Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 439 posts

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#31

Post by problems »

CarolineW wrote: post #29
problems wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this attitude of "blame everything on the trolls". You can't use your real name on the internet because using your real name on the internet is basically asking for trouble. You have to defend yourself in the same way you have to look at ads and read media critically and don't believe everything someone says on the phone or in the mail. It's really nothing new, it's just on the internet this time. Scamming and…

You say: > People are simply not trustworthy, ... In my experience the vast majority of people are trustworthy. The problem is that the tiny minority of people who are not trustworthy are winning the internet because they have time, and shout loudly. More, some of them do obnoxious and potentially dangerous things. That's why people get upset - because it is a tiny minority that spoil the whole thing. If only we coul…

> In my experience the vast majority of people are trustworthy.

Sure, but in quantity there will always be some people - even some of those normal, trustworthy people who feel particularly strongly about something and decide to go on the offensive.

There's nothing you can do about that, that "tiny minority" of abusers will always exist in any given situation involving enough people. Ignoring this effect is stupid. Trying to counter it is a waste of time and potentially harmful to speech. Defending yourself is the cheapest option, just do it. Tell other people how to do it.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I'm beginning to feel like the trolls are smarter than the people who whine about trolling in this day and age - they're able to defend themselves better at least.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#32

Post by kordless »

wvenable wrote: post #13

The real problem is that bytes are effectively free. Here I am, using up your bytes right now. Using up the bytes on Hacker news. The only limit is my own time, effort, and energy. You think this means that we're all equal; we all have equal access to sharing bytes. But the problem is that trolls have infinite time and energy to post bytes. They have significantly more power and influence than you do because of that…

It is an irrational belief that trolls have infinite time and energy. This is, in fact, the very idea of irrationality, who's concept indicates additional work must be done to determine outcome of choice, either by individual or by group. Note that I did not disagree with your assertions here, but simply seek to restate them in slightly different terms so they may be visualized by others more effectively.

Trolls may encapsulate irrational ideas, which may be visualized as memes, inside multiple illogical statements which may be designed to directly conflict with each other's truths. Evaluating one of these statements as a "truth" may cause the other statement to evaluate to false. Trolls may utilize statements in which evaluation of truth is not desirable to the entity visualizing the truth. Any attempt by the recipient to evaluate truth or non-truth of these statements may lead to additional work being conducted to achieve a desirable outcome, such as "winning an argument".

Additionally, these "double bind" memes, or internal visualizations, may effectively spread the irrationality to other actors if they are constructed correctly. These viral memes take root and spread when the new irrational actor posts more irrationality in the form of similar or modified logic patterns.

This process, manifests as a viral meme (or what I hypothesize as an entity): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Trolls remove choice from individuals and groups by causing the individual and groups to work against each other. The only way to prevent this is to educate people on the concept of double bind statements, their use in removing choice for others, and the possibility that these concepts may spread virally, on their own accord, in a population which may or may not be conscious.

My primary suggestion for combat trolls in a quick and easy way is to simply not visualize removal of choice for another in your own internal frame. In other words, visualize choice for yourself in the future if you must, but avoid visualizing the actions of others! Stating your refusal to be illogical, or irrational, is usually enough to send the trolls scurrying away.

Note: A double bind and a double BLIND are two different concepts. Double binding someone has been likened to "crazy making" due to its effect of blocking decision making processes from occurring in a given entity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#33

Post by rjbwork »

st3v3r wrote: post #27
rjbwork wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your solution is to be given tools to enforce your cognitive bias reinforcing filter bubble? That's not a solution, that's a technology provided lobotomy. A dialogue takes two - if you don't like the dialogue taking place, instead of attempting to quiet the other voices, perhaps just remove yourself from the dialogue.

That's what they're trying to do. But I'm getting really, really, really tired of people conflating the "other side" stuff with the trolling stuff. Look at all the stuff sent to Leslie Jones last summer. Do you honestly think that was meant to be a dialog? Of course not. That was trolling. That was harassment. And that is what people are trying to filter out.

I would agree with you there. I think the problem is we are talking about 2 separate issues, but due to intentional conflation of the two by ideologically motivated factions, we're crossing the streams by using the, now overloaded, term "troll".

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#34

Post by michaelchisari »

Edmond wrote: post #16
pcmaffey wrote: post #10

Trolling is the new spam. Except trolls want your attention, not your money. People said the same thing about spam. And it's largely been defeated (or institutionalized, whichever way you want to look at). We're all still figuring out the dynamics of the attention economy... and I imagine that as we do, we'll find ways to minimize the impact of trolling. I'd venture to say that that's the big lesson we have to learn…

There are folks like us working on this: https://www.cipheredtrust.com/ The trick is a scalable means to do identity verification on the internet...basically a way to do it that preserves user privacy and security and it is dirt cheap so everyone can leverage it.

I'm curious about something... I've seen reports that when places started using Facebook comments, they found that the lack of anonymity didn't prevent trolling, in fact, it made everyday people more hostile.

Is it just about identity? Would that do anything more than just removing the occasional death threat, instead of actually addressing the more pervasive trolling?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#36

Post by michaelchisari »

ElatedOwl wrote: post #35

I'm surprised at the concern over trolling compared to shilling. If someone wants to be an ass whatever, but CTR and similar seems like a much more serious problem to me.

How is CTR on your radar, but Russia employing thousands of online trolls isn't?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#37

Post by the_af »

michaelchisari wrote: post #22
the_af wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From "RTFM" attitudes While agree some internet users are a bit too gung-ho with RTFM, I think it's unfair to lump them with trolls. While veterans can be harsh and unfriendly, the RTFM response is often warranted (though, again, it could be phrased more nicely -- and the default assumption should be that the person seeking help is well-intentioned). Otherwise, many online communities would be completely overrun by…

I disagree. I think that hand-holding beginners can be one of the best services a community can provide, and it can go a long way to growing the community. That doesn't mean everybody needs to be teacher/mentor/educator. But the people who don't want to be can also just keep out of the conversation, instead of rudely pointing to some 300 page manual and telling someone with passion and interest to screw off.

Hmm, RTFM is not aimed at beginners (and note: I do agree with the sibling comment that the aggressiveness of the response leaves a bad taste. I do agree pointing to a 300 page manual, without any guidance at all, is unhelpful).

RTFM is aimed at help vampires (recommended reading: http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/eoc/help_vampire.htm). Help vampires do not grow a community; they destroy it. These are people you do not want in your community anyway. Unlike actual beginners, who learn and then proceed to become valuable contributors (unless of course they are treated harshly by veterans, in which case they simply leave), help vampires are never helpful. They ask the same question again and again, don't pay attention to any cues, don't read anything, and seldom provide context or follow-ups to their problem. And when you've wasted time with one (more often than not fruitlessly), the next one comes in. And they are legion. The end result, like the first article I mentioned claims, is that your community of well-intentioned volunteers is destroyed. So a polite RTFM is often the best response: if the person was an actual beginner, they'll read TFM -- and follow-up questions are often welcome, since they show the asker has actually made an effort. If not, they'll leave and you haven't wasted any valuable time.

In fact, help vampires are often indistinguishable from trolls, in that they have the same community-disrupting effect.

RTFM has always been part of the hacker culture (also see: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way, http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html). It has nothing to do with trolls.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#38

Post by return0 »

If you give people a big wall and free spray paint, of course they 'll fill it with dicks. Unlike real life, there is nobody to paint over them. Trolling is a natural part of the internet, its the price for having relative freedom, i dont have a problem with it. If that puts off people who don't have the capacity to tune it out, all the better.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#39

Post by Goronmon »

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 'trolls' themselves."

It's not an exceedingly convincing statement to me personally.

Though you've used one of the adjectives I think best describes the nature of 'trolling' and that's "bad faith". Personally, I feel the most useful definition of 'troll' is someone who argues/antagonizes/insults others not because they are trying to make a point or start a conversation, but merely to provoke a negative response.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#40

Post by ElatedOwl »

michaelchisari wrote: post #36
ElatedOwl wrote: post #35

I'm surprised at the concern over trolling compared to shilling. If someone wants to be an ass whatever, but CTR and similar seems like a much more serious problem to me.

How is CTR on your radar, but Russia employing thousands of online trolls isn't?

It is; but they're employing shills, not trolls.

It doesn't even have to be political, I'm sure we've all seen the forced corporate memes that totally aren't an advertisement.

Post reply on HN