The Trolls Among Us

[adrianwaj]

The founder of 4Chan said:

"My personal private life is very separate from my Internet life ... There's a firewall in between." http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/20/internet.go...

and here in this article Jason Fortuny calls himself "a normal person who does insane things on the Internet."

In both cases, they separate their screen lives with their non-screen lives. But, the mind is the same that moves between the two, except that there are two separate levels of morality that habituate according to the mind's sensory context.

So what lies in the mind at the border between the two moralities: shame, fear, hate and intolerance.

[pg]

I find it clarifies things to filter statements like "My personal private life is very separate from my Internet life" and "a normal person who does insane things on the Internet" through the rule: "Judge talent at its best and character at its worst."

[Hexstream]

Those people "with a firewall" hurt people in real life with their "virtual" selves, crossing the real-world/virtual border, but I have a feeling they'd be the first to whine if someone retaliated in real life (in a more or less civil way) for what their "virtual" selves did.

What hypocrisy.

[jackchristopher]

Humans have a tendency to compartmentalize themselves. It's an inherent cognitive bias.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/outside_the_lab.html

[biohacker42]

I remember kids like that from junior high, they push the line until someone punches them in the face, then they have borders. The internet removes that whole punch in the face part, it's a shame.

[stcredzero]

The self-righteousness of trollers is every bit as intense as those of the so-called "blowhards" that they target. It's something that I recognize. It's just like the kids who used to haze me when I was a kid, solely because of my Asian ethnicity. There is the same insistence that it's some kind of joke. There is the same delight in cruelty. There is the same self-righteous self assurance that somehow they've struck a blow to make the world a better place.

It is also something that I recognize in myself. The superiority of the Tit-for-Two-Tats strategy seems to be on the level of mathematical truth.

[eznet]

Agreed. I is funny that the majority of these 'trolls' would not dare provoke an individual in the real world as they will online. I knew a guy in high school who was extremely passive and timid in the real world, but got the biggest kick out of being an aggressive ass to strangers online - I never understood him, but feel that he knew in the real world, there were consequences for his actions, where online he could get away with it with no recourse. Really cowardice in my opinion.

[d0mine]

Such articles prepare a ground for laws which will hurt everyone. Exaggerating trolls influence leads to a cure that is worse then the disease.

[ComputerGuru]

Sorry, I don't see anything exaggerated about intentionaly trying to hurt epileptics to "make them aware of the precautions they need to take."

[cdr]

How is the article exaggerating? It's publicizing (and arguably somewhat glorifying), but I don't see where it's inaccurate.

[mynameishere]

I wonder...how many wall street journal and (now) new york times readers will, for the first time in their sheltered lives, head on over to the darkest [1] corner of the internet and see its inevitable bounty of child pron and mutilation pron and cartoonishly extreme racism?

[1] Maybe. There's probably worse... Keep your wsj subscription up, I guess.

[jorgeortiz85]

All I can say is: A Clockwork Orange was prescient, it just didn't predict the roving bands of violent hooligans would be on the Internet.

[jonknee]

> As we walked through Fullerton’s downtown, Weev told me about his day — he’d lost $10,000 on the commodities market, he claimed — and summarized his philosophy of “global ruin.” “We are headed for a Malthusian crisis,” he said, with professorial confidence. “Plankton levels are dropping. Bees are dying. There are tortilla riots in Mexico, the highest wheat prices in 30-odd years.” He paused. “The question we have to answer is: How do we kill four of the world’s six billion people in the most just way possible?” He seemed excited to have said this aloud.

Wait, is this article about reddit users?

[byrneseyeview]

Weev is mad that they didn't include his entire philosophy:

http://weev.livejournal.com/305600.html

[emmett]

A symptom of the web being the lawless frontier. Eventually, the law will begin to close in on this frontier as it has on every other.

[pg]

Or customs, at least. The reason trolling doesn't work in the real world is that there are long evolved customs for neutralizing such people, like the idea of private buildings. The first generation of online communities had no protection against them. But these tend to evolve quickly in response to abuses.

[wallflower]

After reading this article, I am concluding that there are small percentage of trolls who are literally terrorists - impacting other people's lives in a dangerous way. No remorse, too.

[eznet]

In the real world we call them "douche bags"...

[cdr]

I honestly don't understand why this is getting modded up as much as it is.

[stcredzero]

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the troller thinks of his/her victims as the "douche bag." They think of their "joke" as some kind of blow for truth.

[menloparkbum]

When I was in college eons ago I used an IRC channel that was taken over by trolls. Taken over might be an exaggeration... they showed up, took channel ops, and never left. The original regulars just kept chatting as usual.

Anyway, the thing I find most bizarre is that the trolls who took over my IRC channel only talked about weird anti-semitic conspiracy theories. The stuff they discussed was exactly the same as what the "Weev" character from this article talks about on his livejournal page. I also had never looked at encyclopedia dramatica before... i guess internet troll culture is heavily intertwined with the white supremacy movement? Or is all the jewish conspiracy stuff part of the joke?

[unalone]

It's part of the joke. Several friends of mine are active trolls, and in person they're pretty well-balanced. Their saying things like that is entirely because they know it'll offend people.

[goodgoblin]

Wow - what a great article- I never thought characters like Weev actually existed. Definitely makes the sound of cars passing by more interesting.

[iamelgringo]

I actually found moot's new robot9000 banning algorithm to be interesting. I'd like to hear more about it. Banning people for progressively larger periods of time seems to be a decent idea.

[cdr]

Actually, it's Randall Munroe's: http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-at...

[greyman]

The leading photo is hilarious.

[AndyKelley]

As I was reading this article, a song called "Most Terrible Archer" by Joy Electric came on. While it was probably not written about trolls, I couldn't help seeing the connections:

  Separate your chief anxieties
  Cut the cord, but you won't
  Excommunicate from our society
  Are you bold? You are not

  Oh no
  The most terrible, terrible
  Archer
  
  You among the league of militants
  How little you have learned
  Tried and failed to be one of the innocents
  Little left of yourself
  
  Little left of myself
  Little right of yourself

[cdr]

It's kind of funny how mean/trollish a lot of the comments to this article are here.

[stcredzero]

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Agression is the natural reaction to hurt.

[cdr]

ED was having serious bandwidth/funding issues already. Looks like it's down again now; getting this kind of publicity was probably the surest way to kill it dead.

[alaskamiller]

Oh no! Where would people find documentation of underage girls and their webcam pics?!

[akd]

What's with all the MSM coverage of 4chan lately? Why, of all Internet communities, does the New York Times write about its filthiest cesspool?

[iamelgringo]

It makes for good TV and sells. That's why the press.

[Xichekolas]

> said one ex-troll

Once a troll, always a troll.

[time_management]

There are many different kinds and levels of trolling. Most trolls are reasonable people who refuse to post racism or affect others IRL, but get a kick out of stimulating controversial discussion or "pwning" others (Rickroll, etc.) in harmless ways online. One of my best trolls, in 2000, was when I hit a Magic: the Gathering forum and started the rumor that the ink on old Magic cards has a 10-year lifespan and that valuable cards would soon become illegible. It's obnoxious and hilarious, but no one is harmed or harassed by this.

The fringe, though, is clearly getting out of hand. For 95% of trolls, it's an embarrassing hobby held by a small set of neurotic, but otherwise normal and upstanding, individuals. It's like a video game, in terms of its addictive nature, and also the ease with which the practice can absorb an unreasonable proportion of one's time. Unfortunately, the truly rotten 5% is giving the rest of the trolls a terrible name by doing things that are unacceptable by any standard, internet or "IRL".

[theoneill]

I wonder how this story is doing on reddit...

[time_management]

There's a wide spectrum of behavior that is categorized as "trolling", from the obnoxious but harmless to the outright criminal. Rickrolling people on message boards and harassing people IRL don't deserve the same word.

Anyone who affects others' real lives has no right to use the "trolling" excuse. It's just unacceptable.

Also, the people claiming, in that article, to have made large sums of money from their trolling activities are lying. Trolls always exaggerate their "accomplishments" to absurd degrees, taking credit for others' "work" and blowing the external effects/importance of their trolling way out of proportion.