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

Unfortunately, the people "on the other side" will tend to see things the same way. And our tendency is to define the enemy group vaguely, over-generalizing by including lots of people who are not really malicious or even wrong. Maybe our anger makes us hungry for targets. Or maybe we are just so upset about the disagreement itself that we are happy to have a list of bad things the other side does as a way of trying to discredit people who are not involved in those bad things, but disagree with us. Not everyone is honest about why they want to hurt the people they publicly declare as enemies. Sometimes it is just intolerance of disagreement, or simple sadism.

Even if the damage among the "combatants" didn't matter, it is often the "civilian bystanders" who are hurt. This is totally nuts. Even if these issues are worth being passionate about, they are not rationally comparable to warfare, they don't rationally justify war tactics. This isn't the Thunderdome, it's the civil society we all have to live in. And we don't have a real choice about whether that society includes people we disagree with, so it's better if we come to terms with that and find ways either to fence off or compromise in the common space, to mutual advantage.

For example, I think you're stacking the deck with your talk about "left-aligned mobs" and that you are intentionally eliding the history of right-wing fascism to make "your side" look better than "the other side." I'm a realist, I don't think people will usually be civil without special effort. So for all I know based on your rhetoric, you'd identify me as an enemy and a threat based on my views, and even kill me if you had the chance; I will defensively avoid testing that. But that's as far as I should rationally go. The important part is that whatever our disagreements, and they may be very deep, I don't need to assume that we are at war, that I am a warrior and you are my enemy, and focus on somehow figuratively "killing" you. In my view, that would actually be very silly and self-destructive. I don't actually benefit from trying to damage you, it's pointless, it doesn't help my causes and it pollutes the civil society I have to live in. (Of course it is another issue if you decide to literally threaten me and my lawful interests, but then it is a purely defensive and practical issue; I don't need to respond to that by declaring war on your "tribe" and I certainly can't pre-empt that by turning every disagreement into an intractable "war.")

Aside from that, I do have an objection to the term: real advocates for social justice are doing something constructive. Literal warriors make war, which is destructive. That may have grim uses, but it isn't preferable to make our civil society as hostile as a war zone. Why do we need to appropriate the trappings of literal warriors, and why can't we embrace constructiveness instead of associating advocacy with destruction?

If I get the community to help me build a orphanage, it is wrong for me to decide I rather do something else with the building once built.

tldr; heavy moderation actually causes trolling on sites like Reddit.

>taking extreme action against small infractions can exacerbate antisocial behavior (e.g., unfairness can cause users to write worse). Though average classifier precision is relatively high (0.80), one in five users identified as antisocial are nonetheless misclassified. Whereas trading off overall performance for higher precision and have a human moder- ator approve any bans is one way to avoid incorrectly blocking innocent users, a better response may instead involve giving antisocial users a chance to redeem themselves.

The whole thing with Pao got out of control because somebody was routinely deleting comments and shadowbanning people who mentioned the trouble her husband was in. Whether it was her, another admin or a moderator doing the banning that was what fueled the fire.

Moderation on Reddit is insane, a single basement dweller with sociopathic tendencies (99% of forum moderators everywhere) can control the conversation totally, they constantly ban discussion that they don't agree with and there is absolutely no transparency. It happens to be a wonderful way of incubating hate groups by eliminating cross pollination of ideas, but it also tends to piss people off.

It left me just flabbergasted by how little provoked them, or how they somehow thought their behavior was appropriate or justified.

These scattered but blessedly brief experiences have been so horrible that I have completely given up on it. I wish it were not the case -- Aaron Swartz is one of my heroes - but I am afraid this particular legacy of his has just spoiled.