How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

[Ilsa]

How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/?xid=homepage&pcd=hp-magmod

They’re turning the web into a cesspool of aggression and violence. What watching them is doing to the rest of us may be even worse

Updated, August 18

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 bit–these several thousand words–is like leaving bears a pan of baklava.

It would be smarter to be cautious, because the Internet’s personality has changed. Once it was a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now, if you need help improving your upload speeds the web is eager to help with technical details, but if you tell it you’re 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 it’s 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. There’s also doxxing–publishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts–and swatting, calling in an emergency to a victim’s 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.

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This article was briefly discussed on Morning Joe. The presenter talked about how anonymous harassment causes good people to rethink having a public life, such as in politics, because of fear of effect on their kuds. Some women have discussed leaving journalism over personal threats.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. It can be very discouraging and depressing if people...

... expose themselves to it very long.

[kimbutgar]

2. I personally have been harassed by a troll over a comment I made

They got my email and sent all this awful spam. I had to abandon my email. I never posted again on that particular website.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. Imagine how bad it will be once artificial intelligence does it.

Assuming that AI bots haven't already been put to work in that way already!

Russian AI trolls? That would certainly be more efficient than hiring people.

See this recent example:
"Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less than a day"
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

[Ilsa]

4. Wow. I'll look at that in the morning. Thank you. nt