How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

[Sanguine]

    Joel Stein @thejoelstein

7:09 AM ET
Troll Culture of Hate Time Magazine Cover
Illustration by Steve Brodner for TIME
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

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 the web is a sociopath with Asperger’s. If you need help improving your upload speeds it’s 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....

...But trolling has become the main tool of the alt-right, an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men’s rights and against immigration and may have used the computer from Weird Science to fabricate Donald Trump. Not only does Trump share their attitudes, but he’s got mad trolling skills: he doxxed Republican primary opponent Senator Lindsey Graham by giving out his cell-phone number on TV and indirectly got his Twitter followers to attack GOP political strategist Cheri Jacobus so severely that her lawyers sent him a cease-and-desist order.....

...Because of Jones’ harassment, alt-right leader Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently banned from Twitter. (He is also an editor at Breitbart News, the conservative website whose executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, was hired Aug. 17 to run the Trump campaign.) The service said Yiannopoulos, a critic of the new Ghostbusters who called Jones a “black dude” in a tweet, marshaled many of his more than 300,000 followers to harass her....

...When sites are overrun by trolls, they drown out the voices of women, ethnic and religious minorities, gays–anyone who might feel vulnerable. Young people in these groups assume trolling is a normal part of life online and therefore self-censor. An anonymous poll of the writers at TIME found that 80% had avoided discussing a particular topic because they feared the online response. The same percentage consider online harassment a regular part of their jobs. Nearly half the women on staff have considered quitting journalism because of hatred they’ve faced online, although none of the men had. Their comments included “I’ve been raged at with religious slurs, had people track down my parents and call them at home, had my body parts inquired about.” Another wrote, “I’ve had the usual online trolls call me horrible names and say I am biased and stupid and deserve to be raped. I don’t think men realize how normal that is for women on the Internet.”

The alt-right argues that if you can’t handle opprobrium, you should just turn off your computer. But that’s arguing against self-expression, something antithetical to the original values of the Internet....

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

Some interesting points and some of what you would expect from Time.

I hate this "alt-right" thing.  I suspect that the effort is to tar conservatives with this brush.

[Cripplecreek]

It should be noted that a lot (Probably a majority) of the alt right attacks are coming from eastern Europe but it would sure be nice to see someone fighting back aside from the targets.

No one could be more effective at shutting them down than Donald Trump.

[Just_Victor]

"alt-right" is no more conservative that Trump.

[Dirt for sale]

This is cyber warfare and the goal is to muzzle the individual online. It will work and is working. Time is so timely.

[ABX]

"alt-right" is no more conservative that Trump.

Milo is so over the top, I often wonder if he isn't just pulling some performance art thing and he actually is as liberal as Robert Byrd.

[ABX]

This is cyber warfare and the goal is to muzzle the individual online. It will work and is working. Time is so timely.

Muzzling or influencing. There is just as much passing fake stories and polls as a mean to influence as there is mass bullying and threats to attempt silencing the opposition.

I'm far more concerned not with the trolling, but with the general public losing their sense of discernment and skepticism and falling for it.

[Cripplecreek]

Muzzling or influencing. There is just as much passing fake stories and polls as a mean to influence as there is mass bullying and threats to attempt silencing the opposition.

I'm far more concerned not with the trolling, but with the general public losing their sense of discernment and skepticism and falling for it.

And the surrendering of common decency.

[Oceander]

Muzzling or influencing. There is just as much passing fake stories and polls as a mean to influence as there is mass bullying and threats to attempt silencing the opposition.

I'm far more concerned not with the trolling, but with the general public losing their sense of discernment and skepticism and falling for it.

Exactly.

[Dirt for sale]

I never bought Milo's act. For all i know he's not even into guys. It is just his shtick that works. Homosexuality is still the best cover an agent ever had. (thanks w.s. burroughs)

The fake polls and news stories influence but they cannot silence with these props. Trolls are the created problem, hate speech laws selectively enforced online will be the solution. Europe is way ahead in this regard, so the u.s. is playing catch-up.

[Sighlass]

I hate this "alt-right" thing.

Yeah, it is the new catch phrase, sometimes used to describe Trump fans, and oddly sometimes used to describe Cruz fans like myself.

But trolling has become the main tool of the alt-right

B.S. Trolling has always and forever will be a tool of the left. Conservatives are just fighting back now and it hurts their wee little feelings that conservatives dare don't lie down and just take it.

[Oceander]

Yeah, it is the new catch phrase, sometimes used to describe Trump fans, and oddly sometimes used to describe Cruz fans like myself.

B.S. Trolling has always and forever will be a tool of the left. Conservatives are just fighting back now and it hurts their wee little feelings that conservatives dare don't lie down and just take it.

"Alt-right" was coined in 2008, and it refers to a lot more than just the Trumpkins:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

In fact, it's the cross-fertilization between the traditional alt-right and the Trumpkins that is very worrisome.