Time Cover Story: How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

[benjipwns]

http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/

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

Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the “lulz,” or laughs.

They’ve been steadily upping their game. In 2011, trolls descended on Facebook memorial pages of recently deceased users to mock their deaths. In 2012, after feminist Anita Sarkeesian started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a series of YouTube videos chronicling misogyny in video games, she received bomb threats at speaking engagements, doxxing threats, rape threats and an unwanted starring role in a video game called Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian. In June of this year, Jonathan Weisman, the deputy Washington editor of the New York Times, quit Twitter, on which he had nearly 35,000 followers, after a barrage of anti-Semitic messages. At the end of July, feminist writer Jessica Valenti said she was leaving social media after receiving a rape threat against her daughter, who is 5 years old.

An anonymous poll of the writers at TIME found that 80% had avoided discussing a particular topic because they feared the online response.

What Ford learned was that the trolls didn’t really hate their victims. “It’s not about the target. If they get blocked, they say, ‘That’s cool,’ and move on to the next person,” she says. Trolls don’t hate people as much as they love the game of hating people.

As more trolling occurs, many victims are finding laws insufficient and local police untrained. “Where we run into the problem is the social-media platforms are very hesitant to step on someone’s First Amendment rights,” says Mike Bires, a senior police officer in Southern California who co-founded LawEnforcement.social, a tool for cops to fight on-line crime and use social media to work with their communities. “If they feel like someone’s life is in danger, Twitter and Snapchat are very receptive. But when it comes to someone harassing you online, getting the social-media companies to act can be very frustrating.” Until police are fully caught up, he recommends that victims go to the officer who runs the force’s social-media department.

Writer Lindy West has written about her abortion, hatred of rape jokes and her body image–all of which generated a flood of angry messages. When her father Paul died, a troll quickly started a fake Twitter account called PawWestDonezo, (“donezo” is slang for “done”) with a photo of her dad and the bio “embarrassed father of an idiot.” West reacted by writing about it. Then she heard from her troll, who apologized, explaining that he wasn’t happy with his life and was angry at her for being so pleased with hers.

West says that even though she’s been toughened by all the abuse, she is thinking of writing for TV, where she’s more insulated from online feedback.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story included a reference to Asperger’s Syndrome in an inappropriate context. It has been removed. Additionally, an incorrect description of Megan Koester has been removed.

[benjipwns]

obligatory

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Eat dicks, Hercules.

[I'm a Puppy!]

An anonymous poll of the writers at TIME found that 80% had avoided discussing a particular topic because they feared the online response.

Wow. 80% of people don't say what they want on the internet and this is still the internet we got? Fuck it, we need MORE trolls, not less!

[Phoenix Dark]

[Madrun Badrun]

Boogie, how troll-trained are you?  Is posting on the bore part of your training?

[Am_I_Anonymous]

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[I'm a Puppy!]

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(Image removed from quote.)

Man, when I saw this "I am Am I Anonymouth and I endorth thith methage." ran through my head and I can't stop laughing.

[benjipwns]

I don't think you guys are taking this seriously. Don't you remember a few years ago before the alt-right gamergate movement invented trolling and the internet was a neutral ground where facts and evidence, presented within the confines of civil, inclusive discourse, prevailed?

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I don't think you guys are taking this seriously. Don't you remember a few years ago before the alt-right gamergate movement invented trolling and the internet was a neutral ground where facts and evidence, presented within the confines of civil, inclusive discourse, prevailed?

You tried too hard here

[recursivelyenumerable]

He tried just the right amount i. m. o.

[Madrun Badrun]

You know people blame internet anonymity for this, but if people went out on the street with a megaphone and blasted their thoughts on their depression or their thoughts on rape jokes or how they hate their body then I'm pretty sure they wouldn't get a positive response either.  There are reasons why we don't just tell strangers everything about ourselves and it makes me wonder what safespace these people came from that make them think they can. 

Obviously there are a lot of things said on the internet that are awful but there seems to be a lack of distinction between saying stupid shit and being called out on it and legitimate threats and terror tactics in these articles.   When movie stars are popular and get death threats that's not called trolling so I'm not sure people with thousands of followers think that when that happens to them its on the same level as being called fat in a youtube comment.  These articles as seem to go the same way 'This women was threatened with her 5 yearold being raped on the internet, now I can't enjoy twitter out of fear of someone making a joke at my expense.  The dream of a online global community is over.  And OMG the internet is getting worse because I just discovered reddit with the default subs.'

'Young people in these groups assume trolling is a normal part of life online and therefore self-censor.'  See they get it. 

[Am_I_Anonymous]

The funniest thing is watching people who've been on the Internet for goddamn 15 years or more still falling hook, line, and sinker for C-grade trolling on Facebook. It really is the only reason to even still have one.

Watching 53 year old Uncle Vernon getting straight spun up today by a 20 year old girl in a debate about perpetration-H was pretty fucking quality.

woman I don't even know you but I hope your asshole catches on fire and you try using that bullshit maple syrup and peanut butter bullshit you spouting

[Madrun Badrun]

[Mandark]

[team filler]

[bork]

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That response

[zomgee]

obligatory

The exploding van gets me every time.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

V&

[close]

[benjipwns]

DEMONSTRATION

[Joe Molotov]

Thanks for ruining the Internet, benji!

[benjipwns]

we all want to leave behind great achievements; star citizen, no man's sky, ruining the internet, etc.