Internet trolls: What to do about the scourge of the Web?

[Hermit]

I think the fact that he's trying to convert people to an ideology disqualifies him for the "troll" label. What I call a troll is somebody who annoys others for shits and giggles. Granted, I don't think everybody works with the same definition as I do.

I was trying to highlight shades and the fact that "activists set out to highlight and change injustice. Trolls just want to piss people off for fun or whatever" isn't particularly helpful for distinguishing one from the other. In general I very much appreciate and respect your input, even when I disagree, but the post I quoted from is not exemplary of it.

[FBM]

Works pretty well for me.

[Audley Strange]

You are making this claim that some imagined black person knowingly goes into a place where people are hostile towards him. Your belief that he is somehow doing the "right" thing is your belief, not an objective fact as such. Many more people might believe the guy was just looking to score victim cred, others might think he's a shit stirrer, others might think he did a stupid thing but exposed an equally stupid thing.

Let's turn from the imagined to the real. What about black South Africans knowingly and intentionally flouting Apartheid rules by availing themselves to drink-fountains clearly signposted: "For Whites Only"? Or Australian aborigines who knowingly and intentionally seated themselves in the section of the cinema reserved for whites? Just shit stirring trolls, looking to score victim cred or doing a stupid thing? Would that include the nine black students who had to be escorted by a military unit into a whites only school in Arkansas circa 1957?

Well they were deliberately being provocative yes and I'd say yes, they are looking for victim cred. "Oh look at poor me I gots beaten up and arrested for simply breaching laws I don't like" hoping that such pity-mongering will inspire others.

Now, some may think they have the moral high-ground in doing so. So let's look at another example, is a Palestinian suicide bomber martyring himself because he is ideologically opposed to Israel or is he a daft peasant mercilessly trolling innocent people? Is a guy who firmly believes that women are committing themselves to hell and blows up an abortion clinic doing so to protect those women from an ultimately horrible fate or because he's trolling women?

I guess trolling depends on others judgements of the motivations of said troll.

[Daedalus]

Works pretty well for me.

I have to agree with this. In THEORY sure, it's vague, but in practice I can't think of a single case of activism that could be readily confused with trolling.

[FBM]

Works pretty well for me.

I have to agree with this. In THEORY sure, it's vague, but in practice I can't think of a single case of activism that could be readily confused with trolling.

One thing is that I just mean it as a general rule of thumb, nothing categorical or definitional, nothing that I'd try to convince others to accept as final. Just reporting the way my brain deals with it. As with most intuitive judgement calls, I expect a certain number of errors.

[Hermit]

I guess trolling depends on others judgements of the motivations of said troll.

That's pretty much what I was driving at, except I'd express the sentiment just a little differently. More often than not trolls are the ones we decree to be trolls. Too often they are the ones we simply disagree with, who make us uncomfortable with their style, or the neurotic baggage they unload here annoys the screaming heebiegeebies out of us.

Most of them seem to come and go at a fairly rapid rate in this forum. A few become part of the furniture, and fewer still return periodically under their original alias or a new one.

For the record, and simply in order to be obliquely punny, let me chuck this into the conversation: I have only encountered one member in this forum so far whose only motivation to post was to stir things up for the lulz, and he - just like all those who are mistakenly deemed to be trolls - was utterly harmless. The only damage done, if it can be called damage, is that quite a few respected and upstanding members couldn't help themselves and swallowed his baits hook, line and sinker, frequently getting very acrimonious and personal with him and each other. That, as far as the troll was concerned, of course meant: mission accomplished.

In a way, I'm looking forward to another return of Chucky, if only to confirm my belief that his reappearance will trigger a repeat of the previous two farcical storms in a teacup he engineered.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Dexter trolls?

[Robert_S]

Seems to me the guy in the OP went way beyond trolling and got into harassment territory.

It is rather sad that most news outlets file everything bad on the internet under "trolling".

[piscator]

How could internet forums, editorials, and op-ed pages exist without the pure entertainment provided by trolls and trolling?
Most pundits are thinly disguised trolls, and my first introduction to the word "pundit" was in an autobiography of an English bomber pilot in WWII who had to fly a pattern around a "pundit light" at night while the bomber stream massed for a raid. I was a bit disappointed to later find out the word came from Pandit, India, but the metaphor is similar.

There are some places where one can learn valuable things from time to time, but people come to Internet forums mostly to entertain themselves. Just like fishing.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Fuck me! Where did you spring from?!

Nice fish...

[Rum]

Thereby hangs a fishy tale..

[Audley Strange]

Seems to me the guy in the OP went way beyond trolling and got into harassment territory.

It is rather sad that most news outlets file everything bad on the internet under "trolling".

Which guy though the twit or the boxer? I'd say turning up on someone's street threatening them could easily be considered harrassment. I'm not sure tweeting on a public twitter account is, but I know many people who think that it's harrassment even if they have to spend all week finding mean things that people have said about them.

[Seth]

So, should privately owned bus companies who operate school buses be entitled to require black students to vacate their seats when white students demand it? Are those black students inciting a riot if they refuse?

Not if they are contracted by the government not to do so.

Otherwise no problem? No problem with privately owned and run schools to refuse enrolling dark skinned students? Even when a state government (like Arkansas, for instance) decides to close down all government schools in order to prevent integration?

Sorry for the short answer, I was posting from Village Inn and 3am rolled around and they kicked me out.

First, we must distinguish private property and actions from public, so we can dispose of your last argument first. No, a state cannot discriminate against individuals because the very purpose of the state is to represent and serve ALL its citizens, who might be likened to investors, equally.

This same principle applies to private businesses that choose to do business with the state, which can, and indeed must condition contracts upon a requirement for non-discriminatory service. The reason this imposition on a private business is appropriate is because no one compels a business to contract with the government for services, so anyone that does must abide by the contractual stipulations the government demands, and as I said above, the government cannot lawfully (or ethically) entrench race-based discrimination in it's policies, laws or operations. Those companies that wish to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of assembly must do so without government support or subsidy.

As to private companies, including those involved in "interstate commerce" (which literally EVERY business is today...according to the feds) it is my opinion that the right to freedom of association protected in the First Amendment, and it's companion right, freedom of non-association should outweigh any public policy arguments that would serve to infringe on that right.

This sounds like I'm supporting private discrimination, but I'm not. I find it to be reprehensible and wrong, but I believe that people have a right to be reprehensible and wrong in the peaceable exercise of their constitutional rights. It is more important that the fundamental right NOT to associate with someone be preserved and protected than it is for government to try to force people into unwilling association. Doing so does not fix anything, it makes things worse.

Let me try a metaphor that doesn't depend on race. If the law forced Christians to accept violent, radical Islamists as church members and provide them with "equal" services, or if the law required Muslims to do the same for Catholics, or if the law required a Jewish synagog to admit neo-nazi members and grant them "equal protection" you can see that this would be intolerable for those upon whom the unwelcome association is foisted, and it would lead to MORE violence and ill-will, not less.

In point of fact that's exactly what "anti-discrimination" laws in most cities actually do, they can forcibly impose a neo-nazi skinhead with swastikas tattooed on his face upon an elderly female Jewish Holocaust survivor who is merely trying to rent out a basement room to help her pay the rent. I mean this quite literally. The same laws mandate that a young woman who has been brutally raped who is seeking a roommate while she attends college to potentially accept a 40 year old male drunkard with a history of sex offenses.

The examples of these sorts of egregious impositions on personal liberty in the private sphere are many and manifest.

The ideal of the law may be good, but the devil's in the details, as it always is when the government inserts itself into the private lives of its citizens.

It is the power of the free market that created effective and lasting change. It wasn't Rosa Parks who changed the law in Birmingham, it was the hundreds of thousands and millions of people, of all colors, who made it clear that discriminatory behavior by the City of Birmingham in providing bus service would not be tolerated. It was not the lone black courageously taking a forbidden place at a lunch counter in Tupelo, Mississippi who changed the law, it was the changing sentiments and beliefs of the culture that forced lunch counters to be non-discriminatory. Sure, laws were put in place to enforce this public will, but it is the economic power of the culture that really makes lasting change. If a business owner chooses to racially, sexually, religiously, or for reasons of sexual orientation discriminate against a segment of society by refusing to provide service, so be it. Let the power of the marketplace drive that business into bankruptcy OR let the discriminatory practices create business opportunities for those who view everyone as customers, whose only color is green.

This creates both a powerfully persuasive motive for discriminatory businesses to stop being discriminatory, because a black man's money is the same color as everyone else's, and it appropriately punishes those who continue to discriminate by depriving them of income in a way they have no cause to complain about. If the elderly white racist barber doesn't want to cut the hair of blacks, let him exercise his right to freedom of association because soon enough he will be gone and will be replaced by businesses that are color-blind.

The real problem with racial discrimination in the South in the past was NOT that private businesses or individuals discriminated, it was that THE STATE improperly used it's regulatory power to support, advance and entrench such discrimination by putting the force of government behind those wrongful practices.

But the federal government has the power to prevent states from doing this, and that is one of it's legitimate functions; to make sure that the states are acknowledging and protecting the rights of ALL citizens equally.

Private discrimination, as morally repugnant as it is, remains a fundamental civil right and the costs to society by way of empowering the government to intrude on our personal lives is far higher and far more harmful than allowing people to associate as they please. This is the sort of creeping socialism of government intrusion that must be stopped before it's started and rooted out if it takes hold, because the government can be relied upon to abuse the power to force us into involuntary and unwanted association once it has been given the authority to do so. It's a slippery slope argument because it IS a slippery slope. And the evidence of that is rife and manifest in our country and indeed the world today.

This is not helpful because it does not promote changes in thinking and attitude, it hardens resolve and entrenches bigotry as people resist attempts to force them into unwanted association.

[piscator]

Thereby hangs a fishy tale..

Fuck me! Where did you spring from?!

Nice fish...

Thanks guys. I like this crew, and this warm welcome back to the neighborhood pub is just nice confirmation of why.
Next round's on me!

[Seth]

Thereby hangs a fishy tale..

Fuck me! Where did you spring from?!

Nice fish...

Thanks guys. I like this crew, and this warm welcome back to the neighborhood pub is just nice confirmation of why.
Next round's on me!

I want to know if it's a self-portrait or if the model has a yeast infection she's trying to conceal.