Here's an idea.
Maybe there's a positive side to trolls on the internet.
Or not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So this episode is going to be a little bit
different than normal.
I got most of the way through writing it
before realizing that I didn't agree
at all with what I was saying.
But instead of scrapping it, we decided to shoot it anyway.
And then at the end, we're going to talk about how and why I
changed my mind.
So in classic "Star Trek" color coding,
red shirt me will get himself into some trouble
and blue shirt me will hopefully clean up his mess.
So here we go.
Ah, trolls, everyone's favorite member of the online discursive
food chain.
Depending upon who you ask, a troll
could be many different things.
Very generally speaking, they are
people who endeavor to interfere, to disrupt,
to anger.
Trolling high priest weev has described
trolling as a form of combative rhetoric.
Trolls are drawn to comment threads, Twitter, Facebook,
IRC-- basically anywhere where people talk online or are.
They might say purposefully offensive things,
argue for the sake of arguing, or just refuse
to stay on topic.
And the more time you spend responding to or trying
to reason with them, the more successful they are.
It's kind of like The Game.
To play at all is to lose.
Oh, and by the way, The Game.
Sorry.
To lots of people, trolls are simply a nuisance.
But at their worst, they can do considerable emotional damage,
especially when the targets are unfamiliar with ye olde adage,
don't feed the trolls.
So that adage is the very shaky foundation upon which
this episode is built. We'll talk more
about what that means in a few minutes.
All of this does raise an important question,
which is, why would a troll choose
to spend their free time being a jerk to strangers?
Well, there are lots of reasons.
Some trolls would say that it's simply fun.
Some would say there's a certain justice to it-- keeping
the ignorant or gullible busy and therefore out
of other people's business.
And along that same line, others still
might say that they, the trolls themselves,
are providing a service to the very people they are trolling.
Ugh, nope.
Don't agree with that.
So let's for a moment-- and if we can stomach it,
but I think we can, because we're all professionals--
step into the shoes of a troll.
Recently we talked about the filter bubble.
It's a technologically determined effect
that isolates you from views that challenge your own.
Chances are, though, that you consciously
isolate yourself more than the internet cuts you off.
Most of us don't purposefully interact with people
that we vehemently disagree with.
So that means that your positions and ideas
are constantly reaffirmed by the people around you.
This is called the echo chamber effect, which incidentally
is exactly what this episode suffers
from, at least partially.
It's written based on experiences
that are very easy to nod assuredly at if you're
someone like me.
Again, more about that in just a minute.
But then along comes a troll who is
more than happy to let everyone know how wrong they are.
And let's say, for argument's sake,
that you don't heed the golden rule,
and you feed them a big old argumentative dinner.
Maybe in said argument, it's helpful to have
a devil's advocate testing you.
Whatever your point of view, perhaps you
could benefit from being subjected to troll logic.
In the process, while maybe getting worked up,
is it not possible that your argument is also improving?
And really, why get so worked up in the first place?
Arguing with a troll is like shouting at the ocean
if the ocean were racist.
Which, actually, let's make one distinction clear.
I'm drawing a line between trolls who troll
and trolls who harass.
Yes, the line is fine and, in some cases, semantic.
But it might also be the one between trolls and bullies.
There is a difference, I think, between someone
celebrating the judicious application
of frustrating rhetorical techniques and someone
attempting to ruin a life.
So but really, in the process of getting all worked up
over what some stranger on the internet says,
you might have a kind of epiphany.
Why am I engaging with this person?
Why am I taking this so seriously?
OK.
So it was after writing that line about why
you would take strangers on the internet
so seriously that I had a moment of crushing doubt followed
by crushing self-awareness followed by crushing
my own head between my hands.
So let's talk for a second about what I thought I was saying,
what I ended up saying, and why those things
aren't compatible or good.
So in order to make the original claim that there is a good side
to trolling, I had to make two additional claims.
First, to avail yourself of that good,
you need to make a conscious decision to feed the trolls.
And second, that there is an important and clear difference
between trolls who want to waste people's time and trolls
who want to harass or threaten.
Now, if those things are the case, then we're all good.
Except while I might have the luxury
of choosing to not feed the trolls, for other people,
it's not so straightforward.
For some people, simply having a presence online
is treated as grounds for harassment.
Amanda Hess, Jill Filipovic, and Emily Graslie
have all recently spoken about how simply doing their job
invites all manner of torment.
Links in the doobly-doo.
Depending upon the context, "don't feed the trolls"
puts the responsibility on the person being trolled
and not the environment hosting the trolling.
It says, oh, those people who are
threatening to kill you hundreds of times a day,
just ignore them.
Which after a point, might not only become impossible but also
foolish.
It doesn't ask how and why such extreme behavior exists
and how it might be otherwise disincentived.
But OK, what if it is just someone arguing and saying
flame-baity things?
Aren't people allowed to have an opinion?
Sure, and we can even agree that there
is a line between even the harshest criticism and threats
of physical violence against someone
and their entire family.
But-- and here's the thing that really dawned on me-- if you
suffer day after day through instance after instance
of the worst kind of trolling, is
it not possible that the other kind,
the argumentative "negative for negativity's sake" kind,
might always become the threatening kind
or serve as a reminder of it or, at the very least,
create an environment where it feels inevitable?
I don't know.
I'm actually asking.
Now, maybe you'll say, well, that's the price
you pay for making things on the internet.
And to that, I say, nope.
Making things does not mean that you sign up
to be harassed-- criticized, sure, but not harassed.
It might happen.
You might even expect it.
But I don't think one excuses the other.
And telling someone of a certain cultural milieu
that if they don't like it, then you shouldn't use the internet
is kind of like telling them that they shouldn't participate
in society.
Footnote, Moxie Marlinspike speaking at DEF CON--
doobly-doo.
This is why I'm uncomfortable talking
about the benefits of trolling.
In a vacuum, the existence of argumentative rhetorical
sparring is ultimately harmless and, yes,
maybe even good to have around.
But no culture exists in a vacuum.
In a recent and awesome TEDx talk,
Dr. Whitney Phillips talks about trolling, some of its context,
and why it doesn't deserve to be ignored or unilaterally
condemned.
And for the record, I agree.
I don't think it should.
I do, however, think that my reasoning
on the road to the good side of trolling
lacked accurate context and, as a result, was flawed at best
and dangerous at worst.
In our last episode, we talked about how
privacy is different things for different people.
And at least in one corner of the internet,
that might not be more true than when comparing people like me
and any infrastructurally oppressed group.
However, for those groups, their differing privacy
is not always a choice.
Though men, women, straight, queer, trans, and cis
all even the same public, our experiences of it
are vastly different.
The degree to which members of certain communities
deal with intense and vicious trolling
indicates that, simply because of who they are,
they are seen as deserving of less privacy.
Not long ago on Twitter, Charlotte Ashlock
asked me whether or not there was
something about the internet that worried me.
And I think this whole arrangement of things
might be it.
What do you guys think?
Are there two different kinds of trolling?
And if so, does the line between them
dissolve depending upon who you are?
Let us know in the comments.
And because we thought it might be a little strange
to go from what we think of as a very serious discussion
to funny comments from last week,
we're going to leave off comment responses this week.
So next week, we'll do responses to this video
and last week's video about surveillance and reality TV.
But we are going to do this.
The first step in repopulating the record wall
is to give two records a little bit more
visibility than they've already had.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Eventually we'll replace The Beach Boys and Marshall Tucker
Band.
But welcome, Miles & Coltrane, Django Reinhardt.
[MUSIC PLAYING]