Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say • Hacker News Board

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#211

Post by kordless » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:36 PM UTC

Jarwain wrote: post #169

kordless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visualize other's truths at the expense of your own.

What do you mean by this?

Not the "if you are willing to be manipulative" statement. That is what defines a troll. A "troll" is simply an entity (of race human) who is willing to remove choice from others by tricking them into removing choice for themselves.

So, what is choice? I hypothesize it is work. Work done and saved on one hand. Work to be done on the other. Some of our choices are based on what has come before regarding the choice we must make. I like German beer, so I drink one each day. Some comes from other humans, however, who choose to remove our choice for us. Advertising does this, for example. Sometimes choice is removed from use of logic, or rationality.

It is my belief that our choices are, in part, governed by our visualization systems. I'm talking about that thing in your head that allows us to visualize images similar to what we see while using compute devices, such as this monitor, graphics card, computer I am typing on now.

If someone else, besides you, can get you to visualize something, I'm asserting that this is actually a choice of removal of choice by yourself.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#212

Post by niggerdeath » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:37 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #173

pdeuchler wrote: post #137

The internet is as it always was, the only difference is more people, and more importantly more people without technological prowess and forum/bbs/irc experience, are accessing it and moving increasingly larger chunks of their life to the internet. As someone who fell in love with the internet when I was young because nobody knew I was young , it constantly surprises me when people put intimate details online and the…

The majority of people who say "don't feed the trolls" have never been the focus of a trolling campaign, I've found. It is easy to claim this when you aren't under constant violent harassment and scrutiny. It is not fair to expect everyone else to have a "battle-hardened" stoicism when you've probably never experienced such a life. I've never experienced such harassment myself and used to sing the "ignore" mantra too…

Yeah buddy we should lock up anyone who makes fun of your wise blogs.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#213

Post by kebman » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:37 PM UTC

That fact is, there are no more trolls than before. No really. There aren't. Not even since the time of Socrates, and we all know what happened to him.

There are however a lot of people who'd like to silence pesky individuals and organizations who have recently started winning even more pesky debates, such as all those anti-establishment rednecks, patriots, anti-immigrationitsts and right wingers who got Trump into power.

Can't have that. Must put pressure on Google and Facebook to censor (wait, I'm trying to come up with something suitable - hm... Yes, let's call it...) "hate speech" and "fake news". Yeah, that's it!

Now we have the means to shut them up once and for all. Let's softly censor all people saying bad words on YouTube with things like (hm find new ideas here) demonetization and restricted mode, and let's cow these people once and for all so our narrative can win. Meanwhile let's use our corporate power for, let's say on behalf of the people, to put pressure on the governments to back down on the things that they were voted in for in the first place.

There's only one problem. When you make peaceful dissent impossible, you make violent opposition inevitable. Not my words. JFK's. We absolutely must have democracy and freedom of speech. One doesn't work without the other. If you can't win an argument, then accept it and move on. Or try to find another angle. Limiting free speech to win debates is not the answer.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#214

Post by astrange » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:38 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #114

Banthum wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding manners, it really depends on what those manners are. Chinese medieval society was very orderly and mannered; there were clear standards of behavior (at least for the elites). But the manners in question were conservative and did not encourage innovation, so they did not advance rapidly and ended up far behind Europe despite having a head start. The enforced homogeneity of thought and thus destroyed opportu…

I'm assuming by "manners" you are talking about societal norms and regulations. And you're correct in your diagnosis that China has the most fertile regions in the world. However, these manners didn't really affect Chinese "development" as much as you imply. The imperial exam is good example of just how advanced the Chinese nation was for most of history. China as a country remained politically united for most of kno…

> Another reason why I don't think "manners" matter is Japan; isolationist until the Meiji Restoration, rapidly modernized after despite the "manners" remaining intact.

Japan abolished social classes (or pretended to) and nobody gets killed for insulting a samurai these days. The voluntary-then-forced Westernization was a pretty major changes.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#215

Post by drenvuk » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:40 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #173

pdeuchler wrote: post #137

The internet is as it always was, the only difference is more people, and more importantly more people without technological prowess and forum/bbs/irc experience, are accessing it and moving increasingly larger chunks of their life to the internet. As someone who fell in love with the internet when I was young because nobody knew I was young , it constantly surprises me when people put intimate details online and the…

The majority of people who say "don't feed the trolls" have never been the focus of a trolling campaign, I've found. It is easy to claim this when you aren't under constant violent harassment and scrutiny. It is not fair to expect everyone else to have a "battle-hardened" stoicism when you've probably never experienced such a life. I've never experienced such harassment myself and used to sing the "ignore" mantra too…

Your first sentence points out the problem. Those people allowed themselves to become the focus of a trolling campaign by putting themselves out there in the first place. It would be fairly easy to avoid that if your identity online was just a name not linked to anything else. If you put your life online it's expected that someone who has nothing better to do and is hidden behind anonymity will make it harder for you.

I prefer it this way to be honest. So many people want more rules to protect them. We have enough, leave the internet alone please. Any rule that someone comes up with is most likely going to be a power grab and make it more difficult for those that know what they're doing.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#216

Post by Balgair » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #152

pdeuchler wrote: post #137

The internet is as it always was, the only difference is more people, and more importantly more people without technological prowess and forum/bbs/irc experience, are accessing it and moving increasingly larger chunks of their life to the internet. As someone who fell in love with the internet when I was young because nobody knew I was young , it constantly surprises me when people put intimate details online and the…

>The internet doesn't magically make social, political, religious, and ideological rifts magically disappear, it just seemed like it did because nobody could associate users with their backgrounds. But one could argue that our modern "Social Media Internet" gives exactly that impression. Whether it's Google, Facebook, Twitter or whatnot: People are being funneled into "ideological bubbles" based on their preferences…

Well, for a lot of the world, Facebook is synonymous with the internet as an idea. In India, FB has negotiated with a lot of mobile carriers to exempt themselves from being counted towards data usage. This means that some double digit percentage of the world thinks that FB is the internet. How can you expect people to not be in a filter bubble when their idea of the net is FB and FB only?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#217

Post by pdeuchler » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:42 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #204

noobermin wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people who say "don't feed the trolls" have never been the focus of a trolling campaign, I've found. It is easy to claim this when you aren't under constant violent harassment and scrutiny. It is not fair to expect everyone else to have a "battle-hardened" stoicism when you've probably never experienced such a life. I've never experienced such harassment myself and used to sing the "ignore" mantra too…

Trolls are a completely different thing than criminal harassment, and it is disingenuous to equate the two. The primary danger is that by lumping people with legitimate criminal complaints in with people who are sad because someone said some mean words to them on the internet, you don't make others more concerned about rudeness, you make them less concerned when someone has a real problem.

Also worth noting that criminal harassment via the internet is largely a failing of law enforcement, not a failing of the infrastructure of the internet or a sudden arrival of a new species of really mean humans. There are some privacy/free speech issues down this road, but by and large LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area.

And while it's a different discussion all together, I think examining why conflating criminal harassment and "trolling" has become in vogue would teach us a lot about how power is used in the modern age.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#218

Post by kazinator » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:42 PM UTC

bhntr3 wrote: post #206

ocschwar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't feed the trolls" was a useful thing to say back when the word meant something far more specific than just "someone behaving badly on the Internet."

Yeah, the meaning has shifted. It used to be that if people knew you were trolling, you weren't a good troll. Now a troll is just an asshole on the internet.

Some of the newbies don't understand that "troll" refers to "trolling" as in "fishing troller": evoking the metaphor of casting a net to collect responses like fish.

They imagine "troll" as a metaphor invoking the humanoid creature from Scandinavian folklore, which, in the Three Billy Goats Gruff story, is a nasty, unpleasant, violent creature who wants to eat everyone who crosses his bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Billy_Goats_Gruff

Hence the asshole angle.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#219

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:44 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #166

KaiserPro wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to get specific here. I'm not talking about a bullying campaign that's branched out into the digital world, that is what I would class as actual trolling. I run a blog that talks about the specifics of labour law. A number of posts resonated with a profession that was going through a tough time. As time drew on, what was professional unity devolved into infighting along two lines: accept a new contract, or…

"Twitter/facebook/email can all be erased." That can mean professional or social isolation for quite a lot of people - or at least disadvantage. The moment your blog, github account, facebook account or twitters matters for employers, peers, business, conferences you would like talk at or negotiations is the moment when walking away affects you.

That's a little exaggerated I think. I don't have a blog, an active GitHub account, and don't use Facebook or Twitter at all. Yet, by some miracle, I have a robust social life and am gainfully employed. I think people overstate the importance of these services (most of which, by the way, did not even exist 15 years ago). I choose to post here but could stop tomorrow and it would have zero effect on my personal or professional life.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#220

Post by astrodust » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:44 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #104

jknoepfler wrote: post #67

I don't understand this article at all. I participate in two large professional forums (one for poker, one for development). The professionals are winning the internet there. There are dedicated subforums for trolls and random bs, which are pretty funny sometimes, but serve as an outlet for the garbage. I browse hacker news... It is what it is, I'm happy with it as a content sharing platform. My biggest gripe is the…

Oh man, have you ever tried to have a political discussion on Facebook? Even citing sources, trying to be diligent... And then, the only response you get is... "that's not right!". And that response is somehow given equal weighting? I actually wish Facebook, the place where a majority of Internet discussion probably occurs, WOULD institute a dislike button and suppress those comments that get down voted too much (lik…

The problem with services like Facebook is they give everyone equal footing on any topic no matter the person's expertise on the subject, their relationship to the matter at hand, or their overall attitude towards discussions in general.

This means a black person who's been repeatedly victimized by police has no more credibility than some white dude who thinks everyone's making it up and it's a bunch of cry-babies going on about nothing.

It means a cryptography expert can get shouted down by some idiot that's just parroting something they read on CNN that's dangerously misinformed.

There's a lot of factors in play here but the "like" button skews the conversations towards things that earn votes which are not necessarily things that are true, accurate, or meaningful.

Sometimes the truth is ugly and painful and that's hard to like.