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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

#371

Post by gizmo »

milesrout wrote: post #297
ksenzee wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 99.9% of people that complain about being harassed would be well-served by just not using Twitter. This is a cop-out. You may not need Twitter for your work, but a lot of us do. If I can't use Twitter, I lose an important way to connect to others in my profession (specifically in open source). And I'm an unimportant software developer. What about women in journalism? What about women in entertainment? They need Twi…

No it is not the same, it's not the same at all . There's a massive, massive difference between someone on the other side of the world sending a nasty message on Twitter and being harassed in the real world by someone on a dark street at night. These are so completely different that I can't believe that you are so tied up in your views that you forget that. Anyone that would suggest they are the same has clearly not…

> It's simply impossible to harm you through Twitter.

That's really ignorant. When somebody with epilepsy receives a strobing image that can cause real harm. When somebody who's recovering from PTSD receives some gruesome message that makes them relive whatever awful experience they had, that causes real harm too. Online bullying can push people to suicide. It's no joke.

It's absurd to claim that it's impossible to harm people through Twitter (or any other online conduit) when victims claim they are harmed and there is clear evidence of harm.

> Twitter is not useful to journalists.

Journalists say the opposite: they couldn't have gotten their foot in the door without twitter.

> It's not part of our culture.

Okay, this is just too silly. Twitter is everywhere in our culture. In advertisements. On TV. Songs are written about it. Books. All politicians use it. Businesses use it. Twitter is huge for sports. Activists use it to organize. If Twitter isn't part of our culture, then neither are cars or t-shirts.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#372

Post by dredmorbius »

kartan wrote: post #60

If I understand correctly what has happened recently, state-sponsored media disruption is the problem. While the Internet was a place for nerds, it was uninteresting for mainstream powers. Nowadays is a good target for states wanting to influence elections, for companies that want to sell their products and for organized religion. Old tricks in a "new" medium. If a power can mobilize millions of troops, or expend mil…

It's the paradox of epistemic systems: as they become larger (or the audience more attractive), they attrack those who would use them for manipulation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#373

Post by M_Grey »

tomjen3 wrote: post #369
M_Grey wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The technology community must pick between enabling universal surveillance and censorship, or protecting the privacy of the vulnerable, including those who hold minority opinions and express themselves in ways that could be deemed "unpleasant". They chose a long time ago. A lot of the issues that are slowly coming to the surface for most people (police/surveillance state, endless war driven by military-industrial co…

I don't believe it is a choice made once, but a series of choices. When Drupal threw out one of their leaders, because he was into BDSM, they made exactly the choice you suggest we don't. It was not made by some mysterious “other”, it was not made by “them”, it was a choice made by a few named people. It's a choice we all make every day, is the sum of those choices that make the world we live in. If you want to chang…

Most people simply lack the ability to understand reality to any reasonable approximation, and are too easily led by pathos. For them, it's not what you say, but who you are. People like those on HN are a tiny minority, and that's the reality.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#374

Post by dredmorbius »

pcmaffey wrote: post #50
michaelchisari wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Given that identity is the basis for most trolling, I'd say identity is a poor proxy for trust. Despite what Facebook and the CIA / NSA may want us to believe, there's no evidence that a lack of anonymity/privacy leads to greater accountability.

I'd argue that it's reputation, the prevalance of impunity with present systems, and the problem of introducing consequence for misbehaviour, which is the core.

These can be changed without requiring full identification and disclosure. And there's a very long history of principled (and some unprincipled) pseudonymous discussion.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#375

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

This in spades.

Usenet was tiny. Probably ~50k users, maybe 500k, back in the late 1980s / early 1990s. (Email discussion with Gene "Spaff" Spafford, one of the Usenet Cabal (TINC) members.)

I remember Slashdot ... before there were userIDs. I ... had a pretty low-digit-count ID, and remember when the site hit 100k and 1 million users.

Today, an online service with 5 million to 10 million active users is ... considered a failure. (I was ... kind of responsible for giving a good count of Google+ public user activity.) Facebook is over 2 billion users, and something like 500m regular users.

Those are big networks. And scale matters.

This isn't just a matter of the Eternal September, though acculturation is certainly a big part. I don't think Usenet could have sustained a network of this size, even with four weeks of mandatory on-boarding every September. The scale is simply too large.

One of my hobbies has been to look at how dynamics within various groups change with group size. That matters much more than the group composition (though that also matters). No matter what, a group of 5 people, or 20, or 100, or 1,000, or 10,000, has a fairly distinct feel.

Even before I'd estimated G+'s size, I had a fairly decent intuitive sense (generous, as it turned out), for the userbase size (I'd thought perhaps 20-50 million).

Reddit's various subs also give good examples of how community varies from sizes of ~1 to about 15 million (the largest subs).

My suspicion is that ~50 - 500 users is probably a relatively good sweet point, though I'm not sure how that an be utilised to make scalable discussions possible -- collecting the best from many groups, but keeping the discussions generally smaller.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#376

Post by [deleted] »

mirimir wrote: post #259
jackvalentine wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say this to troll you but googling your HN name reveals more than enough to know your real name, where you live and start linking it all to other non-programming hobbies (piano!).

Yes, that can be problematic. But hey, maybe it's misdirection ;) Who do you think Mirimir is?

[deleted]

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#377

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

mirimir wrote: post #259
jackvalentine wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say this to troll you but googling your HN name reveals more than enough to know your real name, where you live and start linking it all to other non-programming hobbies (piano!).

Yes, that can be problematic. But hey, maybe it's misdirection ;) Who do you think Mirimir is?

Probably Maximillian Holm. Am I close?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#378

Post by mirimir »

nullc wrote: post #358
milesrout wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not the same, it's not the same at all . There's a massive, massive difference between someone on the other side of the world sending a nasty message on Twitter and being harassed in the real world by someone on a dark street at night. These are so completely different that I can't believe that you are so tied up in your views that you forget that. Anyone that would suggest they are the same has clearly not…

> Nobody can harm you through Twitter. Milesrout (real name X, location Y) is molesting children and sapping our precious bodily fluids! He has corrupted the police so they won't stop him. Unless someone takes action we're doomed. I agree with your general arguments, but it is incorrect to say that harassing people on the internet cannot endanger your life.

Your example is arguably a bug in human society.

But there's no doubt that the Internet increases the risk, given the massive scale, relative anonymity, cultural differences, and so on.

Hannu Rajaniemi imagines an intriguing solution in the Quantum Thief. In Martian society, aka the Oubliette, individuals cryptographically regulate who knows, and who can remember, what about each other. So everyone is fundamentally anonymous to everyone else, except for whatever they choose to share with another, or a group.

I can imagine something like Facebook or Twitter doing that, even using GnuPG.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#379

Post by tnone »

gordaco wrote: post #353
pdeuchler wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree completely with you. Framing the harassment as "trolling" has been a propagandistic victory for the harassers. Actual trolling is way less worrying. I don't like it and I certainly wouldn't partake in it, but you can actually ignore it. Harassment, not so.

No, it's been a victory for those peddling the fear articles and soliciting victim bucks.

It's really simple. First you make outrageous claims, then you define everyone who disagrees as a harasser. Find the one tweet or comment that's a bit off color, and pretend that's representative. Or just false flag it.

It's the digital version of how to discredit an opposing view or protest, you just need one person smashing a bus stop or looting a store. Once you have enough fear, it becomes self justifying.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#380

Post by CM30 »

BEEdwards wrote: post #261
boona wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that /r/the_donald is a poor quality experience, but it's analogous and in response to the poor quality experience of the /r/politics. They're both "circlejerks" that don't allow competing views to be posted. So while you may need to take the_donald with a huge grain of salt, if you're only get your news from left wing site like /r/politics, npr, huff po, new york times, and even hacker news for the most part…

politics might downvote something they don't like to oblivion, but TD will ban you for violating the narrative. And if by take it with a grain of salt you mean that nothing in there is actually relevant or related to reality.

It's a forum dedicated to a certain political candidate and their views. By definition, such a place will be an echo chamber with a (usually) low regard for neutrality.

It's no different from a hobby forum simply not tolerating people who don't like that hobby. You don't go to say, a Microsoft specific forum and expect to hear why Apple or Linux operating systems are better. And if you did keep saying that, you'd probably be chucked out or flamed to a crisp.

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