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Blog tribulations, Stupidity plain and simple

Internet trolls

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Note: This article has disappeared from the web. I reprint it here as a matter of interest for those who wish information on trolls and their methods. The original article was Copyright © 2001, 2006 by Timothy Campbell.

Update: You can read more on trolling here.

What is a Troll?

An Internet “troll” is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He (and it is usually he) tries to start arguments and upset people.

Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don’t “get” that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. As a result, they feel no sorrow whatsoever for the pain they inflict. Indeed, the greater the suffering they cause, the greater their ‘achievement’ (as they see it). At the moment, the relative anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish.

Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.

Perhaps this sounds inconceivable. You may think, “Surely there is something I can write that will change them.” But a true troll can not be changed by mere words.

Why Does it Matter?

Some people – particularly those who have been online for years – are not upset by trolls and consider them an inevitable hazard of using the net. As the saying goes, “You can’t have a picnic without ants.”

It would be nice if everybody was so easy-going, but the sad fact is that trolls do discourage people. Established posters may leave a message board because of the arguments that trolls ignite, and lurkers (people who read but do not post) may decide that they do not want to expose themselves to abuse and thus never get involved.

Another problem is that the negative emotions stirred up by trolls leak over into other discussions. Normally affable people can become bitter after reading an angry interchange between a troll and his victims, and this can poison previously friendly interactions between long-time users.

Finally, trolls create a paranoid environment, such that a casual criticism by a new arrival can elicit a ferocious and inappropriate backlash.

The Internet is a wonderful resource which is breaking down barriers and stripping away prejudice. Trolls threaten our continued enjoyment of this beautiful forum for ideas.

What Can be Done about Trolls?

When you suspect that somebody is a troll, you might try responding with a polite, mild message to see if it’s just somebody in a bad mood. Internet users sometimes let their passions get away from them when seated safely behind their keyboard. If you ignore their bluster and respond in a pleasant manner, they usually calm down.

However, if the person persists in being beastly, and seems to enjoy being unpleasant, the only effective position is summed up as follows:

The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls.

When you try to reason with a troll, he wins. When you insult a troll, he wins. When you scream at a troll, he wins. The only thing that trolls can’t handle is being ignored.

What Not to Do

As already stated, it is futile to try to “cure” a troll of his obsession. But perhaps you simply cannot bear the hostile environment that the troll is creating and want to go away for a while.

If you do that, then for the sake of the others on the system, please do not post a dramatic “Goodbye!” message. This convinces the troll that he is winning the battle. There is, perhaps, no message you can write on a message system that is as damaging as an announcement that you are leaving because of the hostility that the troll has kindled.

If you feel you must say something, a discreet message to the system operator (and some of the others users, if you have their email addresses) is the best course of action. Incidentally, if you are writing the letter in an agitated state, it is a good idea to wait an hour and then give it one last review before you actually send it. That might spare you the pain of saying things that you don’t really mean to people you like.

Impersonation

One technique used by trolls to generate chaos is to pretend to be a well-liked person. On some systems there is nothing to prevent somebody from signing your name to a distasteful message. On other systems the troll may have to be a bit more wily, perhaps by replacing one character with another. Here are some examples of various spoofing gimmicks that could be used against a person named Brenda Q. O’Really:

Note: “Brenda Q. O’Really” is a made-up name used to illustrate spoofing and is not intended to refer to a particular person.

If you react with anger, the troll wins. So if you see a message impersonating you on a message board, simply write a follow-up reply entitled “That wasn’t me” and type only this:

I did not write that message; it is a fake.

Of course, sometimes you will find that people who know you well have already identified the message as a fake and have tagged it as such. After all, one of the troll’s goals is to make you look bad. If you have a good reputation, people will be tipped off if a message that you apparently wrote is completely out of character.

Trolls have been known to become so irritated at having their spoofs identified that they have learned to write in another person’s style. They may end up writing an intelligent message that is indistinguishable from your own golden words. If that happens, you can always just let the post stand and take credit for it!

Trolls will also sometimes write a “That Wasn’t Me” message after a genuine one, attempting to elicit a denial. There really is no reason to give him what he wants, since a “That Wasn’t Me” warning merely reminds people to be skeptical. That is to say, it is of no real consequence if somebody isn’t sure that you wrote a normal message, since in the long run it is the ideas that are important.

The Webmaster’s Challenge

When trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them. Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed – more on this later.

The moderator of a message board may not be able to delete a troll’s messages right away, but their job is made much harder if they also have to read numerous replies to trolls. They are also forced to decide whether or not to delete posts from well-meaning folks which have the unintended effect of encouraging the troll.

Some webmasters have to endure conscientious users telling them that they are “acting like dictators” and should never delete a single message. These people may be misinformed: they may have arrived at their opinion about a troll based on the messages they see, never realizing that the webmaster has already deleted his most horrific material. Please remember that a troll does have an alternative if he has something of value to say: there are services on the net that provide messaging systems free of charge. So the troll can set up his own message board, where he can make his own decisions about the kind of content he will tolerate.

Just how much can we expect of a webmaster when it comes to preserving the principles of free speech? Some trolls find sport in determining what the breaking point is for a particular message board operator. They might post a dozen messages, each of which contains 400 lines of the letter “J”. That is a form of expression, to be sure, but would you consider it your duty to play host to such a person?

Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a webmaster is deciding whether to take steps against a troll that a few people find entertaining. Some trolls do have a creative spark and have chosen to squander it on being disruptive. There is a certain perverse pleasure in watching some of them. Ultimately, though, the webmaster has to decide if the troll actually cares about putting on a good show for the regular participants, or is simply playing to an audience of one — himself.

What about Free Speech?

When trolls find that their efforts are being successfully resisted, they often complain that their right to free speech is being infringed. Let us examine that claim.

While most people on the Internet are ardent defenders of free speech, it is not an absolute right; there are practical limitations. For example, you may not scream out “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and you may not make jokes about bombs while waiting to board an airplane. We accept these limitations because we recognize that they serve a greater good.

Another useful example is the control of the radio frequency spectrum. You might wish to set up a powerful radio station to broadcast your ideas, but you cannot do so without applying for a license. Again, this is a practical limitation: if everybody broadcasted without restriction, the repercussions would be annoying at best and life-threatening at worst.

The radio example is helpful for another reason: with countless people having a legitimate need to use radio communications, it is important to ensure that nobody is ‘monopolizing the channel’. There are only so many clear channels available in each frequency band and these must be shared.

When a troll attacks a message board, he generally posts a lot of messages. Even if his messages are not particularly inflammatory, they can be so numerous that they drown out the regular conversations (this is known as ‘flooding’). Needless to say, no one person’s opinions can be allowed to monopolize a channel.

The ultimate response to the ‘free speech’ argument is this: while we may have the right to say more or less whatever we want, we do not have the right to say it wherever we want. You may feel strongly about the fact that your neighbour has not mowed his lawn for two months, but you do not have the right to berate him in his own living room. Similarly, if a webmaster tells a troll that he is not welcome, the troll has no “right” to remain. This is particularly true on the numerous free communications services offered on the net. (On pay systems, the troll might be justified in asking for a refund.)

Why Do They Do It?

Affirmation.

Regular net users know how delightful it is when somebody responds to something they have written. It is a meeting of the minds, which is an intellectual thrill, but it is also an acknowledgment of one’s value – and that can be a very satisfying emotional reward.

Trolls crave attention, and they care not whether it is positive or negative. They see the Internet as a mirror into which they can gaze in narcissistic rapture.

If you want a deeper analysis than that, perhaps a psychologist can shed some additional light on the matter.

Conclusion

Next time you are on a message board and you see a post by somebody whom you think is a troll, and you feel you must reply, simply write a follow-up message entitled “Troll alert” and type only this:

The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls.

By posting such a message, you let the troll know that you know what he is, and that you are not going to get dragged into his twisted little hobby.

The Internet is a splendidly haphazard collection of both serious and silly material. Because it is so free, there are bound to be problems. I think that we can best enjoy it if we deal with everything that happens online with a wry grin and a ready shrug.

Update: You can read more on trolling here.

Note: This article has disappeared from the web. I reprint it here as a matter of interest for those who wish information on trolls and their methods. The original article was Copyright © 2001, 2006 by Timothy Campbell.

Stupidity plain and simple

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU WON £1,059,200.00

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A never-ending circus

Inbred Ned: Margie, whaddya say we take a chance and send in what they want to know?

Inbred Ned’s wife: Whatever you think, dear.

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Inbred Ned’s wife: All right, dear.

Because of some mix-up we advice that you keep all information about this prize confidential. You must adhere to this instruction, strictly, to avoid any delay with the release of your funds to your person. This program has been abused severally in past so we are doing our best to forestall further occurrence of false claims and internet Fraud.

This sweepstake was conducted under the watchful eyes of 8,000 spectators. This program is sponsored by CFI to compensate faithful Internet suffers around the globe.

Here’s a link to a New Yorker article about someone who was actually swindled. It’s quite a tale.

Politics

Winning hearts and minds

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Moral highground finally regained

The war in Iraq continues to go well, with advances in health care being among the most notable, as evidenced by this May 17 news report from Gorilla’s Guides :

“Doctors, nurses, administrators, and all other staff in Fallujah hospital have gone on indefinite strike after the second episode in as many months in which the American controlled, directed, trained, and financed, green zone forces and police in Fallujah supported by American troops violently stormed the hospital, severely beat staff, and destroyed equipment and supplies.

The strike was called as the result of an attack on members of the rescue crews by green zone forces and green zone police. The police and militia beat the doctors and staff, smashed doors and windows and destroyed quantities of hospital supplies.

According to the young doctor in the hospital who alerted the news agency to this latest attack the attackers: “justified their attacks on the pretext that hospital staff treated the gunmen inside it”.

They obviously didn’t get it right the first couple of times, as seen below, so they moved on to Fallujah, as noted above:

“On May 1st there was a similar attack on Naaman hospital in Adhamiya Baghdad – the same Adhamiya that the Americans have walled off. During that episode all patients, except for three in the intensive care unit who were too desperately ill to be unhooked from their respirators, were ejected from the hospital onto the street, sometimes violently, and snipers were posted on the roof.”

Dreamland

There’s more to it than meets the eye

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Dreamland IX

I’ve been reading a paper – The Sexual Harassment of Uppity* Women by Jennifer L. Berdahl (Journal of Applied Psychology 2007, Vol. 92, No. 2, 425-437) – that posits that the target of sexual harassment is perhaps the woman who is least identified as being the target: that is, she is not of the ‘attractive woman’ mystique, but rather is more ‘one of the boys’.

Ms. Berdahl did three studies

“to test the prediction that women who violate feminine ideals are most likely to be sexually harassed in ways traditionally identified as harassing to women.”

In other words, rather than testing once again that the victim of sexual harassment is the traditionally desirable, good-looking and attractive woman, she examined the role played by women who take on characteristics more acceptable to men.

Traditionally, harassers were thought to be motivated by sexual desire towards their victim, or were motivated by a desire for power over their victim. Through her testing, the author was able to show that, in fact, the victims of sexual harassment were more likely to be women who were dominant or more masculine in their workplace environment, and in fact the harasser may be motivated by a hostility towards women who demonstrate a seemingly more masculine persona.

Ms. Berdhal does admit that the sample sizes in her study were small, and that much more research is required before any definite conclusions can be obtained.

I find this all rather interesting in light of some of Sonny’s predilections for the women in his life:

  • Lulu, his wife, charges through everything, not letting anything stand in her way. She raised their three children pretty much the way she wanted to, and from what I could see, Sonny didn’t participate a lot. Lulu and her sisters were sexually abused by their father, while their bipolar mother slipped in and out of awareness of what was going on.
  • Celia was pretty much a fast-talking, hard-living lost soul who raised herself and was tough as nails. She was outspoken, too.
  • Although I didn’t personally know the woman who he was chasing on the run down to Mexico, she certainly wasn’t the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll leave that to you, dear reader, to decide on his motivation for that one.
  • Erin was a no-bullshit kind of woman, pretty yet vulnerable. She had hard edges, but she didn’t appear to be overly tough on the outside, although she could be one of the boys if she had to. She dumped an abusive husband after he fathered her two children.
  • Sonny’s present love monkey is just what the doctor ordered. She’s tough, hard-edged, outspoken and filled with anger at anyone and everyone. She too fits the profile perfectly. In fact, she’s pretty much a mirror personality of Sonny’s father.

Of course, it’s easy to sit back on a sofa – fat, dumb and happy – and pretend to think that any of this might apply to Sonny, but it is suspicious in its relevance to his situation. The fact that he appears to prefer women similar to those noted in the study is remarkable in itself.

* uppity: taking liberties or assuming airs beyond one’s station; presumptuous: “was getting a little uppity and needed to be slapped down” –American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2004.

Dreamland

Just say no and end up unemployed

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Dreamland VIII

Erin was divorced from an abusive husband. She had managed to stay in the relationship long enough for kids to arrive, but eventually she saw the light and dumped him. In her late twenties, she had already had her share of bad luck in the relationship department with her ex, but she never whined about it. She just charged forward and dealt head-on with life.

She first came on board some time during the Celia fiasco, had left, and then returned to relative calm in the store after Celia’s departure. She was a good person, easy to get to know, and had a ready smile that lit up everything around her.

The two of us would go riding together every Monday – she on her Sportster and I on my bagger. We discovered that we both had an unhealthy addiction to sushi, so I would search out the best sushi restaurants – of which there were many – and usually we’d arrange to have a quick bite to eat before she had to get home to round up the kids from school.

Erin and I had become friends and nothing more, since she was by far too young for me to have much interest in beyond friendship. At some point, Sonny must have noticed that the two of us were spending some time together. In any case, Sonny and his wife invited her for lunch on one of our riding Mondays, although I suspect that it was mainly Sonny that had invited Erin for lunch, and his wife just happened to come along because she wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Off the two of us went to meet up with Sonny and wifey for “the small family business lunch”. It was uneventful, but I suspected that Sonny was up to his old tricks, and now Erin would be in for a passel of shit from him.

I never said a word to her. That’s not my way. I figured that she could take care of herself with Sonny, having dealt with and dumped an abusive husband. After all, just because she was young didn’t mean that she wasn’t tough.

Finally, Sonny made his move on Erin by inviting her for the “it’s a small family business and we like to take our employees out for dinner” routine. She had the prescience to drive herself down the hill to the restaurant, and, once there, learned that Sonny’s wife wouldn’t be showing up.

It would be Erin and Sonny, alone.

Apparently, most of the meal went well enough, but at some point towards the end Sonny began to feign drunkenness and started running his slimy hands all over Erin, much to her disgust. Once she extricated herself from Sonny and his unwanted advances, Erin drove herself home, dismayed by what had happened.

The next day, Sonny apologized profusely for his misbehavior, and claimed that he was drunk and not himself. Erin and I had a laugh over that. I should have known better.

We had laughed too soon.

It wasn’t long before Sonny was doing his trash-talking routine to anyone who would listen about Erin’s inability to properly do her job. Mind you, if what he said was true, I fully understood why she might be feeling a little down about her job: every day she had to come in to work to face her sexual abuser.

The shop’s General Manager, ever the complicit one in Sonny’s workplace affairs, eventually fired Erin.

Dreamland

Unhappily ever after

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Dreamland VII

By now it was pretty obvious that Sonny wasn’t the most faithful husband in the asylum, but his next trick really took the insanity to new levels.

Some of us were standing around shooting the breeze at lunchtime, looking for something to do or somewhere to go, when in walked a teenage girl. She announced for all to hear that Sonny was going to be looking after her and her mom.

We all raised our eyebrows over that one.

Sonny? Taking care of people? That wasn’t likely to happen in his lifetime.

As it turned out, her mom was in another part of the building with her mother and father, announcing basically the same thing to anyone who would listen — and they were all listening!

The bigger question we were all asking was, who was this girl’s mother, and how did the two of them know Sonny?

Being the nosy sort that I am, I wandered over to Sonny’s office and brought him outside to tell him about the episode, and to suggest — nicely, of course — that he might want to be more discreet with his affections. He had the temerity to shrug it off by saying that the woman was a friend of his wife’s, and that he had taken her out to the lake house the day before to show it to her.

Right.

So she assumed from that quick little honeymoon that Sonny would be taking care of her and her daughter in the foreseeable future? I don’t think so. His effrontery was simply amazing.

It was obvious that another relationship had gone sour when mom and daughter discovered that Sonny hadn’t been truthful about his commitments. I wondered if she had called his bluff by suggesting that she and her daughter move into the vacant lake house.

Sonny’s wife and three children would have been real happy about that. Those weekends that they spent boating on the river would find that boat mighty crowded.

Dreamland

Old time radio

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Dreamland VI

“Get out of town or I’ll chase you out with a .45,” the voice on the other end of the phone said, and then the line went dead.

My brain went into high gear as my life turned into an old-time radio show.

Familiar voice? No.

Am I sure? Yes.

Then it’s no joke.

Who have I pissed off? Nobody I can think of.

Who hates my guts down here? Nobody.

Wait — the contractor! I had no idea of his name, what he looked like or how he sounded.

Up until that moment, this had been an entertaining experience. Now it was getting serious. I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun before, but never one owned and operated by a jealous boyfriend — a married, jealous, confused boyfriend, with no reason to be jealous of me.

I took his threat seriously.

I walked downstairs and told Sonny what had happened. When I told him that I was going to report the phone call to the police, he thought I should hold off for a couple of days. His sense was that it would all blow over in a day or two.

Yeah, right, I thought to myself.

I didn’t call the cops, but I did get the guy’s name and address for future reference, since Sonny knew all about him.

A few minutes later I walked out of the shop and called a friend and explained what had been going on. Frank didn’t seem too surprised, but he did have a solution for me. He told me to come on up, and when I got there he loaned me a nice little snub-nose .357 and a box of shells. From then on I knew I could depend on Frank.

Sonny, on the other hand, was a complete writeoff.

For five days I walked around armed. Nothing happened, of course, but better safe than sorry. Then, Sonny called me into his office to let me know that the contractor’s wife had called him at home and left a message on his voice mail, thanking him for letting her know about her husband’s affair with Celia.

He dialed his voice mail, and played the message over the phone’s speaker for me. And yup, that was definitely a woman thanking Sonny for letting her know. Sonny hemmed and hawed and then announced somewhat triumphantly that he was going to call the Sheriff’s department and report her.

Damn, but wasn’t I in a worse situation almost a week ago? Obviously Sonny had his priorities, and I wasn’t one of them, even though some asshole could barge into his store and start shooting the place up on my account. Jesus.

I got up to leave, but Sonny asked me to stay, and I was witness to his report on the woman to the police. So much for bravado when he was involved. What a little chickenshit, I thought to myself.

I walked around armed for another three days.

It all came to nothing, of course. The contractor never showed up, Sonny was able to put on a brave face, and Celia calmed down too. Christ, it was about time.

Eventually Celia got the message and she started looking around for a new job. When she found one, Sonny gave a fantastic recommendation to her new employer on the coast. The day of her departure felt as though the roof had been raised off of the building as a collective sigh of relief went through the employees.

Not to be outdone, Danny and I and some of the others started taking bets on which of the remaining women would be getting the Christmas bonus come December.