When Is A Troll No Longer A Troll?
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 20. 09. 2016
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For pretty much as long as there has been INTERNET there have been people who make it their business to get in other peopleâs business on it... whose activities range in severity from easily ignored m8s postinâ gr8 b8 in comment threads to perpetrators of actual, unignorable, life upending harassment. We did a video a while back on the complications that arise when you confuse those two groups. This video is about that same confusion from a different perspective. At one point, the Trolls Defense was that they keep stupid people busy so they donât ruin the internet for everyone else; they spotlight hypocrisy and distract irksome internet folk by being disingenuous rhetorical sparring partners. But today when people who are inflicting life upending harassment, issuing death threats and ganging up on people online are ALSO called trolls, how do these two groups relate to each other? Maybe there really isnât a distinction at all. Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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00:21 Early AOL Commercial (1995)
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00:39 The Experience of Being Trolled
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1:02 Letters of Note
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4:37 Hell is Quoting Other People
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4:37 How Does Deadpool Know He's a Comic Book Character?
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5:14 Don't feed the trolls? It's not that simple
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6:02 Why Online Harassment Is Still Ruining Lives
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7:14 Is The Internet a Public Place?
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Written and hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta)
(who also has a podcast! Reasonably Sound: bit.ly/1sCn0BF)
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company." DarkShikari
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Was that Descartes though? I'm skeptical.
Leonardo Santos I'm not the most sure. I'll edit it if I am wrong.
My life story (i'm not the idiot)
Once again this comment section is gonna be cancerous today
It's still much too early to state that, but I understand why. So far I've seen some rational debates going on
I cant wait for when (insert reactionary) does a video on this, and proves Mikes point.
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Yep, full of shrewd raspcallions
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The only time I hear people use the word bigot is so they dont have to provide a counter argument.
Bigot
like #DegenerateLivesMatter
Stop spreading toxic hate speech.
Consider it a shorthand for this argument, "There is no excuse for blanketly dehumanizing wide swaths of people based on race, religion, ethnicity, etc. That is what you are doing and by that action you are hurting us as a species."
That's not true. I'll concede that the word bigot is a very emotionally charged word, and accordingly must be used sparingly in rational debate, but it's also not a buzzword. It does have a very clear meaning, albeit one that can be very easily subdivided and elaborated on. The word bigot means someone who harasses, insults, or harms someone else on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, religion, or other categorized aspect of identity. Frankly, denial of the existence of bigotry is barely a step up from the thing itself, and ultimately just leads to people thinking it's okay to be bigoted assholes.
"(Trolling) ..assists awful people in distancing themselves from the result of their harmful actions because they happen to be using technology."
Spot on.
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I despise the "idle ironic detachment" mode that the internet engenders in people. I long for unabashed sincerity.
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I remember a day when the kind of trolling, shitposting, and racist screeds that flood the Internet today were relegated to the "Off-Topic" forum, and anyone transgressing that was either shouted down or banned.
Welcome to the New Sincerity. Irony is for hipsters.
People with Idle Ironic Detachment are or "IDD" are the most soul suckingly boring people to be around. Hey! No one is "too cool for school" we all go here and we all have to deal with it and to pretend for your own sake that it isn't important denies how it effects others and probably yourself.
Yes, the image search result for "Lol I Troll You" comes to mind.
(at the top of the image it says "What is actually happening")
I find it amazing that through the advent of the internet, the troll, considering he/she does not see the direct emotional impact it has on the person, essentially lowers their expectations on the true value of their actions.
That is because it is not their responsibility, emotional regulation is the responsibility of the individual, it is a sign of maturity. You can't make other people responsible for your feelings, feelings are subjective, people can get upset about literally anything, it does not work. It is more like exposure therapy, if they don't like it or can't handle it they don't have to engage with it.
It's the overall causing factor/effect of anonymity. Behind a screen, one can not see the results of another individual's emotional state.
I for one would love to see ration debates from both sides on this matter. I find both parties at fault.
@sock
and that would be good, but there's usually a break point where we as humans can stop to it, "shock therapy" has its limits, however as others here have said as well as mike, trolls, of all kinds(not just the old or new ones) don't see this stopping point due to their anonimity and their inabilty to recognize the one they speak to, and their general neutrality to anything that happens on the web, this makes it so that at first, trolling is fine, heck, maybe even good for the most part, but after just so little, it becomes unbearable o the one who's suffering from it, simply because the troll doesn't understand or notice that he went too far. "game's fun 'till it last short" that's exactly what happens with trolls, getting life lessons can be good most of the times, but it isn't a life lesson if you keep on doing it for days, weeks, maybe months, that's just threathening, and yet, trolls don't notice it.
to be honest though, i don't think there's any way to fix this issues aside from censorship and international PSA's.
iota-09 You argument is nebulous and subjective. At no point does it account for the responsibility of the consumer. You can turn off, you can block, ignore, report, all the tools are there. And if it continues you have legal recourse.
It also ignores the fact that in almost all cases there has been a two and through between both parties that has escalated the situation. Or the victim class, those who provoke to be victims, those who seek any attention no matter how negative for their own psychological deficits. Those who use harassment as a tool to gain sympathy and invoke outrage in others.
If a person is being harassed on the internet and they don't walk away, or use the tools available to stop it, they want it.
It is psychological immaturity, and all helping them does is infantilizes them, and everyone else around them. Society has a responsibility to create mature functioning adults, not molly coddle the immature, empowering narcissism and borderline traits in future generations.
It is words, and people who claim words hurt are people who have never suffered anything significant in their lives, people whose self esteem is externally contingent on society pandering to their ego. The entire concept is utter rubbish, someone cries about bad words on the internet, don't confort them, tell them to grow up.
I have worked in peer support, in the section of mental health between acute care and proper functionality. And the hardest thing to do is to get people to take responsibility for two things, their own actions and their own emotions. But it is the only thing that is going to get self reliant and stable. And their has been an explosion in the west of personality disorders, and it is bullshit like this that drives it.
Harsh words don't hurt people, telling people they hurt is the problem. All this video has done is empower trolls, nothing more.
Sock Pupet1984 because obviusly those people are affected only by those trolls right? because trolling is ALWAYS a oneo-on-one conversation right? you're missing the part where trolls affect your lives not because of what they say to you, but becuase of the ideas tthey implant in your mind, and in those of who you know in real life, if they're not people you know in real life already that is.
saying words don't hurt is right, but saying that words CAN'T hurt, is wrong as all hell, being directly hurt by an insult is phisically impossible, it is what those words entail to in your living life both on and offline that makes it as dangerous as it is.
if that's really how you think trolling works(the troll insults someone and that someone gets offended and depressed over just the simple insult), then i have a seriously hard time believing you had that work, if that's also how most psychologists think, then it doesn't surprise me that half of those i met knew jack shit of how the human mind and interactions everywhere work.
a random person in the youtube comment section telling me i'm a lowlife because of invalidity pension and living off the state won't do anything to me, but do you know what would happen if people like that started popping out everywhere i am on the web? i'd be labelled(or at least whould think of myself as) what those people say i am, a leech, a low life, a free-loader, and those things will be transported to real-life, like for example on facebook, where i may have real life friend or family members who think that, co-workers, school companions, everyone i know would be exposed to the se people and ideologies, and sooner or later i'd be treated as one due to mass-thinking, ignoring, blocking and even asking for authorities help can only do so much, but modern day trolls, cyber bullies, bgots or whatever you want to call them are persistent, all of that won't do anything and thye'll just keep coming back, it WILL affect your life,even though it won't affect you directly.
I think you're behind the curve in how "we" now think of and use the word troll. The image of the merry prankster is diminishingly small, in my experience. The word now simply _means_ "hateful," "unfeeling," "toxic," "bully," and "abuser." So when a news site says that the abuse is done by trolls, it - both in intent and effect - is not excusing or mitigating the hate. It's calling it by its name: _Monstrousness_.
For what its worth, the trolls have lost that word. Even if they've won so much else.
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+Lit Crit, it sounds like y'all might be ahead of the curve on how to use the word troll.
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I don't think he's "behind the curve". I think he's "connecting the dots".
I disagree with many of the ideas expressed on this channel, but I appreciate that the critical difference between it and the standard issue pomo regressive cult member bilge is that Mike usually doesn't launch into the "HALLELUJAH, BROTHER!" portion of the sermon until he's laid the groundwork that he believes justifies his message-rather than assuming everyone in the audience already shares his convictions . . .
. . . which, when you think about, is a pretty decent way to occasionally change people's minds about things.
I thought trolling was like linking meatspin in a chat under a tiny url. Something messed up (I guess) but something that both the person being trolled and the troll could laugh about, together. Nothing serious or really hurtful. After watching this video and thinking about the topic, I guess I'm not a troll, I'm more like the lame uncle who does the "pull my finger" gag. Harassing people, making people feel bad is terrible. If people hide behind the word troll to spew hateful and destructive language, that's fine; then trolling will be identified as a bigot or a racist. I don't care if troll is identified with harassment.
Just a quick edit: I would only pull this lame uncle prank in certain contexts or places, like in Twitch chat. I wouldn't pull this kind of behavior on like a comment thread on WaPo or in a serious Twitter thread.
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If "troll" is now the domain of racists, xenophobes and other bigots then what are the rickrollers or the meatspinners? Do we need a new word for internet pranksters or will they be forever associated with the worst of society?
That is classical trolling, the role of the jester who disrupts and inspires reflection and light-heartedness, which the video does briefly address. What Mike is referring to is modern use of the term trolling to mask bullying, racism, bigotry, and general hatefulness.
An equivalent is the "It's just a prank, bro" meme that spawned from heinous "pranks" that put people at real-life risk.
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That's _'rolling_, not _trolling_.
It must be noted that this touches on the "default thick skin" problem - everyone is expected to have a certain amount of thick skin and resist trolling; if they do not, that is proclaimed the problem, not the trilling itself. The fallacy here is that not being able to "resist" harassment on the same level as the "average" person automatically justifies the trolling itself - "Hey, haters always gonna hate, you gotta learn to resist it!". That is like saying "Well, there are people with knives in this alley, so you better learn how to sword-fight; but we will not do anything about them per-se!"
Another particularly loathsome phenomenon is the False Troll Switch - someone is a racist, sexist, insert-ist idiot who harasses or attacks someone online. When confronted by someone, or defeated in an argument, the person will (falsely) default to "Nah, I'm just trolling" to justify their actions. These individuals are, to me, even more obnoxious than true racist or hate-ists because, unlike their more unapologetic counterparts, they lack the courage to even stand by their awful views and opinions.
+ I think that's a really good point. Thanks for articulating that about the thick skin fallacy.
so for you the best analogy to "trolling" IRL is people with knife?
I agree completely. And I think it's funny that people in the comments here are upset about being called out, so they're displaying the exact behavior that we're talking about in order to get under our skin like we're doing to them.
That was rather eloquent. Thank you for saving me from the despair of this comment section.
I am making an analogy, not a comparison. I actually have a fairly thick skin, so am not directly affected - but I can identify the problem. I don't think it's fair to expect everyone have the same thick skin I do; moreover, I don't think it's fair for me to HAVE to maintain my guard all the time, as it's kind of draining.
The fact there will always be trolls, haters and internet trolling should not dissuade people from trying to prevent it - though you will never completely eliminate trolling (and I would argue you SHOULDNT, because there are benefits to building some levels of thick skin) I think it is not a black-and-white situation (trolling-no trolling). By cracking down on aggressive internet behavior we get to reduce it to acceptable levels; it can never be eliminated. If you do nothing, just shrug and "accept thats just the way things are" you risk what has already happened - this shit is a bit too much now.
I'll be the first to bemoan the general butt-hurt-ness of everyone, but I also have to try and be objective - one extreme is needed to subdue another. It is, I believe, the only way to maintain some sort of equilibrium.
In my experience, a lot of people who defend the concept of trolls are also quick to jump on marginalized people who talk about their experiences and I feel like this is sort of related to the choice between the words 'riot' and 'protest.' It is not new to use rhetoric to dismiss the actions of people who promote the status quo however violently and attribute violence to those who challenge it even without violence. I've been searching for a word to encapsulate that idea for a while, the way we attribute aggression to the peaceful actions of marginalized people. Great video, as always.
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Do you have an example you can link to of someone calling a peaceful protest a "riot" because I'm not aware of any.
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I don't know why expected the comments on this video to be anything but disgusting and awful, tbh. Usually the comments here are much more civil, but nope, it's overrun by exactly the kind of people this video speaks against. Ugh.
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Remember kids, the Internet Hate Machine is all fun and game while people pretend to be idiots with each other, but is ruined when genuine idiots arrive and believe themselves to be in good company.
This is interesting and its something I have thought about allot in the past. Allot of my friends are fairly... ironically detached, let us say. They enjoy off color jokes that blur the line between genuine vileness and showmanship and for the most part, I don't really have an issue with that. People enjoy what they enjoy and as long as your not hurting anyone (which tends not to happen when you keep these sorta jokes between friends and not shout them from the roof tops or on the internet at large) I find it all fairly, well harmless. Most of the time...
See the issue is that even with people who are purely in it for the off color jokes and who don't harass anyone or create tumbler blogs dedicated to gathering like minded people to feed on one another's bigotry, a culture starts to emerge. The more you joke about something off color without really acknowledging just how terrible that thing is, the more it starts to go from, "Ha ha, stupid people think that all Jews are greedy, so lets mock that concept by calling this greedy person Jewish in a sarcastic and obviously joking way!" to, "Ha ha, this person is greedy, just like a Jew!"
Just as an example, my nick name on and offline is Duhad and I am ethnically, though not religiously Jewish. After finding out that I am a bit of a neurotic and don't like spending allot of money, a few of my friends began to refer to me as, "Jewhad." I didn't mind that much, as I said, it all started fairly innocently as just some light ribbing for being such a cultural stereotype, but overtime that light ribbing whet from just being a joke, to being a integral part of how they saw me. If they needed to borrow money, they came to me and joked that I was their money lender. When they were thinking about where to eat they would laugh about how, 'Jewhad' would not want to go anywhere to pricey. Then they started to forget that I was not actually Jewish (religiously speaking) because they had started to just assume all of my 'Jewish' personality traits where related to my religion.
The whole thing had slowly gone from a joke about how terrible some people could be and ironically mimicking them, to ironically taking nasty stereotypes into consideration when thinking about people who fit into the groups being stereotyped. Which is not something I hold against them mind! I have had friends who where legit Neo Nazis or who genuinely thought I was going to hell for being bi/trans/agnostic/pro evolution/est. People having unpleasant attitudes don't bother me so long as they are willing to be civil. But what DOES bother me is the thought that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands even, of people every day go onto sights like 4chan or redit or tumbler and ironically chuckle at Nazi era cartoons of greedy Jews or read about how someone self identifies as an Apache Helicopter or about how women need to make men sandwiches just to tweak the noses of SJWs and I wonder... How many of these people after awhile go from laughing at the jokes ironic natures and start to laugh with the jokes intended message and how many even notice the change.
After all, its subtle. You start by laughing at it, then your still laughing at it, but you think its not really that far off base, just over the top. Then you laugh about how its pretty on point, though obviously you would never go as far as the people who un ironically post that sorta thing and then finally your posting on a video where a smart and educated sounding person talks about how black people are more violent then white people and your the one arguing with the people who are disgusted by the speaker because clearly they are just getting to easily offended by someone who makes some really good points.
I imagine some people will be annoyed by what I have written and that's fine. I am 26, I am old enough to no longer believe that anything I write on a youtube comment section will really reach anyone. That's fine. But before you brush me off as a reactionary or preachy or just for any of the things I listed above, can you do me just one small favor? Think about why you hold the beliefs you do and next time you see a comically offensive post and find yourself going to up vote it, really ask yourself if your doing so because its funny or because you agree with it and if the latter, when did you start feeling that way about it?
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Well written Duhad. Thank you for being a mature adult about this extremely important issue and sharing your personal experiences. Especially when discussing this topic, it warms heart to see a post that feels like it was written by a real person.
Hell yes. I'm with you.
Well said. Thanks for sharing.
Here's an idea:
watch the video before you dislike it.
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Fourth!
why are you... commenting that on this comment? it's not really Relevant is it? I mean comment things where you like, nothing's stopping you. but I want to understand the thought process.
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>shown in a lot of classrooms
Somebody's getting a little self-important.
It's come up before, it's a thing that happens. So. meh.
meh? I think that's great !
Stating that a thing that happens which puts you in a good light happens isn't being self important. It's just allowing yourself to have self-esteem/self-confidence.
Its just a fact.
***** To be specific, I was Meh-ing at the commenter, not Idea Channel.
Trolling in and of itself is neither good nor bad. Not all trolls are assholes, not all assholes are trolls.
Assholes are generally terrible trolls. harassment is not trolling.
I'd argue that it's inherently bad. Just not a horrible thing.
isn't the point of trolling to piss people off though? that is inherently bad
It can be, but trolling is the act of causing reactions(good or bad) for the entertainment of oneself and/or ones friends. You can do that without pissing off anyone, or you can piss off everyone if you want that.
If you go through life avoiding pissing people off, you'll find at the end of it that you went nowhere.
One of my all time favorite quotes is "intent doesn't equal impact." Regardless of the posters intent when saying racist, sexist, etc. type things, the way they are perceived has nothing to do with if they were "trolling" or not, and neither does the harm caused. If you say things that are mean, hurtful, or meant to sound like bullying, it doesn't matter if you were just doing it for the lulz, you caused harm. If you act like a bully, you are a bully. Yes, everyone is entitled to say what they want to say, joking or not, but the internet would be a much better, more thought provoking place if people would stop hiding behind the mask of "I'm just a troll" and just say what they mean.
As a long time trickster, one must ALWAYS accept the onerous one causes. It is not on them. If the person causing the prank does not accept responsibility, then they are in fact not accepting the trickster archetype.
alt-wrong
Have you ever noticed how right-wingers always project?
American "red states"
are more likely to view cuckold fetish porn. :--)
The difference between a troll and a bigot is emotional investment. The troll is entirely devoid of emotion of his claim where as the bigot is emotionally and intellectually invested in his argument and thus believes its validity.
and communication on the internet being what it is, it's very hard to convey and decipher the level of one's emotional investment in said claim.
So the person at the other side of the screen is supposed to know which one it is? Mike addressed this in this very video and in the one about Sartre (which he mentions here).
That's an interesting idea. But do you think that the amount of emotional investment matters to the people on the receiving end?
Sherlockian Probably not as its hard to assign intent to text based arguments as there is a large disconnect between context and diction online. However the video was focused around the distinction between the two. That being the case i think this is the best way to distinguish a troll. A troll will eventually cease in his behaviour when there's no emotional response unless he can sense pent up frustration waiting to leak through in an acceptable timeframe. Whereas the bigot will be equally invested despite what you do and will go out of his way to rectify his position with you through all means or will simply refuse to talk further as our ideological purity does not entice him to a converse.
Didi Bobo No they aren't supposed to know which one it is, which is exactly why trolling is effective. I never claimed to provide a way to 'declaw' a troll (so to speak) simply a known method to identify them, which is what i believe you misinterpreted my statemnt to be.You can choose to do so at your own discretion and wager if the time lost is worth trying to figure out if someone genuinely is malicious, trolling, ignorant, or misinformed, or whether your own argument is flawed and fallacious. Personally over the internet I haven't seen it as being worth my time to i just ignore it and move on. That being said if you can get someone to engage in a dialogue over the internet in a civil manner or face to face it can be pretty effective way of disarming them and thus determining what response it is they intend to invoke in you, and thus their objectives in making the claim.
Mike, you have presented the solution right here in this video. We simply all agree to reserve the word "Troll" for bigots, abusers and ill-intents with internet access, and we start referring to their non-harmful cousins as "Rapscallions."
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+ Ken M and other trolls like him definitely need a category for actually benevolent, non-hateful trolling, where the "troll" just acts like an idiot instead of acting like a bigot.
I think this is wrong because it enforces the idea that those trolls are usernames rather than actual people. Calling them trolls puts them in a sort of mythologycal state in a place detached from 'real life'.
***** Maybe. I don't personally think that detachment from reality is baked into the word itself. I do suppose just getting rid of the word troll, and the distinction between online and offline contexts, is a perfectly reasonable option as well. (and we'd still get to call people rapscallions.)
How about we use troll for its origional meaning, and call who you call trolls by their individual names. No need for a blanket term.
The distinction between troll and bigot is that a troll attacks an idea. A bigot attacks a person.
We users need online words to distinguish between them. Otherwise those who have no frame of reference just use our language because it's "cool". Check out 80's educational rap to fully appreciate how the misuse can harm conversations.
Putting a trigger warning in your video without calling it a trigger warning just so you get less dislikes.
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Content warnings have been around for decades. Relax.
I'm pretty sure that gets you more dislikes from people who don't think they should exist. It's more that he thinks that he should use them and so he does. The people who are opposed to that generally intersect with the people that would dislike this video anyway.
Joshua Ogle The difference is this isn't a content warning. It's warning that something is going to be talked about, which i think is a little silly.
This all just seems like an elaborate example of Poe's Law: "Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."
Although I certainly understand the concern of the line between pricks and those that pretend be them, I also don't want to lose people like Ken M and Internet Comment Ettiquette in this mess. Maybe we just shouldn't give people who are actual bad people the title of being 'Trolls' and just call them what they are: Assholes.
Agreed.
I think Erik always makes it relativly clear that he's not being serious at all, and most of his stuff doesn't appear like it's from mal intent.
Nice Username by the way GayDicks420
***** That's also up to opinion. That's MY point.
GayDicks420 I don't think it's up for debate. If you hit someone in the face, he will get bruised. It doesn't matter if after the fact you say "Ha pranked!". You see the problem?
***** What part of you thinks that's a fair comparison?
This is a concept I totally agree with but have never had the capacity to put into words. Thank you so much!
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you could've cut this video down to two seconds by just saying 'muh feelings'
Aww someone didn't understand the scary long words did they?
It's funny cause you are the topic of this video, here you are providing actual example. Thanks
"We can't escape being who people say we are."
I don't know who it is people say I am.
They're too polite to say.
So many people saying things like "if you don't like it leave" as if you can just ignore the entirety of the internet like it's not in everything you do
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In many respects, you can. As a consumer of digital media, you can pretty much come and go, filtering out anything that contradicts your worldview. I'm sure there are entire communities you have never experienced and the same goes for me as well. I don't know you, your friends, or your sources of information. The reverse is also true. Think of it like a glorified Venn Diagram.
Almost every modern website has a block button. People have developed block bots for twitter, and scripts which stop videos from certain creators from popping up in your recommended videos feed. I believe in each person regulating for themselves what they see, rather than others.
That's not really the argument here. Yes, there are plenty of areas of CZcams, Twitter, etc that I've never touched and probably never will. They're saying to never go on the internet at all, not just about where they go, which is no way a viable, appropriate, or acceptable solution.
antwer1 You know full well that isn't what anyone is saying. If bad behavior spills out into other subcommunities, those subcommunities have every right to put their foot down and stop the harassment. What crosses the line is when entire TOS's are rewritten to make sure those "bad seeds" can't congregate at all.
Isn't the inverse of your point true as well, particularly in the circles this channel's ideology is a part of? If anyone posts a comment that someone decides is (your pick of -ist/-phobic), it's immediately dismissed as a troll and not actual discussion, regardless of if it's meant in honesty or regardless of intent.
+infinity
On Tumblr it's common to label someone a "troll" to discredit or ostracize them. "Confessions of a Melted Snowflake" went into depth on that.
I guess all I can say is that I've never seen someone who was a bigot but seemed willing to have a discussion online. It's always hostility toward the evil SJWs and never a desire to discuss.
There are a ton of bigots who will have discussions with you. Just go over the reddit and r/news.
***** My point isn't actual bigots. My point is that someone who isn't a bigot, but disagrees with "social justice circles" will be labeled one and dismissed as hate-filled. To use an example floating around currently, anyone who is against accepting refugees from the Middle East is automatically an Islamophobic troll.
You stop being a troll when you stop being witty.
Use the block button, #freemilo
>alt right
>website owners do not have the right to control websites
Pic one
+GayDicks420
I love GayDicks and 420z
Blocking is not a solution. Trolls will make other accounts.
Rocky183 Until it crosses the line into criminal activity, or impacts the real world, there's nothing to find a solution to. Unless you're on a social media site, simply do not read or post comments.
CZcams is one of the few non-social media/message board sort of site I visit that even supports comments.
+Rocky183 there's a followed only button. If you can't take it privatize your account or get offline. Grow up or leave
I'm Orthodox-aphobic. I fear people who live their lives dedicated to a rigid dogma, regardless of whatever it may be.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Poe's Law. Someone could be sarcastic when they say something like "You're not a real gamer! You're a girl" to try and show how dumb that argument is, but it would end up coming off as serious.
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Yep. This argument without a discussion of Poe's doesn't work.
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That falls under the category of _satire_, not trolling _per se_.
I always drew the distinction that "good" trolls are basically hobby satirists or people who ease up discussions a bit with their antics.
"Troll" is a term like "hipster": It used to mean something else, but now it just means "Someone who disagrees with me."
I think a good discussion to have is the difference between a troll and a satirist that uses harsh and unconventional language to make points. Where do those two distinctions begin and end?
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Got no comment except that I really liked this one. Nice!
The problem certainly isn't calling out some for being arseholes. The
problem is that so many people seem awefully selective about who they
will call out for distasteful or even hateful behaviour.
You've made a very good example in this video. Yes, it is true that Leslie Jones has been harrassed by some people and while most of them will claim that they were "just joking" and in fact did act within the legal limits of free speach, some commenters were harmful on purpose. But, and there's your canine nucleus, she did the exact same thing beforehand (her twitter history has been examined by various people and the picture came out very clear). Now, why is harrassment and nasty behaviour in general a bad thing when someone targets her but why is it so easily dismissed by many when she's the perpetrator and not the victim?
If someone ask me, not that any one has to, I'd say it's equally ridiculous and moronic, no matter who plays what role in this drama of internet social struggles. Of course anyone is free to say whatever they want but everyone should face the same social consequences if they do behave in a destructive way. And again, if someone asks me, I'd roll my eyes at everyone who's unwilling to at least try to be an asset to this world and behaves in a purposefully toxic manner and I frankly do care who they are bigottet against - if you're an arsehole, you're an arsehole and that's all there is to it.
Wah! You sexist! A woman can't hurt anyone. But those words on a screen when she is forced to read them by the chains that bind her to the internet - those hurt.
You make an interesting point, but to bring up Leslie Jones' previous bouts of Twitter "trollishness" is to commit a tu quoque ad hominem fallacy. That she has acted poorly in the past does not preclude her from being acted against in a manner similar now, and it does not reduce the potential harm that is being perpetrated now. I'd like to make it clear that I don't condone anyone saying such things to another in ANY circumstance, but to use it as an argument is... well, it doesn't disprove a point, and it's fairly easy to deconstruct.
That said, I do agree with your final point - that people should be held to similar standards regardless of position and intent and that acting in a destructive manner as opposed to a constructive one is, from both of our perspectives it seems, inherently distasteful and confusingly poor form. No matter who it comes from or what effect it might cause, we need to be able to act in the best interest of society, of our better man and of ourselves wherever possible. Anything less is a disservice.
TheKaiser6012 You are building a strawman and trying to break that down instead of what was said.
Specifically: Why does she get a free pass, if she does it to others, but if anyone does it to her...well. You know.
No way does one person "harassing" people on twitter have the same weight as an entire mob of people ganging up on a single victim. That's not a "social consequence," that's outright violence, especially since most of the vitriol directed at her was racially charged and misogynistic.
+SangoProductions213 ...I have? My apologies. I thought I made it clear that I agreed with his point that she shouldn't in the second paragraph. Guess my logical argument muscles need more flexing.
I have been feeling the exact same way. Things that began as jokes have been reflected in my own life in depression anger and detachment. I hate the me that I've become on the internet and have been going to therapy to regain my sense of self. It's a dangerous endeavor to be a troll :/ seriously.
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genuinely wishing you well, dude.
The realest comment on this video, tbh.
Thanks :)
The "just doing it for the lulz" always reminds be of when I was in grade school and getting bullied. Their usual format was to tease me until I yelled, punched, or threw things and then I would get into trouble with the teachers. (This was at school, away from school they would just beat me up)
I would be sent to the Principals office where I was told that these jerk were only "doing it to get under my skin", I responded that I knew that but that doesn't stop it.
Same thing with trolls, even if they are doing it just to get a reaction that doesn't stop them. Indeed they just ramp up the attacks to see how far they can go.
I can't say I disagree with the premise that the concept of "internet troll" is becoming indistinguishable from genuine abuse, though, I'm not so sure that writing off the old idea (or ideal) of trolls, tricksters, and a space set aside for intentional ironic detachment is the best perspective to take.
Partially this is because I think the transformation of the word is part of a broader problem with the drift of meaning that is normal in natural languages becoming accelerated by the internet's... environment of information hypersaturation. Useful words taking on too much meaning and becoming muddled lexical wildcards, like some kind of Humpty Dumpty's paradise.
But the other reason I think that having a place set aside for intentional ironic detachment may be useful, because the culture of our "real world" has itself become a strange mix of real meanings, not so serious meanings, and non-menaings... none of which is really noticed or understood by most people, though they may all feel the hidden ambiguity (and anxiety?) it causes. The biggest source of this erosion of distinct meaning (at least in my opinion) is the marketing/advertising/PR industry.
That is, I think the trolls of the early internet were expressing an interest in (or even subconscious need to) violating earnestness because so much of the apparent earnestness around them was just a cynical facade more interested in selling them beer and cars than transmitting any cultural content. I think the need for that irreverence is still here, probably even more so... though what relationship it bears to those now referred to as trolls is... murky at best.
"Rat king of reprobates" is an excellent turn of phrase. I tip my hat to you, sir.
The answer isn't to take the internet more seriously, it's to take life less seriously.
This is one of the best Idea Channel videos yet. Thank you Mike et al!
The line between trolling and legit toxic bullshit has been eroding for a long time now. As a wise man or meme once put it.
âSatire requires a clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute
to that which it intends to criticize.â
That Vonnegut quote is the same reason why I say "sick" & "stoked" completely unironically.
If you give a bully the attention that they're looking for, you're giving them what they want. Conversely, if you don't give them attention, they'll see that as an action against them and still get what they want. Since you can't not act without accidentally giving the bully some kind of assurance, what do you do?
Unless they are an actual imminent threat, ignore them. You can't change their behavior, but you don't have to waste any of your time on them.
Am I a bad person? Is there a part in me that truly is the person I pretend to be when I troll message boards? Is me being a troll causing me to not take the extreme opinions of others seriously because I believe they too are trolling?
The only trolls I deal with are in Scandinavian folk tales.
I'm glad that Idea Channel now feels obligated to begin with a trigger warning without calling it a trigger warning.
Apparently, according to an article in Psychology Today, trolls are narcissists
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the world is flat
I dare you to argue
Wrong! The world is a cube and the universe is a frog!
WRONG, THE WORLD IS ON THE BACK OF FOUR ELEPHANTS RIDING A TURTLE.
Wrong! This realm is powered by souls of people killed by a deathnote. And it is a spiral shape.
Don't feed trolls, feed refugees.
John Cleese once said, (paraphrase) humor at the expense of someone who can not defend themselves is cowardice.
If trolling is supposed to be the humor of deflating someone's ego and pride in their position don't pick those who are already low, that's the coward's choice.
On one hand you're saying we shouldn't make a distinction between a troll and a bigot because technology, but at the same time you're saying we should make a distinction between a troll and a satirist or comedian...Because of technology?
Don't get me wrong, the "trolls" who actually harass and abuse people are despicable, even if it's for teh lulz. But if people use rhetoric to point out the hypocrisy or hatred of others, how is that much different than a comedian who uses the same techniques?
Are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert deplorable for making fun of politicians in order to make a point about their policies or beliefs? Or for making fun of celebrities to point out their shortcomings?
Surely it is because they don't use vulgar language, but what about the comedians who do?
What is the line of acceptability between making a point and harassment?
Again, I'm not justifying the people who spam inboxes or barrage people with hateful messages, but when does hate start, and satire end? When is it making a point and when is it harm?
Could the difference be punching up?
Trolling and harassment is about using your power of privilege to shut down voices of those with less power that you disagree with. Good satirism & comedy and good comedy calls into question the actions of those in power.
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@Adrian
Except trolls almost always have less power than comedians.
Jeremy Hoffman never underestimate the power of a mob to disrupt and isolate
Adrian Thoen
Sure, but you could say the same thing about a comedian -- if Louis CK's millions of fans decided they hated Facebook after a scathing piece of his, they could really cause some financial harm.
This is my favorite episode in a while
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I don't know why other people are trolls... I know why I used to be, and it was like a fugue state induced by a deep, horrible depression. I temporarily viewed my interactions online as through a solipsistic lens, that my entertainment was the only thing I had to observe and nothing else really mattered. I imagine much of the mentality of your standard "INTERNET TROLL" is the same; nihilistic, solipsistic, 'who cares, its the internet.'
Some behaviors of mine and, in my limited interactions with others, some trolls, would be to hound and harass people like furries or deviant art artists... just for being who they were. In my case, I did this in a way to suppress and deny my own interests in these communities (my avatar is a deer man, i think you can probably guess where my interests lie as of now). Throwing shade on the things you're ashamed of makes for an emotionally conflicted troll.
Being as old as I am now (28!!! I remember dial-up!) I have had time to reflect on why I did the things I did, and I have a metric for how I see trolls. I view the standard troll as a sad, emotionally conflicted, cyberbullying teenager who probably doesn't understand what they do to people they interact with in such a caustic manner. I certainly didn't. I'm not going to defend their behavior- the opposite, really- but I imagine most folks who engage in such a way are much like I was once upon a time.
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thank you for being honest.
I just love the Internet. The fact that anyone can say whatever the hell he wants, and suffer no consequences is wonderful. We've lost so much freedom in real life, that I genuinely hope we'll at least remain free on the Internet.
I so badly wish I could be Mike Rugnetta's friend.
Saw the content warning and was instantly like 'uh oh, the comment section is off limits'
Great video overall. I think a lot of people not just on the internet miss this completely.
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A troll is a rapscallion, but not a shrewd rapscallion.
Been browsing this comment section for a while now. I just wanted to congradulate each and everyone of you. This is one of the most beautiful comment section I have ever seen. People of different opinions talking and debating about it without insulting each others. People taking the time to actually listen to each others and to learn and improve at the end of the conversation. It is trully touching. Seeing me gives me hope. It shows that people don't need to agree on everything to go along. They can have friendly debates and learn from each others without declaring war to the opposite side. I wish all of you a nice day and hope that more people could act like the one in this comment section. That more people would see the opposite side as human beings and not enemies.
Got it entirely wrong.
A troll is not 'playful', its not a friendly joke among peers, it has always been a malignant person. The difference between a troll and a racist / sexist / etc... is that the troll doesn't believe or care about the things he is saying, he says them just to get people mad. He will even attack racism and sexism if that is what gets his current targets mad (and there is plenty of social justice trolls).
Dealing with a troll as if he is a racist, sexist, etc... and trying to teach him why those things are wrong... only makes him laugh 10x harder at your stupidity.
I'm disappointed to see so many comments and nobody mentioning this.
Leslie Jones was a bigoted troll herself so she's not exactly an example of harasment if she induced it on other people beforehands.
The double standard is so prevalent it hurts. It's ok that she does it because she's a "Woman of Color"
Who is she trolling? The people who pay to see her movies? Has Leslie Jones ever tweeted at you saying you need to be raped and killed because she just doesn't like you that much?
TF are you talking about? You cuckservatives have crawled so far up your own asses you have begun to believe your own conspiracy theories
We need this to get either trending or on the front page of CZcams/Reddit
This is honestly one of your best videos yet, excellently written!!
This feelings like the culmination of a lot of the work you've done on IdeaChannel, and it makes me so excited for your future videos that will link back to this one, just as you linked to so many of your past good videos here.
Empathizing is really hard for some people, specially without direct human contact, even more if they happen to be egotistical and/or puerile. Hence trolls et al.
Completely agree, and this is someone from back in the day that liked to troll people, and we told ourselves we waters doing it to challenge those who took authoritive positions we believed wrong. But we were being here's, or arseholes. Doesn't matter that we weren't personally threatening in the way you read about these days, and even witness in the odd comment section I go down into. I recognise now we were just being nasty.
We were right and how dare they be wrong, we must react, but it doesn't deserve debate, or consideration. Lessons may be taught with goading, insults, and belittlement.
I think I've matured, I don't like seeing that kind of behavior, and I've no interest in taking part. I feel like that's part of my getting older... But trolls seem to be of all ages, so who knows.
Also, recognising I was a troll and that it wasn't good, made studies early this year quoted as identifying trolls as sadist sociopaths - particularly scary.
I don't want to be a sociopath...
In all seriousness, I don't think trolling is some form of identifiable psychological condition - not that a troll can't have an identifiable condition, but generally these people are just people,Ave they just want to be awful.
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I'm sorry for not really responding, but thank you for talking about this.
Huh. The main thing I got outta all that is that trolls say mean and offensive things but claim it as "just trolling" to preserve their own identities and not get thrown into the hate crowd. They simply have something offensive they really want to say, but they don't want to own up to the consequences of getting possible backlash from saying it. Really smart video as always!
I know there will probably be a lot of comments, and mine's is going to be quite long and will likely get lost in the aether, but I genuinely hope you see this. This isn't necessarily a response directly to you (although I will address a few of your points), but more my opinions on the state of discussion, bigotry, and trolling online, as it ties into a lot of the things you've mentioned.
At the start of the video, you mention "When does trolling become bigotry?"
Something I've noticed a lot on the internet, on a daily basis, is the unbelievably hypocritical usage of the word, and the rampant display of it from, honestly, nearly every website I use.
Bigotry is the intolerance of other's opinions. Bigotry isn't just Islamophobia, Racism etc. because bigotry isn't bound by a subjective moral hierarchy. People are so quick to consider their own morals as being objectively the best, despite morality being completely subjective. Think it's unacceptable that someone supports Trump? That's bigotry. Think people holding racist beliefs is intolerable? That's bigotry too.
I want to explain, before people think I endorse racism, which I don't. There is a difference between disagreeing with an opinion, and being completely intolerant of it. I hate racism, as most people do, but I'm not going to hate someone, bully, belittle, or say it's completely unacceptable that someone holds racist beliefs. I choose not to do this for a few reasons:
First and foremost; people don't respond well to being insulted, or being made to feel like their opinions are completely worthless. You aren't going to stop someone being racist by calling them a bigot. People do not respond to ad-hominem attacks on their character, because, one thing people often seem to forget, is that everyone is an individual, and most people generally think their beliefs are correct, and are the basis for a good life for most people, whether that is actually true or not. If you want to convince someone of your ideas, think about how you would react if someone spoke to you, with an opinion you disagreed with, in the same manner you spoke to them. If you don't want to change their minds, then all you're really doing is virtue signalling by demeaning these people.
To use an example, consider someone who absolutely hates Black people, physically deplores them, and thinks they're the scum of the earth. Instead of berating them, telling them how sick they are, and how their opinion is unacceptable, I try to think why they might think that and talk to them about their ideas, not their personality. Often people lean one way on the political spectrum or another, and any way you slice it, the media is biased, and pushes a certain narrative. Left wing, right wing, it doesn't matter; nearly every media outlet will distort facts in some way in order to encourage people towards a particular belief.
Add this to different environments when people are growing up, and to be honest, I could understand why some people are racist, even if I don't agree with their opinion.
We all learn from experience, so to take the example above of a man who hates black people, consider why he might think like that? He may have been a different ethnicity, growing up in a black neighbourhood, where he was consistently bullied by black people, and then when he grows up a bit, he speaks to people with similar experiences, and forms an opinion that black people are just bad people. They might genuinely believe the world is better off without them. They don't see this as a problem, or an unacceptable thought, because their experiences have led them to believe black people are bad, in the same way that if you grow up in a friendly black neighbourhood, you'll probably won't think all black people are terrible.
Now, obviously, one man's experience doesn't mean it's fact that all black people are terrible people, and I don't agree with that view, but can I understand why he might think that, based on his life experiences? Yes, absolutely. Empathising with someone is not the same as agreeing with them, and we all show these core traits, although on nowhere near as extreme a level. For example, you might visit a restaurant 5 times, and have a really bad experience with it, and if given the opportunity to visit another restaurant in the same chain, but a different location, many people will refuse, because of their previous experiences.
I know these things are not the same in terms of their impact, but at the very core, this is about deep-seated opinions being built up over time, and I just don't think there is anything to be gained from being intolerant to those opinions. These are often a product of ones upbringing, and had I been born into a different family, there's every chance I could have grown up to think the same way.
You talked about the "Culture of hate" which I absolutely agree exists, but it exists on both, I suppose what you could call "sides", of this debate. Quite frankly, as I noted above, people just don't seem to want to empathise with other's opinions that they deem unacceptable. One person might think homosexuality is fine, and another thinks it's unacceptable, but instead of discussing why that might be, in a reasonable manner, people just insult one another, tell them they're idiots, and their views are unacceptable. Nothing gets resolved, and people just hate each other more.
This is further compounded by a lack of nuance when discussing these matters. If people say they're voting Hilary/Trump, dissenters are quick to point out the terrible things they've done. They don't consider that people may vote for a candidate without agreeing with everything they say. People claim racism/sexism for such a wild array of things, that the discussion often becomes "This is racist", "no it isn't" instead of an actual discussion about the topics at hand.
This feeds into the issue of trolls. I've never been one to troll, or say something deliberately inflammatory, but I know people who do. Their reason? Because noone is listening to them. They are tired of having insults thrown at them, so they don't care about having a reasonable argument, and just want to piss people off. People dismissed them as the usual cavalcade of racists/sexists, and while that may be the case for some of these opinions, I honestly have to say that the majority of them were not racist/sexist at all, but were met with the same tirade of abuse regardless of the content of their opinions. And to be fair, this is also true on the flip side as well. Often people who have an issue with comments they perceive to be racist/sexist will be met with a torrent of abuse by these people, which only solidifies the belief that they are racist/sexist etc. Now, obviously some trolls will fall into this category and be genuinely dissatisfied individuals who don't feel they are being listened to, and some will be genuine racists, using anonymity to express their views, and some will just find it funny to see people getting so worked up over something they consider to be so insignificant. Some of these people are worth talking to, others won't care what you have to say regardless of how you approach the situation, but to dismiss trolls' opinions that "it's just trolling" is, again, to completely undermine their individuality, and the reasons that cause them to act like this, which certainly aren't unilateral. You may feel it's fair to consider "a troll is just a hateful person, and a hateful person is just a troll" but that's simply not true. Perhaps it is is for some, but definitely not all.
When I grew up in the early 90's, we had the internet, but it wasn't the phenomenon that it is today, so our social circles were relatively small, and even if you were online, you still spoke to people who were generally your friends, or came from a similar culture. Nowadays, we're exposed to the opinions of almost anyone who wants to express it, from a userbase of 2-3 billion people, and quite frankly, it seems people can't handle this. We have trouble keeping individual countries intact without descending into a social meltdown, so it's no surprise the internet is the way it is.
I know this might come across as a bit of a rant, but it isn't really. It's late and I just thought I'd give my opinions on a few of these issues. I'm not pissed of at people for acting like this, I mean, if I was it would kind of invalidate everything else I've said. I really don't care what people say or do on the internet. I'm not really offended by anything, I just think the internet, as a tool for discussion, has become a bubbling hot-pot, filled with sensationalism, a lack of self-awareness, lack of empathy and a complete lack of the question "What if I'm wrong about this?" where people can simply walk away from the conversation if they don't get the outcome they desire.
I know not many people will read all of this, but if I can convince even one person to just stop, think about why someone might hold a certain opinion, try to have an actual discussion with them, and take each point on its own merit (instead of conflating a smorgasbord of different opinions on a subject into easy to digest buzzwords) then I'll be happy. I guarantee most people will feel better if they simply realised there are 7 billion people out there, and a hell of a lot of them are not going to agree with you.
Holy cow a person who is thinking and writing objectively. This was so refreshing to read, especially since is one of the first Ideas Channel videos that has made me feel very uneasy.
Normally I appreciate his perspectives and opinions, but this video felt strangely biased. I think it was his consistent use of calling people awful, or racists, or bigots...
Cheers man.
Yeah, I have to agree, this does seem to have a certain narrative to it. People tend to just think the other side is wrong, but don't realise the other side think the exact same thing, and have the same convictions but different opinions and until people can learn to actually have discussions, the internet is going to remain the same.
I always think of the line from American History X "has anything you've ever done made your life better." You can be as angry as you like, but is really making a difference, or just making your life hell?
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OH GOD WALL OF TEXT, SHEILD YOUR EYES PEOPLE
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*Hi PBS Idea Channel*
Could you write an episode on the slippery slope of how software in autonomous cars, or actually its programmers come to determine who lives or dies in an accident with said autonomous cars? Is the child to die that ran into the road because it would cause the least amount of damage, or is the very old man on the sidewalk to die to spare the child, or is the driver itself to die by driving the car off a cliff to spare the innocent but kill the perpetrator of the near-crash?
Ollie for philosophy tube made a really good video about this!!!
Congratulations PBS, if you're in a bunch of classrooms, you effectively just instructed a great many impressionable young children to ACTUALLY feed the trolls.
I spent a sleepless night battling with 3 people I thought I knew. In the space of 3 hours, I was confronted by their entrenched biases and fear. there was no kindness or assumption of innocence. I found myself called a lover of all things horrible. My error was trying to have an earnest dialogue about on going world events. I was so spitting mad. At 2am I realized that they wanted to be uneducated buffoons. I blocked each of them. That particular action was satisfying and freeing. I still don't sleep, but it's not because of people who seek to damage people and relationships under the guise of 'because I can'. Thanks for this video, it was spot on.
Trolls are often people with reasonable beliefs that are opposed to the mainstream. They feel like their voices aren't heard, so they try to make people understand that they are wrong by saying something that the other side will actually listen to, even if it's just because it offends them. For many people, it's their only way to try to add to the conversation that decides how society is directed.
I agree with you on all points except that the beliefs are often reasonable. I think they are more often unreasonable but seem reasonable to the person holding them.
holy hell do you guys have like an "excuse for horrible behavior generator"? If so it needs to be updated, its all starting to sound the same.
QuantumSeanyGlass Not all of them have reasonable beliefs, but it shouldn't be assumed that they all don't. Dismissing people with points of view that are even slightly different view just causes them to distance themselves more from the mainstream.
UltimateTheReject If you see the world in such a back and white way that that's how you view it, you should be able to express that. However, I think that you'll find it rather unhelpful in dealing with these kinds of people.
I appreciate the tactful response. But as enflamed as they were I still hold my words to be true. I have heard that exact excuse for inexcusable behavior for a while now and its tiring. It implies a sort of special snowflake quality to everything everyone says without regard to context or content. Just because everyone can talk doesnt mean everyone is valid. South park had a episode about that i think. It was about being tolerant isnt the same thing as being okay with something.
If being offensive is the only way to get people to listen then they are either talking to the wrong people, making bad points or making good points badly. Being offensive is not a solution.
dat Trumbo letter tho
PBS and trigger warnings? Never thought I'd see the day
and my name comes from the court jesters of old, the only ones who could make fun of kings/queens/royalty and not die
gr8 b8 m8
I'm sure that PBS news anchors have been saying "the following my not be appropriate for children" for decades, I've always been confused why that does not count as a trigger warning.
Exactly, Jayson Wills. Trigger warnings are not a new concept, they just got a new name and have started to be geared toward a more diverse range of people. The movie/music/video game/tv rating systems are trigger warnings. Epilepsy warnings are trigger warnings. TV programs constantly use warnings if the material they're about to air is sexual, graphically violent, or disturbing in nature. Hell, allergen notifications on food could be considered trigger warnings.
Trigger warnings are not bad things. They simply allow people to know the content of what they're about to view so they can decide whether or not they want to view it. They provide contextual information and present a choice. Are people _really_ going to sit here and argue that we should have a lack of information and not give people a choice?
+Erik Dumas this is brilliant. Can I quote you?
wow that is so true. great comment
In my personal experience ignoring trolls has worked almost invariably. Even people who are actual bigots have a goal of prompting some response from you, they want you to feel shame or hurt or anger. When Leslie Jones temporarily quit Twitter the trolls cheered and congratulated themselves, she'd given them what she wanted. Imagine if Leslie Jones chose to completely not acknowledge them, do you really think it would have gotten as bad as it did? I'm not blaming the victim here, trolls are jerks, they're terrible people. But let's be practical and not emotional.
There are exceptions of course like with Anita Sarkessian, that wasn't trolls that was an massive, organized campaign of hatred that is arguable still going. That's the type of thing that's worth talking about.
I think this recent movement to acknowledge trolls and try to admonish and shame them is completely counterproductive. I think we're trying to find a reason to validate our own emotional response to people being mean on the internet, when in this "culture of hate" we are the ones that have to learn how to live our lives and not let our emotions be dictated by idiots.
I believe you when you say that you're not trying to blame the victim but how exceptional is Anita Sarkeesian's case and how exceptional does it have to be for us not to worry about it at all. Even if *we* can ignore trolls, what if we see a group of them bullying someone who, for whatever reason, _cannot_ ignore them. Do we just continue to ignore that the trolling/bullying is happening or do we, at least in those cases, do something?
Who cares about hate speech, it only becomes a problem when those words become actions, and there are already laws against violent crimes. Here's an idea: let's stop trying to regulate every part of life, that shit is what is making people unhappy.
Who cares about making people unhappy? Who cares about words that don't matter? Who cares about things no one cares about?
>Who cares about making people unhappy? Who cares about words that don't matter? Who cares about things no one cares about?
Maybe we should explain normies that words are just words and that they can't hurt you, instead of shielding them from any potential harm
Getting hurt while playing soccer makes you unhappy, but it also part of life and makes you stronger.
It's funny to joke about wanting to watch the world burn, until you realize most of the people laughing aren't actually joking, and the world really starts to burn.
It's so hard to care because I'm immune to trolling and anyone who isn't I can't help but deem inferior. I'll eternally not understand why people can't get over shit, ah well.
The difference between "internet toxicity" and real toxicity for me is most interesting when seen in a "fleeting" situation, like the chat of a game of DOTA. Sure you can delete your tweets, but they're public. In a game of DOTA, or League, or whatever online game, you can permit yourself to think that you'll never play a game with the other people again, the chat log will disappear at the end of the game, "reporting doesn't do anything" and the other feelings that come along with insulting someone for being bad at an online game. I feel like the short-lived nature of your relationship with your teammates allows this toxicity to flow with ease.
I think an important distinction to make is that "trolling" can be seen as a function. A non-bigot can decide to engaging someone on the internet by trolling in lieu of logical arguments, almost exactly like the Puck-trickster example. This tends to be a better alternative when engaging in arguments on the internet with people who cannot or will not appreciate your argument for its merits: you distance yourself from the severity while still attempting to make your point. This can help explain why trolling appears so prevalent in areas of ideological divisions, since there is a perceived greater chance that your would-be interlocutor will ignore your argument on the merits.
So "trolls" can be defined as people who engage in this function or argument. So the simple answer would be a troll is not longer a troll when they're not engaging in this function. But what you're doing is imputing a specific intent on trolls (bigoted, racist, sexist) in general. No one can deny that there are people with that intent that engage in trolling. The distinction, as you rightly point out, is when exactly does the "trolling" a person with this intent purports to be engaging in becomes a mere pretext for their actual hateful purpose. But this requires knowledge of the intention of the speaker, which can be incredibly difficult to discern online. Indeed, I think your argument would have a lot more weight if you were able to demonstrate that trolls (re: people who engage in trolling) are becoming more inclined towards a specific intent. Based on the difficulties I've described, this evidence would be extraordinarily difficult to produce, but the anecdotal evidence of "look at these examples" isn't very persuasive. You also sort of acknowledge this problem in your request that people say-what-they-mean, so intent can be discerned, though this is tantamount to "stop trolling."
One alternative to this intent-gap (and one I think the anti-trolls want) is to assume that all statements of a certain variety are, prima facie, based on a certain intent, and that as a general rule, any defense that someone is "just trolling" should be treated as mere pretext. Not only is this intellectually dishonest, but it could result in further segregated social circles from people that see value in using the technique of trolling. In essence, this is controlling the rules of procedure associated with conversation, which is a troubling precedent to establish.
"One alternative to this intent-gap (and one I think the anti-trolls want) is to assume that all statements of a certain variety are, prima facie, based on a certain intent, and that as a general rule, any defense that someone is "just trolling" should be treated as mere pretext. Not only is this intellectually dishonest, but it could result in further segregated social circles from people that see value in using the technique of trolling. "
Yup. The people who are harmed by trolling have nothing to gain by playing a fruitless game of guess-this-asshat's-inner-reality even if it were a possible thing to do. If there are circles that 'see value in the technique', they will eventually either be pushed out or segregate themselves. As the use of the internet grows, this will happen. And furthermore, the sense of entitlement in this argument is staggering. Why should people tolerate racist abuse, sexist abuse, just in case the asshat-in-question is only kidding and sees 'value' in the technique?
"In essence, this is controlling the rules of procedure associated with conversation, which is a troubling precedent to establish."
See also, every social group, everywhere, throughout all of history. It really is only troubling if you have no impulse control, boundaries or ethics, otherwise this is called having a rational discussion.
There is a stark difference between "people should tolerate remarks they perceive as having a particular intent" (which is not what I'm arguing) and "people should assume that everyone making these remarks have a particular intent" (which is the problem I'm trying to highlight). You can interpret sentences in any way you want, like you interpreted a sense of entitlement onto me. That doesn't necessarily mean I am actually entitled. And assuming that fact about me, solely from a single internet comment, is in my opinion intellectually dishonest.
Touchy, touchy. I said the sense of entitlement was in the argument, which is not the same as saying it was your personal fault.
But this differentiation between what people do or do not assume about what people may or may not intend doesn't seem really all that useful. Let's say I encounter a person attacking me viciously, using misogynist slurs, for no reason (as has certainly happened). Okay, so I make no assumptions about their intent, but whatever is going on in their heads is really their own problem anyway. My problem is I'm being verbally attacked by some internet rando- so I'm going to do whatever I would do regardless. Block, report, ignore- whatever.
Well, I'm glad you don't think I'm entitled :)
I feel a lot of the bigoted "trolls" are coming from web spaces such as /pol/, storm front and other alt right spaces. They use the moniker of troll much like people used to use the moniker of anonymous for whatever cause they wanted to. They have co-opted troll like they co-opted pepe and as someone that used to troll from time to time and post the rarest pepes I want both of them back.
I think you've made me realise why I get so mad when news sources who don't really get the Internet call 'em 'Nasty Internet Trolls!'.
Cheers.
this always felt to me like a mix of the performance becoming the self and how weirdly enough the division between the internet and the "real" world is rapidly eroding to the point that there is no distinction. which then gets into the gray area of whether the online persona that you create is something you become or something you resigned yourself to
No.
I'm... not remotely surprised to see that the comment section on a video about trolling is, to say the very least, tumultuous.
That said, I'm of the opinion that, nah, the internet is a real life space. People's commentary and behavior can influence real world events and popular opinion, so it's real enough that behavior on it can and should be taken seriously. And if someone is going to be a bigot online, even if they're loljk, then they're a bigot. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck. And I think it's disingenuous when people pretend that this sort of behavior doesn't have an effect on people, though I can't say if they legitimately believe that, or just choose to espouse it to make themselves feel better.
as a person who enjoys trolling, bigots and assholes saw trolls getting away with stuff that you normally wouldnt and decided to attatch themselves to the term and took it over, now we gotta troll them out of here
I'm still all for the "meteor colliding into the earth" solution for everything. Our group is small but passionate.
Hatespeech must be tollerated to be free, because exposure to wrong ideas is the only way to disprove those wrong ideas. you must understand falsehoods to understand WHY they are false.
a good troll, is simply a Socrates impersonator. ask questions and contrarian questions, in order to bring people to better knowledge.
also, what happens when someone is calling out bad ideas in islam? are they islamophobic, or are they attacking bad ideas? How is it any different from going after creationists?
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In order to justify your assertion that "hate speech must be tolerated", you do so by describing a practice that isn't hate speech. It just doesn't follow.
NO, it must be tolerated because no one gets to decide what people get to say. "I may not agree with what you are saying but I will defend your right to say it with my life." US Marines
I mean should it be tolerated everywhere all the time? Gay and minority kids getting slurs hurled at them in the halls, etc?
So basically, what Vonnegut seemed to be saying is that "kidding" is irrelevant, there's no difference between pretending to be an a**hole and being an a**hole. I think the inability of text communication to transmit "body language" has a lot to do with that; the people you're "kidding" can't see in your face that that you "don't really mean it." (Or do you?)
Know what, let me phrase that a little differently. Vonnegut seemed to be saying that, functionally, there's no difference between you acting like a jerk and being a jerk. I can see how that would be true if I don't know who you are; I only have your actions to judge you by.
It's a bit more like how if you attempt to parody performance art all you get in the end is performance art. If you go around dressing like a Nazi for the attention and irony at the end of the day all the world will really see is a nazi. Perhaps that's all that was there to begin with.
Both of you make good points. I agree that there is a lot lost by not having nuance of voice or body language in online communication, but because of this you have to assume if there's no other evidence that you should take a person's words and ideas at face value. I dislike this "just kidding" attitude because it gives the benefit of the doubt to people who abuse it by saying horrible things and then brushing it away if they're confronted about it. I think another negative consequence is even if you're only kidding there WILL be people who do take you seriously, which is how the seeds planted by trolls can sprout into echo chambers where people who unironically agree with them think they're finding solidarity. As best stated by Descartes - "Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be
idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly
believe that they're in good company."
Actually I don't think it's either of these. I think(granted the quote is removed from context) Vonnegut means that when you pretend to be something for a time, it informs who you actually are more and more, and you become your pretended self.
Bankbar Como Okay, maybe I'm making a fine distinction here, but Vonnegut was a published author, I think he'd know the difference between "we _are_ what we pretend to be," (what he said), and "we _become_ what we pretend to be." The former implies that, if we pretend to be something, then we have already become that thing. That's how it seems to me.
The troll is an artist, trolling the art and the internet is the canvas.
This could be the very most influential Idea Channel video ever made. Seriously, I think if this gets good publicity, it can change internet culture as a whole.
This doesn't really contribute to the discussion the video has created, but man I was digging that background music.
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the most peaceful comment ive found so far tbh
I don't much care for the very concept of trolls, just in general. It's a completely alien concept to me that someone, anyone, would find joy in stirring up a negative reaction, but the way I see it, once harm was caused, the speaker's intent ceases to matter. The second someone's words cause pain, they aren't jokes anymore.
Nobody gets hurt or offended over things that don't matter to them. You don't get to hurt someone, and then just decide that it didn't count as being a jerk, because to you, the thing they care about deeply enough to get hurt over it is nothing but a joke. You are still being a jerk, only a slightly different shade of jerk.
Sincerity is the core basis of the distinction between trolls and bigots. The problem is that the line between sincerity and insincerity has been blurred by our culture of irony.
In this tense times it takes guts to try to tackle those touchy subjects, I really appreciate what idea channel is trying to do by raising awareness, give people tool to think for themselves and be critical of the world they live in. Thank you Mike and everyone who makes it happen!