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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
