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Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

theatlantic.com

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Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#271

Post by mirimir »

inopinatus wrote: post #235
milesrout wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. 'Trolling' is not harassment. You can harass someone by trolling them incessantly , but harassing people is not 'trolling' them. Don't use them as synonyms. 2. They've never been the focus of a harassment campaign because they're not stupid enough to put their personal details out there on the internet and then be surprised that people will use that to harass them. They also don't feed the trolls in the first plac…

> 2. They've never been the focus of a harassment campaign because they're not stupid enough to put their personal details out there on the internet and then be surprised that people will use that to harass them. They also don't feed the trolls in the first place. This is a) simple victim blaming and b) impossible to fix in some situations. Illustration of (b) is that the companies of which I'm a director are a matte…

Can't you use a POB and special business number?

It's not "victim blaming". It's just what's so. With the Internet, every obnoxious jerk on the planet can come after you, if you attract enough attention.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#272

Post by ahartman00 »

ergothus wrote: post #138
jumpkickhit wrote: post #56

It think the problem is now too many people are on the internet. Back in the 90's, it was a great place to hang out. In the 2000's, you had fun sites with great user commentary like Fark, Digg, Slashdot, and Reddit. Now everybody and their kid has a cellphone with internet access. Your average person is an asshole, so that's reflected online because of how saturated it all is now.

It's just an extension of the Eternal September. Any community that comes in contact with a larger community that does not respect their customs has problems, but it Usenet, email conventions, Burning Man, victims of imperialism, or a local book club. We have lots of evidence of this. The unfortunate thing is that I can't come up with examples of anything positive coming about as a result: The smaller community is ei…

"the smaller community is either destroyed or weakened, and the larger community rarely replicates the strengths of the smaller ones"

this is a great article on the stages of this phenomenon: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#273

Post by mixmastamyk »

eikenberry wrote: post #248
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area. On the contrary. One of my side-projects is involved with the running an Internet-to-PSTN wake-up-call service. The service is free-to-use in the US (because domestic calling is so cheap) which also means it gets used by criminal-harassers who send wake-up calls at 4am to their targets (we do aggressively rate-limit which helps mitigate these issues). We are fr…

More phones should just come with whitelist support. Where calls will automatically go to voice mail if it isn't on your list. I have this on my phone due to lots of wrong numbers and it works great.

Details puhlease.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#274

Post by mirimir »

dasil003 wrote: post #242
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…

I've been on the internet since the 80s even, so your line of thinking resonates with me. But what's different now is that a troll actually got elected president, this shows how we've come from trolls being toothless. It's probably always been the case that perception makes reality, but never before has a pseudonymous forum such as the internet held so much sway on perception.

Wasn't "Celebrity Apprentice" rather trollish?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#275

Post by mirimir »

Goronmon wrote: post #39
pervycreeper wrote: post #26

If we define "troll" as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content, then the entire class of authors of the genre of news article decrying trolling and harassment are themselves trolls. >Of course, this is already happening, just out of sight of most of us Why would they consider that to be such a big problem, if it's not bothering those who ar…

If we define "troll" as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content, then the entire class of authors of the genre of news article decrying trolling and harassment are themselves trolls. Isn't that a bit of a tautology? "If I expand the definition of the word 'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling' then authors who decry trolling become '…

In the trolling game, there's the concept of triggering the "inner troll" of one's opponent. So they start trolling too, rather like a puppet. Puppet count is part of scoring.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#276

Post by mirimir »

coldtea wrote: post #64
Goronmon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we define "troll" as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content, then the entire class of authors of the genre of news article decrying trolling and harassment are themselves trolls. Isn't that a bit of a tautology? "If I expand the definition of the word 'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling' then authors who decry trolling become '…

> Isn't that a bit of a tautology? "If I expand the definition of the word 'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling' then authors who decry trolling become 'trolls' themselves." No, it's not tautological. The parent doesn't propose to "expand the definition of the word 'troll' to include 'authors decrying trolling'". He proposes defining trolls as "as anyone who posts inflammatory, bad faith, needlessly aggressi…

That's why "flame war". There's positive feedback.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#277

Post by accountface »

problems wrote: post #136
accountface wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone literally came to my house, where I live.

Why was that information available on the internet? That's the kind of risk you take if you make that kind of information available on the internet. Think of all the possible things someone could do with your address and assume those will be done. That's the type of precaution you should be taking.

My city publicly lists assessing information if you own property. Many do.

Why are you so set on blaming me for this? Do you want copies of restraining orders I had to file on the two people who came to my house?

When do you think someone should start being responsible for behaving dangerously?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#278

Post by thomastjeffery »

pdeuchler wrote: post #217
Baeocystin wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

Do you honestly believe that free speech is less valuable than law enforcement?

How does converting the internet into a police state help combat anonymous harassment? Privacy is a tool to prevent harassment; not the other way around.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#279

Post by mirimir »

ruleabidinguser wrote: post #177
LoSboccacc wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a large part of our daily communication is still how's weather like, gossip and what's for dinner. Internet may look like it's all lolcats and trolls if you look hard enough, but that's like dropping into a teenage group and complain all they talk all day is tits and soccer* At any time one can still go on a gated, moderated community and obtain meaningful noise free communication with little interference from t…

I wish people understood this. Its so incredibly frutrating to deal with (controlling?) people trying to control the way communities that they have just joined operate. Here's an alternative to joining a community you don't like: don't join the community! People will act like they understand this, but if they did, they simply wouldn't have a problem. Theres really no issue here if you actually understand this advice.

Right, Mirimir likes moderated communities. So HN, Wilders and some subreddits. Never Twitter. People have tried to get me on it, but I find it maddening.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#280

Post by mirimir »

Para2016 wrote: post #128

You're helping prove his point. I would consider you a troll. You are aggressive, insulting, inflammatory, and you do it with regularity. I'm not sure why it has to be funny to you or anyone else.

A quick scan indicates plain-spoken and incisive, but good-natured. Maybe funny sometimes, but not in a mean way.
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