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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Trolls Are Ruining the Internet
Joel Stein
http://twitter.com/thejoelstein
7:09 AM ET
Theyre turning the web into a cesspool of aggression and violence. What watching them is doing to the rest of us may be even worse
This story is not a good idea. Not for society and certainly not for me. Because what trolls feed on is attention. And this little bitthese several thousand wordsis like leaving bears a pan of baklava.
It would be smarter to be cautious, because the Internets personality has changed. Once it was a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now the web is a sociopath with Aspergers. If you need help improving your upload speeds its eager to help with technical details, but if you tell it youre struggling with depression it will try to goad you into killing yourself. Psychologists call this the online disinhibition effect, in which factors like anonymity, invisibility, a lack of authority and not communicating in real time strip away the mores society spent millennia building. And its seeping from our smartphones into every aspect of our lives.
The people who relish this online freedom are called trolls, a term that originally came from a fishing method online thieves use to find victims. It quickly morphed to refer to the monsters who hide in darkness and threaten people. Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the lulz, or laughs. What trolls do for the lulz ranges from clever pranks to harassment to violent threats. Theres also doxxingpublishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accountsand swatting, calling in an emergency to a victims house so the SWAT team busts in. When victims do not experience lulz, trolls tell them they have no sense of humor. Trolls are turning social media and comment boards into a giant locker room in a teen movie, with towel-snapping racial epithets and misogyny.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)n/t
canetoad
(17,148 posts)The web has always been the same. Back in the late 80s/90s it was the bulletin boards but the nastiness hasn't changed.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)VERY passé. When I participate in it (here mostly), it's only me thinking out loud, without getting too personal. My interest in Twitter and FB is nil.
Through trial-by-fire, I've learned that people on social media would rather complain about people posting on competing message boards, "someone flirted at me and I'm offended!", i.e., trivia rather than discuss how to solve problems facing us personally and/or as a society.
I do not believe that a man who refuses to buy into every complaint made by a woman about being discriminated against by men is a misogynist. This guy - Joel Stein? - disagrees, I presume.
At any rate, moving on to the next topic.