Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#111

Post by fixermark » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #84

josefresco wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pao had thousands of people calling her a ching-chong cunt." Is this a known/established fact? I see in the article a paragraph about how she received thousands of positive notes/emails but nothing about the # or volume of hate. It may not be documented here, but I'm curious if it was actually as widespread as implied.

Maybe it was only hundreds of people using ten accounts each, but you only have to look at her comment history to see all the messages.

Hundreds of people on ten accounts each having the capacity to look like thousands of people is part of the problem Ellen Pao's essay is trying to highlight.

We're still human beings, and even though we all abstractly know that throwaway accounts exist, when you're getting 10,000 PMs that say you suck, it matters. Besides, evidence from Twitter suggests that it's demonstrably more often an easily-led mob than hundreds of sock-puppets these days.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#112

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #24

itg wrote: post #13

From what i've seen on reddit, twitter, and sometimes even on hn, some are quick to label people whose opinion differs from theirs as trolls. It doesn't matter if it is a polite or well-though out comment, they are quick to shout the word harassment or whatever -ist allows them to hold some moral high ground.

Pao had thousands of people calling her a ching-chong cunt. Why do you think your comment is relevant to this thread?

[deleted]

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#113

Post by lcswi » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #90

partiallypro wrote: post #74

I'm going to disagree. I've been in IRC, Forums, Newsgroups, lurked 4Chan, Reddit, and Slashdot for years. It has actually been evolving to a point, especially among the younger crowd to get bent out of shape about essentially nothing. Maybe that is because more of our lives are online than before, but if you were to go through Twitter and Tumblr and just browse around it is a huge mess of people constantly being off…

Does "Just don't feed the trolls" continue to work in a world where trolls know that SWATting someone is as easy as picking up a phone, and doxxing someone can have significant long-term consequences?

Have there been instances where this happened out of the blue? If so, I would appreciate some more information on those incedents.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#114

Post by angersock » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #54

wxs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you see the front page of Reddit when they were blowing up at Pao over the fat people abuse subreddit? I think it's disingenuous to claim that this is just polite disagreement: http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2015/6/10/...

They were hit back by karma. Reddit has never hesitated to take advantage of the word "democracy" to refer to how their site works. It's a word that sounds very well. So there they have it: that screenshot is what democracy looks like.

Yep. Forum users and gamers are the worst sort of people.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#115

Post by uptown » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #65

I wish that there was some sort of Internet-wide 'reputation system' that would accumulate one's reputation across all websites they use - while preserving their pseudonymity on each site. As an analogy, Steam and Battle.net and other gaming platforms have something going for them, maybe by accident: by using one account across lots of games, the risks incurred by cheating are amplified. If you cheat (or harass) in o…

"A lot of times I wish that there was some sort of Internet-wide 'reputation system' that would accumulate one's reputation across all websites they use - while preserving their pseudonymity on each site."

There is. Unfortunately, it's the NSA that operates it.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#116

Post by mahouse » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

Slick135 wrote: post #73

wxs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you see the front page of Reddit when they were blowing up at Pao over the fat people abuse subreddit? I think it's disingenuous to claim that this is just polite disagreement: http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2015/6/10/...

Is /r/Stuff, /r/iAMA_troll_AmA, /r/PaoMustResign, or /r/EllenPao_IsA_Cunt even default subreddits? I didn't see any of those on the front page that day. If they aren't default, then does it really matter? If trolls want to troll away in their own little troll cave, so be it?

I assume lots of people understand /r/all as the "real" front page of Reddit.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#117

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

songshu wrote: post #29

Misquoting Bart Simpson "If you never experience the abuse, you'll never get desensitized to it", and with that in mind, and talking here only about written abuse, these are my favorite three outcomes for, let's say, my daughter: 1) No one abuses her online 2) People abuse her, she dismisses it as noise 3) People abuse her, and she reacts and attempts to control it I think we should be aiming for number 2.

We absolutely should be aiming for number 1.

I think I get your point, that it is healthy to be able to deal with the world as it is, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept or embrace it as it is.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#118

Post by evilduck » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

songshu wrote: post #29

Misquoting Bart Simpson "If you never experience the abuse, you'll never get desensitized to it", and with that in mind, and talking here only about written abuse, these are my favorite three outcomes for, let's say, my daughter: 1) No one abuses her online 2) People abuse her, she dismisses it as noise 3) People abuse her, and she reacts and attempts to control it I think we should be aiming for number 2.

While I generally agree that it's mostly (and likely even entirely) noise, I also can't ignore that there were many instances of abuse in this particular issue that would be outright criminal in most jurisdictions (death threats) if those same people said the same things in person in a public forum. The fact that its done under a practically anonymous pseudonym by a large number of people doesn't change the criminality, it just makes it impractical to enforce the law against those offender. I don't think we want people desensitized to threats on their life, even if from a source that's typically just noise.

If you want to spout hate and slurs over the internet, go right ahead, I think people do need to develop thick skin to idiots, but I wouldn't be sad if a few of the small number of people making threats of harm were tracked down and charged appropriately.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#119

Post by ElComradio » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

Unfortunately we can't trust the intentions of this piece. She might not actually care about trolls at all, just brushes them off like I do. It's an image piece, designed to fulfill specific purposes, and I doubt the purpose is merely to spread the message of the positive potential of humanity on the Internet.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#120

Post by boomshucka » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

lemevi wrote: post #36

tdees40 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SJW is just a lazy slur. It's time to retire it.

It's too bad that this type of comment and the one above it are going to kill any meaningful discussion about this interesting and important topic. To quote Sam Altman[1]: > Most smart people I know have decided to just not discuss anything sensitive because of the internet lynchmob looking for any slight mistake > This seems unlikely to be a good development. At some point the conversations will only have the extrem…

Well, in Sam's case, he has a tendency to talk about many things which he has no expertise. I'd guess he and his friends sit around talking about things which they don't really understand and think they have "insight". So do my friends and I. This is fine to the extent one is chatting with friends. It's the silicon valley thing to do, think we know waaaay more than we do.

However I don't think it's a great idea to put forth one's amateurish "insight" as discussion worthy in a public forum. It promotes the idea that any position is "valid" when many simply aren't. Having a "discussion", which everyone seems to think is oh so important, is absolutely useless if it's between people who don't have any clue about the topic they are discussing. So, if the "internet lynchmob" has stopped people speaking publicly about things which they have no business doing, I can't say I feel sad about it.