it can be arguably inferred from the article, some pointers at the steps of inference are worthwhile - things are not equally obvious to everyone).

I felt that the aside about social gamification was important conceptually.

As technologists, sometimes we build something and then like to step aside and talk about it like it's inevitable. But how it was made and how it works factors in to how it is used. So it is our responsibility.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#206

Post by dragontamer »

phkahler wrote: post #169
peterwwillis wrote: post #139

Couple of comments: 1. I know of weev from hacker circles. He really is this douchetastic. But what's really insane to me is that there's a bunch of women in the hacker scene who adore him . I couldn't quite understand it, until I saw them also adore Adrian Lamo, and so my theory is very close to Kathy's here: hero worship distorts reality. In order to stop people from enabling abusive trolls like this, someone has t…

>> mechanism. And here's my opinion that will probably get me downvoted into hell: there is no way to stop this, other than leaving the internet. What about ending anonymity? Much as I like the idea of remaining annoymous online (not that I am here), there are legal means to deal with the extreme end of the trolling spectrum so long as you can identify them. The next issue that pops up of course is privacy. We need t…

Honestly, removing anonymity has made things worse over time.

Facebook and Youtube now have open racists who push their malignant opinion upon everyone now, and are proud enough to sign their name next to it.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#207

Post by grecy »

Wow, I had no idea anything like this was even happening. How horrible.

>You’re probably more likely to win the lottery than to get any law enforcement agency in the United States to take action when you are harassed online, no matter how viscously and explicitly.......There IS no “the authorities” that will help us.

I find this part of the article most disturbing. I can't imagine how law enforcement doesn't take online threats as seriously as "real" threats. Kids are thrown in jail for posting about bombing a school on Facebook, but if I directly say I'm going to rape or kill someone on Twitter or Facebook nothing happens?

How do we get the authorities to start making examples of these people and handing down serious jail time for online threats?

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#208

Post by scribu »

VLM wrote: post #202
scribu wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting take on the matter. An internet where all online identities are decoupled from offline identities seems possible, at least in theory. The idea that using your real name online makes you act more responsibly doesn't seem to work anyway. But wait. That would only solve part of the problem - trolls targeting women, minorities etc. Even if you have a fictional online identity, once you have visibili…

I think your last paragraph misses the entire point of my post... No matter how many people hate General Motors, the spokesmodel of the latest TV commercial is not likely getting death threats. Its always the people who insist on making themselves the brands, that self-promote themselves as a brand, that attract the death threats and nut cases, just like any other "brand". If you can separate the brand and the person…

Ok, so your argument seems to be that if you hide behind an impersonal brand, you'll be safe. Sorry, but I'm not conviced:

> No matter how many people hate General Motors, the spokesmodel of the latest TV commercial is not likely getting death threats.

The spokesmodel probably doesn't get death threats, but what about the president or the CEO of GM?

> Everyone in the state of Wisconsin viciously hates the brand of the Chicago Bears and the journalists encourage it as much as possible. But no one sends death threats to Mr. XYZ who is a ticket collector at gate 3.

Of course not, but are you sure nobody sends death threats to the manager of the team or the coach?

> One is a brand and hating brands is seen as a universal good

That's a bit hiperbolic. I don't consider Google bashing or Apple bashing, for example, to be a net good. IMO, it's just a tribal instinct that we haven't managed to get rid of yet.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#209

Post by mrcarlosrendon »

protonfish wrote: post #141
olefoo wrote: post #5

After reading this, I'm battling the urge to suggest technical solutions to social problems. Except that in this case the social problems are caused by the fact the internet is a house built on sand and the underlying protocols don't support authentication or accountability to anything like the degree traditional public conversations did. That said, the choices that were made in the 1980's and early '90s to support p…

I think there are technical solutions to this problem (though nothing that has to do with protocols and authentication) that are very similar to the ones encountered when people were moving from small villages to cities. People seem to be able to behave in a civil and constructive manner in a group at or below Dunbar's number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number For cities to form, the technology that neede…

"2. You can remember their past behavior" I think this is a big missing piece. Sure in many communities I can kinda look up their past behavior, but it is not easy.

I would be good to know if this person: 1. Adds to the discussion 2. Has skin in the game

Systems like karma/points/votes kind of address these, but they aren't perfect.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#210

Post by theorique »

DanBC wrote: post #107
tomp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer. There is no right answer, but restricting information is the wrong answer, primarily because it doesn't work. The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. You can still download pirated movies, even if it's not as simple as it used to be. Eve…

> The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. That's the point - I can dump uuencoded blobs of text in HN that are stolen nudes. I'd be downvoted to hellban if I tried. Online communities create their own standards. Reddit's standards exclude some groups of people. That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to…

> Online communities create their own standards. Reddit's standards exclude some groups of people. That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions.

Who's being excluded by reddit's standards? Aside from egregious racists who become nuisances to others, and/or child porn distributors (both good exclusions, IMO), it seems like a free-for-all. You want to create a subreddit reflecting your odd interests, go ahead!

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