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Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

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Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#61

Post by bloaf »

geofft wrote: post #6
Mendenhall wrote: post #4

What I see is some people dont like foolish words on a screen so they want to clamp down on open discourse to control dialogue because in their opinion its fruitless or mean or whatever they feel. Some silly troll spamming idiotic statements is not nearly the threat that controlling dialogue on the net and deciding what is trolling and what isnt. Socrates would be labeled a troll these days if he was on social media.

My screen is of a fixed size; my days are of a fixed length. If you want to put foolish words on your screen more power to you, but if they're on my screen or taking my time, that impedes me doing whatever I want to do with my screen or my time. That is, the more dialogue that I'm uninterested in that I lack tools to filter, the more my dialogue is being controlled by DoS. That is the fundamental paradox of open disc…

I think there are two fundamentally different kinds of dialogue on the internet.

1. Dialogue in communities directed towards a purpose. 2. Dialogue in public forums.

In my mind, the only place where filtering should take place is in #1. If you want to see information about specific kinds of basket-weaving, then the communities directed towards basket-weaving should give you the tools you need to see that information, and should police their communities such that there isn't too much non-basket-weaving content. But in public forums, I think that people should actively resist filters. I see filters as a case of trying to make something straight out of the crooked timber of humanity. Not only is it a goal that may be fundamentally impossible, it has negative impacts on the people who use the filters. To the well-filtered person, the general public may look more civilized and reasonable than they actually are. This can manifest itself, for example, as the well filtered people being baffled by the success of populists candidates because "everyone I talked to online could see right through them!"

I think online communities would be better off ahead of time if they made an explicit choice about which type of dialogue they were hosting, and communicated that choice to all visitors.

I think the apparent "rise" of trolls is mostly borne from sites with a disconnect between their stated goals and their actual rules. News organizations are likely to say they want free-speech forum in their comment section, but people mostly expect conversation directed towards the topics being reported on. Reddit was formerly a free-speech platform, but subreddits started behaving more like directed-communities, and the admins encouraged this site-wide. Hacker News is clearly a directed community, and so has fewer trolls, while 4chan is clearly a free-speech community and therefore ALSO has fewer trolls (i.e. most people on 4chan conform to 4chan norms, even if that would be considered trolling elsewhere.)

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#63

Post by kartan »

kordless wrote: post #32
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…

> It is an irrational belief that trolls have infinite time and energy.

Unless they are well paid state-sponsored trolls. They still don't have infinite time or energy, but neither we do.

> 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.

Education is the solution. And I hope that we chose it.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#64

Post by coldtea »

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 '…

>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 aggressive, insulting, false, or otherwise unproductive content".

Which is as (or close) to how it has always been defined, and how the authors of TFA use it.

So what the parent suggests is not some "expansion of the definition of trolling", much less one to include "those who complain about trolling", and in no sense a tautology.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#65

Post by yumaikas »

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.

The internet can still be a great place to hang out. It's just a matter of finding a community, rather than on of the big sites. https://lobste.rs is one example that I've found (mostly, anyway), I'm sure there are various fora as well.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#66

Post by tunap »

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 '…

Yes, trolls=keyboard kowboys/girls=flame-baiters.

Astro-turfers, shills and disingenious actors are an entirely separate class. And, they are winning.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#67

Post by jknoepfler »

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 obvious advertorial/astroturfing that I think is probably something hn offers as a service, but I'm not stupid, so I ignore it.

I get news through economist.com and npr.org and scattered other sources. I don't feel overwhelmed by trolls, except when I read yet another fucking headline about gluten.

My social media is so boring and predictable I'll probably delete it all shortly. I've never had a problem there, but I respect that some people do.

I shop on the internet frequently. I get trolled by counterfeit goods sometimes! Also by fake reviews, but that's what professional forums are for in the post cluetrain world.

I get scholarly articles on the internet every other day as part of a professional masters program. Sometimes open comments on academic articles read like troll fests, but not really.

I participate in open source on github, that's not being trolled to death (Although big os project maintainers may disagree).

And on and on... The internet (as I know it) isn't being won by trolls at all. So what is the article actually about? Twitter? Comments on news sites (lol)? The pessimistic attitudes of "technologists"?

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#68

Post by kordless »

maxerickson wrote: post #46
kordless wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Look how much more you expended than the person trolling you though. If you are willing to be manipulative, you can hassle people into wasting their time with pretty short comments.

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

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#69

Post by alphonsegaston »

moomin wrote: post #25
alphonsegaston wrote: post #14

Is this really a problem of technology though? Seems more the artifact of a modern culture so predicated on con-artistry and spectacle, that abuse and manipulation have become the dominant form of expression. Technology makes this easier for sure. But I think it's the futureless world of hucksterism being articulated to everyone that makes behaving this way attractive to so many people.

Yeah, it pretty much is. If you're going to credit the development of the web and related technologies with the economic benefits it has delivered, we need to take it on the chin for the damage it has caused to our society. Every time we disrupt an industry, especially media, we are by definition shaping society. It's about time we as technologists started being honest about that.

That's a fair observation. You break it, you bought it.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#70

Post by michaelchisari »

ElatedOwl wrote: post #57
michaelchisari wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're employing shills, not trolls. I disagree. CTR was known for promotion, shilling, just as advertisers are, but people in Russian employ were known for disruption. They aren't pushing the merits of Donald Trump, Marine LePen, etc., as much as they're fomenting discord through fake news and aggressive bias.

Linguistics aside I think we're in agreement. :) The article doesn't outright define trolling, but gets pretty close with: >humans like trolling. It’s easy for people to stay anonymous while they harass, pester, and bully other people online All I'm getting at is, people being assholes on the internet isn't a real problem compared to the astroturfing and forum sliding that goes on.

I guess where we're in disagreement, though, and this is something that was in discussion at the senate hearings in terms of "unwitting agents" or put less delicately, "useful idiots" that will follow along with dangerous patterns that might have their source in extremely negative astroturfing/forum-sliding/shilling, but which take on a life of their own.

We have clear evidence that disinformation campaigns and active measures are being used, but the reason they work isn't because initially a bunch of Russian teenagers are employed to push false and dangerous narratives. They work because they get picked up by totally sincere people who have an emotional reason for perpetuating them, but which reject any kind of rational discussion around them.

As a use case: An army of (shills/trolls) pushes a completely fake story titled, "Police Find 19 White Female Bodies In Freezers With ‘Black Lives Matter’ Carved Into Skin." (this was an actual, viral fake news headline), and times it properly to get it to certain key environments.

Once it's there, it gets perpetuated by people who are sincere, who are continuing the narrative for emotional, irrational reasons ("this fits my world view, it angers me, it makes me feel good to bring it to light"). When people respond that it is a fake story, those people are responded to with hostility, name-calling and anger.

At this point, you have a shift from shilling to trolling, but the original source hits a particular emotional note that posting things like, "Hillary Clinton is the most experienced and qualified candidate for president EVER" or "Hey guys! I just learned about this great new product, totally randomly! Let's talk about it!"

Both are problems. The latter are annoying, and with a little bit of savvy, easily identified and ignored. The former is outright dangerous and attacks one of the foundations of a democratic, free society.

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