Zerocchi
Your post make me come out with something:-
If you are knowledgeable enough to build the world from scratch, you are welcome to troll. Otherwise, keep learning.
Your post make me come out with something:-
If you are knowledgeable enough to build the world from scratch, you are welcome to troll. Otherwise, keep learning.
I think you’re almost right but your angle in the article gives too much heed to what are essentially poor trolls. Yes there is a spectrum of trolls, and some can be considered good at trolling, others bad. The ones who are bad at trolling fully deserve that connotation of being ‘brutes’ from the word troll. The brutish trolls are the ones who pose opinions so devoid of empathy or logic that they are often considered obvious.
But there are subtle trolls, good at trolling, if good is a word that should be associated to the ‘art’. These are the people where the older definition of ‘troll’ most strongly draws its connection. Although I would argue all trolls deserve that older meaning, as they are all looking for one thing, fishing for one thing. A reaction, a rise from an opponent.
On another point I recommend you read the interviewers defence of his actions in this article. He was definitely showing the playful traits of a troll, but he was in a bad position regardless, the Channel 4 news does not use celebrity interviews primarily to advertise that celebrities next project, that is simply a cost they pay. Instead their primary aim is to get some meaningful statement out of the celebrity to justify the slot on the news show. I think it shows incredible integrity to demand such a trade of valuable content for advertising when other networks would simply accept the interview as purely an advert.
I’d also really have liked Tarantino to have answered that question, as such a master of violence in entertainment it’d be good to hear his rationalisation of how such entertainment doesn’t necessarily cause real-world violence.
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Do notice if you walk away the troll will not follow you.
He will stay back, thinking either " I win! " or " Was it something that I said? ".
Not all trolls do it on purpose and realize what they / we’re doing. Yeah, sometimes that troll is you / me. And sometimes it is even fun to do it on purpose. See how he laughs as Mr Downey’s walk away? 
By my understanding, there is no such thing. It’s either a troll or it isn’t. But sure, over time as its get more and more used, it’s very likely the term will gain “good” traces in it, and balance it out with shades of gray. Just not yet, I’d argue. 
I agree with what you write about trolls except Krishnan Guru-Murthy is not a troll.
Channel 4 News is a news program, it is not there for celebrities to promote their latest product. They’re warned beforehand that this is the case and some choose to ignore that and assume they can keep the interview on the topic of said product. Krishnan is renowned for turning the interview onto more controversial topics that the UK population is interested in at that time. His interview with Tarantino was focused on violence because that was an issue appearing in the news at the time.
So, where you say that Krishnan is “not interested in the topic”, you’re incorrect, he is, it just isn’t the topic the interviewee is interested in.
Fundamentally, “why are you here” depends on whether you understand that there’s a ton more people reading a thread than writing to it, in most cases. It’s not necessary to be open to being convinced by the person you’re arguing with (or be able to convince them) if you know there are 1000 other people capable of being convinced by either one of you.
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If its between two and only two people, no spectators, trolling isn’t very effective because you can just ignore it.
In a way an interview is a form of positive trolling. Digging a discussion out of someone not for the two of them, but for the audience.
If everyone benefits and enjoys the discussion, you call that an interview. If the participants get dirty and the audience enjoys it, you call it a debate.
If the one conducting the controversial discussion did so with intent of it, and the participants are filled in and prepared, its still called a debate.
If the one conducting the controversial discussion did so with intent, and the participants are misled into thinking that it will be an interview, you can begin consider it trolling…
I wonder if there aren’t more angles to look at this from. Perhaps the desire to label/box someone as a troll unveils more about ourselves than about the incident. Like, if we’re on the fence about it, but theres that one guy that you’re starting to treat like a troll, avoiding them, subconsciously ghost-banning them, but not everyone sees them the way that you do.
I only mention it because I’ve done it. They made me angry because what seemed like trolling was actually done to prove a point. The dude was still an ass for how he did it, but in the end he was right. Probably.
Unkind smart people are like super-villains~
Even malicious trolls provide a valuable service to all of us. They serve to immunize us from taking sides too easily and being too opinionated and too sentimental about our opinions. Much in the same way that systems are made more secure because black hat hackers exist.
Think about it: nowadays when you read something online you don’t immediately take it at face value. You stop and think along the lines of: “Is this guy for real? Or is he just a troll, trying to take advantage of how much engaged I am in this or that subject?”.
So, thanks, trolls! You make the Internet stronger.
Aww. I kept waiting for the part of the post where Jeff would announce that Discourse is coming out with a new feature that will somehow magically solve the problem of trolling.
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“Now just a minute! This is a press conference! The last thing I want to do is answer a lot of questions!” General Mitchell
I don’t feel sorry for Tarantino. He obviously wasn’t interested in any topic either. He admitted he was there to sell himself. The interviewer is admittedly a jerk, but Tarantino obviously came with his own agenda. This wasn’t a Letterman or Conan “interview”. He was meeting with a reporter - though I use that term loosely. Jeff’s right - don’t feed the trolls. But don’t look for sympathy if you are going to engage them. Don’t just feed them…avoid the bridge.
If the people engaged in the discussion aren’t interested in the same thing, why try to qualify any of the participants as a troll? It’s the discussion itself which should be spotted as problematic since it is open to become meaningless for everyone.
Granted, the discussion might still be fruitful. But that’s because us humans are good to mend communications. In fact, isn’t it one of the main reason why even when the context is bad we still expect good things from the participants?
On a personal level, I require myself to do so as much as possible but now I think I will also allow myself to not be able to do it all the time, anytime. I have just realized there probably is a limit to what I can understand through people telling me things. And in addition, yes, because of trolls, I also take into account how each participant is behaving.
But I ask what I feel to be a more practical and more to the point question, even if you would ask it to the potential troll. It’s:
How are the costs distributed and who is paying?
I’m not sure it’s a decisive trait to identify a troll nor if it encompasses the many kinds of trolls that exist. But it sure has something to it that I feel frame well my mind to evaluate the situation more objectively.
It always boils down to check if the person bears some costs or is willing to. And it is important as you will find out the ones paying the least are the ones enjoying the mess the most and were the ones who created it in the first place. To then nurtured it through others and that’s to say: paying the least by letting others pay.
I came to that question about costs after reading some reactions about on-line women harassment. The initial posts always voiced a clear distress. Harassed women are psychologically hurt and that affects their everyday life, like everything that shroud the mind in an oppressive manner.
Some of the reactions were all dismissive of that aspect in that they tried to analyze the situation without these… subjective biases? Well. Why not? But again: costs. And these reactions are always caught red-handed here. They say, even if indirectly so, that the harassed women should do blablabla and they should consider blablabla and they blablabla and they and they and they.
This is “letting others pay” all over again. And in practice when someone has proven to be able to pay, the whole trolling dynamic makes them pay some more. It has defined them as payers.
Here’s the interesting bit I believe.
I don’t think the majority of the trolling reactions were intended to be so. I think they were well-intended because most of their authors seem like new comers to the discussion. And what is more natural for them than to expect already present participants to mend the discussion? And who will naturally be targeted then but the defined payers since they have payed from the start?
So, in the end, what is why I’m asking this question of costs. I will be a new comer to a variety of subjects in a variety of contexts and it’s a good approximation to believe I will always expect the already present participants to be able to mend the discussion. And that I will feel it to be wrong if they do not do so.
Now, since I have realized that trolls make that request and that consequent expectation of mine to be so unfair to the trolled ones, I will always try to assess the situation to be sure I’m asking too much out-of-the-box.
So: Krishnan Guru-Murthy, as a Channel 4 News journalist, troll or not?
That’s an easy one: troll of course. And also: I wish I was not in his situation but if I would be, I would try to change my questions or my bosses’ behavior or quit if all of it proves to be impossible.
Because for that precise position, I would be sent to interview actors and directors on their own ground for what, 15 minutes? If I and the TV channel I work for are not interested to do interviews for advertising, why accept it in the first place? And not proposing to pay to prepare an interview on my own ground?
Why let the interviewee pay and hope I can fish something in a minimal amount of time? Sure, the notion of an exchange is a good one: actors and directors need to reach a wide audience and something like Channel 4 News can provide that. Journalists need powerful statements. From the content itself of the statement and from the aura of the person who says it.
But in what way is it smart and respectful to think getting a powerful statement in a 15 minutes interview absolutely geared toward something else from the ground-up and fully paid by the other participant, what’s more a powerful statement on a practically unrelated topic? The questions of Mr Guru-Murthy are abashing in how little they connect to the subject at hand, even regardless of the purpose of advertising.
In fact, the interview of Richard Ayoade is just perfect in all regards. Because on that one, the interview is on Channel 4 News’ ground. They have paid for it. And Richard Ayoade voices clearly interviews are not super lovable but that it is part of his job. He compares that to commuting, a fair connection in that commuting is about reaching either your workplace or your home and such an interview is about reaching either your audience or the meat of your product.
So is Richard Ayoade a troll?
Well, look at the costs all the way through. He is not and Mr Guru-Murthy yet again is. Sure, Channel 4 News has paid. For a 5 minute interview. Again, in what way is it smart and respectful to think getting a powerful statement in such a short amount of time?
What’s more troubling however is that, regardless of the indisputable wit of Mr Ayoade, Mr Guru-Murthy is “short of cash” in that 5 minute interview. Several times and it takes only a second or two to Mr Ayoade to bankrupt his interviewer.
I said “regardless of the indisputable wit of Mr Ayoade” because Mr Ayoade did not even once ask for anything pricey. He voices clearly the problem: “where should I go?” And there you see it all. Mr Guru-Murthy asks, even if indirectly so, Mr Ayoade to go somewhere. Then his interviewee asks where to or where he, Mr Guru-Murthy, already is. But the journalist cannot answer, he mumbles and he loses a control that he never had.
Anyway, I knew the interview was pretty much done as soon as Mr Guru-Murthy pleaded Mr Ayoade to “give him something”. It happened quickly, all too quickly in an interview that was sized way too short. And Mr Ayoade did not let that one slipped and voiced a remark about how badly phrased that demand was.
But you know what? I have just watched the video again, just to be sure I got things right. And the first question floored me. Mr Guru-Murthy asked “what would you ask yourself?”.
Ultimate… letting… others… pay: do my job.
(Also I didn’t get things right. I thought Mr Ayoade said he dislikes interviews when in fact it is subtler. I wished I could be as smart as him in such a situation.)
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I enjoyed the article.
In regards to, “Don’t feed the trolls”, what’s your opinion on people like Katie Hopkins?
For the uninitiated, she is a minor celebrity in the UK with a column in one of the countries most read (Murdoch owned) newspapers and over half a million twitter followers. An obvious troll, but also very publicly says very controversial things. She recently more-or-less called for Libyan migrants escaping to Italy on illegal boats to be murdered, suggesting Gunships as a possible method.
No, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care.
I’ll let you Google her, I’m not linking.
On one hand, don’t feed the trolls. On the other, surely such BS needs to be called out.
It’s a catch 22, she just wants publicity, and by calling her our on her BS you are giving her that publicity, but by not doing so you are letting her get away with saying terrible things.
So what to do?
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Loved the article.
after our little back in forth on twitter - I just want to thank you for bringing attention to trolling behavior of men to women in technology. Now here is an nlp nugget that you can use to identify trolls using a “bot” :
It’s true – most of the time, you’re not arguing to convince the other person, you’re arguing to convince the other people reading.
https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/471796722650206208
Still, that requires respect for the topic, first and foremost, and the people in it. The video link @g00p3k posted is brilliant and illustrates that the whole thing is in bad faith – they are more interested in breaking out of the constraints of the movie/book press junket format than the actual content.
I for one would have loved to hear a bit about Ayoade’s book because I know nothing about it. Did I learn anything whatsoever about the book from that interview? No.
I wish! But we do strongly encourage people to flag instead of respond, if something particularly awful is posted.
It is a perfect illustration. Because nothing of value or interest was produced for anyone – neither audience, nor interviewer, nor interviewee. That’s the failure of trolling. You cannot produce anything useful when you approach the topic in bad faith. It’s like watching a dogfight or a car crash. All noise and spectacle.
I think letting the more eloquent, thoughtful, and powerful people take the lead on combating junk like this is the right strategy. If you want, echo those people by amplifying their message. Beyond that… just don’t look.
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Jeff, I’m responding to your post because, after reading it, I got the impression that trolling is annoying but not really dangerous. I want to make the point that this is not always so. As you and the majority of your readers and commenters are male (assumption, yes), you may not be aware of how very specific and vicious the comments are that many female writers receive. I’m sure there are other groups that suffer too, but it’s women that I have come to notice since reading the article linked below. Since reading this article I have noticed that many female writers note (often with disbelief) how many comments they get threatening rape and murder.
Trawling for a reaction can be harmless, but isn’t always. I thought that should be an important part of the discussion.
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I don’t think that’s quite true: my impression is that a troll simply wants to bludgeon opponents into submission/silence, I don’t think they have an adequate representation of the person opposite them to be able to conceptualise ‘convincing’ them. That’s why I’m wary of using ‘real life’ examples - such as the interviews - as examples of trolling. To me internet trolling is a direct result of the anonymity and facelessness of internet. To all intents and purposes, for a troll I suspect that trolling is a ‘game’ just like any computer game. And a cowered opponent is just one more virtual kill.
Also, as you hint in your article, I think the ‘classic’ (as in internet classic) meaning of troll is losing out to the ‘monster’ version. Now people proffering rape threats on Twitter will be referred to as trolls in the media. Which is a shame because I think there is a fundamental distinction for which we lose vocabulary.
As for addendums to ‘don’t feed the trolls’, I think that if they are targeting a specific person, one should express support for that person at the same time as cutting off the discussion.
And of course, sometimes people aren’t quite trolls, they’re just monomaniacs who do passionately care about a subject and just don’t know how to let go. But even in that case, I think “not feeding them” will help them stop, as they are incapable of stopping on their own.
The most annoying I find is the ‘relativistic non-concession-concession’:
A: But Paris is the capital of France
B: Yeah, that’s just your opinion, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
That’s where I would struggle to let it go 
You got the Tarantino interview completely wrong. Maybe you should view it again. The interviewer was asking perfectly reasonable questions, and Tarantino all of the sudden got testy, for no apparent reason. He (Tarantino) came across as a jerk, while the interviewer maintained his composure and level of respect throughout, even though he was called a slave master by Tarantino. No trolling here at all. Jerk that he apparently is, I love Tarantino’s movies, and have seen them all, several times over.
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I think your reply perfectly demonstrates the main misinterpretation of the cause of top 80% “looking like a trolling” replies. While you just have an opposite opinion and the truth is not demonstrable/measurable, your reply is to be considered as trolling by anybody who has been reading this post from Jeff’s point of view. Whether now Jeff would start to argue with you, his replies are to be blamed to be trolling by your supporters (including myself).
That‘s funny, because I think unless there is a sample in BIPM.org to go and compare to, there is no consensus possible. People often are just mistaken and/or not sufficiently competent, and that by no means makes them trolls. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,”—wrote Evelyn Hall in “The Friends of Voltaire.” After all, that’s possibly the best definition on what anti-troll is actually like.
Yes, I tried to cover that in the 3rd to last paragraph of the article..
I don’t really consider that trolling, more of an outright personal attack that the platform should be better at protecting people from. At least Twitter is finally doing something about this:
With the new filtering, tweets sent directly to an individual which are from a recently registered account and use language similar to previously flagged messages will not automatically show up in a user’s mentions column. The filtered tweets will still exist on the service, and won’t be deleted, but the user being targeted will not see the harassment.
I suggest reading my previous article for how I feel about how Twitter and Facebook handle this, versus how they should handle it.
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Thanks, Jeff, and sorry. I use the phrase social justice differently so I see that I missed your reference there. I also misread scottccote’s comment which, correctly read, would have alerted me to that fact that you are already all over it.
I don’t understand how you come to that conclusion. You are right that you can’t change the “view” of a troll because - as you have pointed out - a troll actually does not have a view on a given subject but only a agenda with inflammatory “talking” points.
But when you discuss with people who are ready to change their view or consider the views of others you can very well change their believes. There is nothing inherently worse in online discussions which prohibits this. It might be easier in real life, but still. I know for sure that I have changed the view of people just by online discussions with then. Or how do you call it if someone tells you “Hmm, I think you are right. I was missing the point you just showed”? I would believe that most of us who engage in online discussions have changed the view of someone at one point, be it on a minor or major topic.
Reddit’s “changemyview” subreddit is an interesting example of that. People regularly change their view slightly or profoundly after discussion there - or at least they claim in a convincing way. Even more, some people show up there with some view they feel bad about and actively seek for help and arguments in changing their view. I would argue that for such cases a internet discussion might even be preferred as it is much more easy to find people who can share another viewpoint (e.g. out of own experience) if you have a big pool of people who might unlike when you meet a limited number of people in real life.
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I think if someone is going there, they have already indicated good faith by the fact that they were seeking out a “change my view” discussion area.
There is some science around actually changing people’s mind here:
I get the feeling that Jeff was being hyperbolic (hence the use of the word “unpossible”), else he probably wouldn’t have created Discourse.
That said, sometimes the ways in which peoples’ minds change due to online discourse are strikingly depressing (see MR’s first reply to me under my response to the linked comment).
Edit: Disqus’s specific-thread linking is less intuitive than I would have expected. Try this link, but scroll up a couple posts and read Ramon Leon’s last post first (sorry that’s a bit confusing).
And yes, I am a bit sad that Ramon Leon’s comment got 2 upvotes.
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Obvious cruelty getting upvotes is the worst feeling. It is Lord of the Flies writ large. It is people cheering on a beating.
If it makes you feel any better I learned at Stack that people tend to downvote cruelty strongly. So what is missing in Disqus for this specific case is a downvote ability.
(I do not generally support downvoting in social discussion as it gets used for disagree far too often – and opinions cannot be objectively wrong – but I could see a lot of people downvoting this post as cruelty, which it is.)
I suppose you could flag it, but this gets into the uncertain grey areas of flagging… more realistically, this post should have been removed by a moderator.
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While I agree with the general feeling, if any of Ramon’s posts were removed there I could have not understood what happened. I think the post, and maybe the whole conversation between them, could have been hidden by a moderator. That’d be fine. But not deleted.
After all, there is some importance in trolling as it is a human aspect and we learn a lot, even about ourselves (as you implied in the end of the blog post), from such edge cases.
Here’s an analogy guessing at how brain works.
Suppose you’ve got a path you do every day, say from home to work. That path will leave marks in your brain because memory, just like a path on the grass, is made stronger by repetition.
Now suppose you are randomly trailing a new path and stumble upon that old path of yours. Do you feel nostalgic? An awesome sensation of a new link being made in your brain? I know I do.
That new connection is easily accepted by my brain, and my mind gladly changes that mental map I had, which is now more complete. It wasn’t wrong before, it might even already been optimal, but now it has more info, a bigger picture. And it might offer a good alternative or even a better path.
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Disqus does actually support downvoting, but it appears that no one downvoted Ramon Leon’s posts. (I did not downvote them because it feels petty to me to downvote the person I’m arguing with.) I’m also not sure that these are quite candidates for removal by moderators–yes, Ramon Leon is advocating (and practicing) “argument by ridicule,” but I didn’t consider his behavior abusive.
That’s a pretty nice analogy. And thanks for the upvotes in Disqus! I was more commenting on the fact that in some (or many?) cases, mockery is more effective than reasoned argument for causing people to change their minds, though, which I find quite depressing.
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I did downvoted them. Looks like it doesn’t reduce the upvote count, though.
In some cases mockery sure is more effective. In other being depressive could be more effective. Be careful to not judge humanity on anecdotes, though. You’ll probably be wrong. 
Obligatory etymological correction. Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary says about troll:
Etymology: Old Norse and Swedish troll, Danish trold (whence Danish trylla, trylde, Swedish trolla to charm, bewitch, Old Norse trolldómr witchcraft).
Yeah, downvotes are “counted” somehow but do not appear. Interesting design choice, as @cawas noted.
That isn’t mockery, though, that’s just being a straight up jerk to another human being.
Mockery implies the post is funny and lighthearted and has biting satire or commentary. Like what Jon Stewart did at the Daily Show for so long. It can be powerful, provided people are laughing along with you.
Nobody except a psychopath would be laughing along with what that guy posted:
I never said it was a private conversation, you’re welcome to add something of your own to it, questioning my intentions however is none of your business. Who said I want to engage in a productive discussion? I don’t insult theists because it’s productive, so take your assumptions about my motives and put them back where they came from, your ass.
Valerie is a lying theist troll, do you think I care if I hurt his/her feelings? Have you even considered that it’s likely my intention to do just that? Does it even occur to you that public mockery for idiocy is actually a valid method of inducing change? I don’t care whether you agree or not, I’m not here to get agreement.
You want me to have a nice intellectual exchange with an intellectual midget, that doesn’t work. People like Valerie don’t respond to reason, so reason can’t be used to sway them: other means are necessary.
So once again, how about you worry about your own communication style and I’ll worry about mine and you can keep your advice to yourself, I don’t need it. I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m well aware of exactly how abrasive I’m being, it’s not an accident.
If you don’t like my communication style, too bad.
Funny? No. Cruel and wrong.
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Yeah, you’re right. I think I may just try too hard to give other participants in the conversation the benefit of the doubt. (This may have something to do with the fact that I have occasionally been called a “troll” merely for having controversial opinions.)
The really sad part, though, is a couple posts down where MR explains to me that exactly this sort of trolling/being-a-jerk was “effective in convincing [them] in [their] own journey from belief to non-belief”–this is one of the few times I’ve seen anyone acknowledge the efficacy of internet-forum-style discussions in causing them to change their views, and it’s for precisely the wrong reasons, as far as I can tell. (No comment on the actual subject of those views, i.e., whether it’s better to believe in God or not.)
I love engaging in philosophic discussion on religion and the "what if"s with calm, kind-hearted, open-minded people.
And that exists nowhere on the internet. 
Most of that discussion is polarized and entrenched. Finding people to actually have a conversation with is very difficult. And to strike that convo where there isn’t any audience to distract/perform for, is even more difficult.
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I thought I was the only one who thought ‘trolling’ was exactly as it is. Y’know, that one.
Fish for compliments, troll for vitriol. Either way you’re getting a tasty dose of dopamine. Trolling is rooted in the source of ‘negative reward’ somewhere in each psyche for various asinine reasons. I’ve done it by going into the Lion’s Den as the obvious dissident on things I felt the need to troll on because those in the den were known for doing really bad things to the community they are a part of. Yeah, sure, two wrongs, ect, ect. In my specific cases it was on forum boards that were considered ‘lawless’ and no real moderation was present. As in, the forum description stated as some variation of ‘abandon all hope ye who enter here’.
That happens when I get that ‘stupid moment’ as explained above and march into the place where I should have abandoned all hope only because I knew what I was going to say was going to stir that particular groupthinking nest of insecurity. The outcome is similar to Ralph attempting to enter Jack’s den of voracious hunters and barely making it out alive. (I also see the Alanis-irony of that, but I’m no ordinary Hunter.)
Without clicking that article link yet, I can already say from experience that it’s using rhetoric (and as you’ve said, weaponizing empathy, pathos) to soothe a specific group (and their groupthink) by their specific dogma and its rules (logos) to maintain their status (ethos) in whatever they feel is worth fighting for. When the silent majority or future visitors read with similar aims, it turns into something like a recruitment poster for the group.
Trolling is nothing more than one view against another that has no substantial backing into the rest of Humanity to follow along (the sky is blue and nearly everyone who is not blind or colorblind recognizes this and agrees this is true, versus one group that hates <thing A> and another group thinks <thing A> is the best thing ever and most of Humanity either doesn’t care or doesn’t agree) . People have agendas and it’s nature to think for oneself (and their groups with labels). That concept of free will keeps coming back into situations like these (especially when to agree on fact or opinion which is logic vs rhetoric). And that’s when the last bit of Jeff’s article rings true: walk away, let it go and don’t be that tasty fish caught in the troller’s net (and dopamine slurry). If the subject garners a whole community then it’s probably something that someone will fight to the death over and no amount of rhetorical arguing will change that particular viewpoint.
That is the only way I can remove the teeth of someone’s scathing, abusive troll-focused comments. Doesn’t make their behavior right but at least it makes it worthless in your own (and thus my own) personal living paradigm.
(I have my own recent incident to share but it does involve me being the sole objector and appearing as a troll. But it’s against a known group of trolls that operate on par with what I could describe sufficiently as “Diet /b/ for online RP games”. And some abusive language I don’t think Jeff wants linked to his site.)
I have learned that if I want something like that, I need to make my own (*coughcoughDiscoursecoughcough*. I did it already for a particular fandom and now I’m downsizing it more for the reasons you spoke of:
No, that’s not true. We’re doing that here. Conversation is possible. Requires the right tools for the community, and some attention from at least one moderator.
I will say that as the topic gets more inherently controversial, you need a more controlled environment. Nobody is arguing to the death about which puppy is the cutest.
if I’ve learned one thing about the news over the years (and I doubt it), it would be that news reporters and interviewers are looking for one thing: controversy. this is because that is what pulls in viewers, and keeps people watching. ask Howard Stern (or just watch the movie “Private Parts”).
there are SOME interviewers who are genuinely interested in the actors, and the movie itself, and Downey has had many a fine interview session with them without incident. the real problem with Mr. Murthy’s strategies is that he is asking them about sensitive subjects, and, in the case of Mr. Tarantino, one he had dealt with already in COUNTLESS interviews prior. this is how he KNEW the interviewer was just baiting him into saying something “on record” for THIS interviewer’s show, which he wasn’t going to do.
no one HAS to answer every question which is hurled their way, even in an interview. it’s called freedom of choice, and in this case, it made the interviewer look like the bad guy, because he did not take no for an answer, but just kept badgering for the info he wanted. the control of the interview is ENTIRELY in the hands of the interviewee, who can stifle the whole thing at the drop of a hat…
I got the impression that trolling is annoying but not really dangerous. I want to make the point that this is not always so.
Having had the experience of being doxed by a troll myself, I’m significantly less forgiving than this. I don’t think it should ever be treated as harmless. Trolling online is essentially sociopathic behavior. People with the mentality to engage in it almost always escalate their behavior at least some, and there’s no point whatsoever in waiting around to see how far they will take it.
And yes, they will target your most vulnerable community members first. Minorities, women, newer users with less community cred. Being a target is much more stressful that it looks like it would be if you’re watching someone else go through it. Being doxed I’d liken to suffering a terrorist attack. You honestly don’t know how far into meatspace this person is willing to take things, and most of us have innocent children or child relatives we care about…
Its a flat out menace to any community.
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Trolls will target anything that looks exploitable. Double that if they have an axe to grind.
I must disagree with some of the points the author raised, or at least suggest a clarification to them. It is this: that the accusation “you are a troll” is brought out far too readily in response to a controversial idea.
An example from my own experience: I passionately believe in the idea that medical litigation - particularly in the UK - causes far more harm than good, and that we would be better off banning it. I justify it through a utilitarian approach - the most good for the most people - stating that whilst we shouldn’t blindly follow utilitarianism, we shouldn’t ignore it when there is a very strong case for it.
I was accused of trolling by a respondent who simply couldn’t accept that I could hold a position so opposed to his own - despite the fact that I attempted to explain, in a polite tone, why I held it.
There are two conclusions I draw from this:
That the accusation of “trolling” is sometimes an intellectually lazy method of trying to stifle debate.
That a particularly nasty kind of troll is the “call everybody a troll” type.
It’s similar to the accusation of “bigot”. A bigot is not someone who holds a controversial opinion, but rather someone who is totally unwilling to explain why they hold that opinion, and unwilling to state what evidence would be required to change their mind.
I think I’m a bit confused as to the example of the interviewer in the videos. I think the quality of the questions he asked were somewhat varied – some were interesting, others were rehashing of some topics that probably don’t need to be rehashed.
Still, it didn’t seem like he was ever asking anything particularly unfair, or backing the interviewees into a corner. It seemed like there was just a fundamental disagreement as to why they were there – he wanted to discuss larger themes, and they wanted to promote something – and that could be just as much the fault of the celebrities management as it is of the interviewer. I have tremendous respect for Tarantino, but I felt he was being a dick in that interview – I actually would have been really interested to hear his answers to some of the questions. I’ve read interviews in the past with him that were very thoughtful. I guess it’s valid that maybe he’s answered them in the past, but I haven’t heard those answers, and perhaps his views have changed since then (although: apparently not).
I think the questions towards RDJ were maybe a little bit over the line if it wasn’t clearly stated beforehand that he was going to ask about those things, but given that part of RDJ’s brand is a redemption story, I don’t think asking him to talk about that is absolutely awful (as long as it’s not served up as a surprise, which in this case perhaps it was).
I guess my overall point here is I’m not sure this an example of trolling so much as bad communication of expectations.
I find it remarkable that Atwood can watch (the end of) that interview and still so completely misunderstand the Tarantino interview and so misunderstand Guru-Murthy … to me his take seems quite inconsistent with intellectual honesty.
And no, Guru-Murthy most certainly was not “trying to bait” Richard Ayoade.
“Look. I’m not new to the Internet. I know nobody has ever convinced anybody to change their mind about anything through mere online discussion before. It’s unpossible.”
Oh god, I’m stopping here, that’s bullshit, for one, unpossible isn’t even a fucking word, for two, people have changed their minds about PLENTY of things through “mere online discussion” -__-
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Luckily trolling doesn’t happen that much in the web development world. You see it often on message boards though…
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion, often for their own amusement.
This sense of the word “troll” and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe “a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families.” In addition, depictions of trolling have been included in popular fictional works such as the HBO television program The Newsroom, in which a main character encounters harassing individuals online and tries to infiltrate their circles by posting negative sexual comments himself.
I don’t understand people why they try to be on the “right” side about some argue. People must create something. This is humanity instinct. But people can’t do this, at least most of them. And they try to be “right” side. They start to believe something. They pen up them self in a faith. Then they lose their self-control and self-awareness. And they are not a human anymore. At least they are a just troll.
