From the readings and from your experience, what exactly is trolling? How does this behavior manifest itself and what are its causes and effects?
What ethical or moral obligations do technology companies have in regards to preventing or suppressing online harassment (such as trolling or stalking)?
Is anonymity on the Internet a blessing or a curse? Are “real name” policies useful or harmful in combating online abuse?
Is trolling a major problem on the Internet? What is your approach to handling trolls? Are you a troll?!?!?
Trolling is an interesting internet phenomenon that was given birth by the advent of anonymous interaction on the internet. From these readings, trolling is a remarkably serious issue in some corners of the internet. Before these readings my understanding of trolling was far more innocuous than what Lindy West’s understanding.
In my “youthful, hip” understanding of the internet, trolling is deliberately posting something for the sole purpose of generating an angry response from someone. While that sounds kind of hurtful, I generally see it done in artistic, subtle ways. Many times users like to play the ignorant role and pretend to either be naive or unrealistically extreme in their post to generate some level of frustration from another user.
But what many of these readings had to say seems to blur the line between trolling and outright abuse. When some ignorant, short-sighted, cruel anonymous user noted that Lindy West had no need to worry about getting raped, they weren’t trolling. They were being deliberately hurtful. Their purpose wasn’t to elicit a frustrated response from Lindy. It was to silence and hurt her. Perhaps my understanding of the trolling craze is skewed, and I’m giving internet users too much of the benefit of the doubt, but I see trolling as skillful, innocuous, and funny, but blatant abuse, threats, and stalking are an entirely different criteria. I often laugh when I see on Reddit some crafty user post some delightfully ignorant comment since I believe that person is doing so thoughtfully for the purpose of humor. I liken trolling to sarcasm, and indeed, sarcastic and self-deprecating jokes can often be some of the funniest of all.
What I don’t wish to convey, however, is the notion that I stand for the hurtful and abusive comments people leave on the internet. I do believe that companies have an ethical and moral obligation to do their best to suppress such rhetoric, but I’m also realistic in my beliefs. There’s simply no way that Twitter could accurately and appropriately handle every abusive tweet, even for a day. The burden is on us, as a twenty-first century society, to grow up and think before we post. We need to consciously tear down the wall of anonymity and consider whether or not you would say such things to someone’s face.
But anonymity needn’t be removed from the internet. On the contrary, it ought to remain in tact. I see Facebook’s desire to require a “real ID” to have an account as an admission that it doesn’t believe its users are capable of polite, non-abusive discourse. That’s not the right way to tackle this issue. There are clear and documented cases where anonymity is crucial to the existence of some online accounts, such as Iranian online accounts where Iranians can be arrested for the content they post online. By taking away anonymity, we’d be punishing everyone for the sins of the misguided and ignorant, and while that’s not an unprecedented course of action, it’s certainly not one I’m fond of.
Let’s take a step back now. How important is the issue of online abuse and harassment? (I’m avoiding the term trolling because I don’t believe that’s the issue at heart.) Well, it certainly pains me to think that some people can’t enjoy social media because they choose to put powerful and controversial ideas online. People say that if you can’t handle the criticism, then you should just get off of the internet. Well that’s certainly a pretty near-sighted absolute (and only a sith deals in absolutes). At the same time, I believe that people ought to enter into the internet with a certain level of expectation of the, shall we say, anticipated aggregate IQ level. People are dumb, and anonymous people are worse, but I don’t think this is an issue of national importance. Yes, I’m a troller (in person and online), but I’m not the abusive, hurtful brand that many of these articles describe, nor do I plan to take many of their words to heart.
P.S. Imagine this: Mr. Krabs posts a bold new plan for the Krabby Patty. He wants to make a vegan derivative, but someone goes to krustykrab.com and posts that Mr. Krabs is a crusty old gnarly crustacean with no business sense and a lifetime member of PETA. Now that doesn’t seem very kind…
Jesse's Ethics Blog 