Are Trolls Ruining Social Media?(readwriteweb.com)
readwriteweb.com
Are Trolls Ruining Social Media?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/are_trolls_ruining_social_media.php
11 comments
You nailed it. The original notion was that the Internet was "peer-to-peer," but people have forgotten what this originally meant. Machines on the 'Net were expected to be somewhat sophisticated service and intelligence-wise (since they were owned and operated by universities, military establishments, etc.) IP addresses originally had identifying characteristics that could be tracked to an employer, if not an individual or department. Even when "anonymous" PCs and Macs were originally being hooked up the Internet (first directly, then later via NAT) the initial connection tools still provided support for identification via finger, message signatures and so on to continue this tradition. (Anarchie, one of the first Mac FTP clients, also doubled as a Unix-like identification stack when configured fully. Many PC video game developers, like John Carmack, continued to use .plan files prior to rise of the modern "blog.")
But then the Endless September came, and most end users by this point weren't versed in "netiquette" or the whole RFC tradition to know how to use such tools and protocols, so anonymity crept in as an accidental default state. (As the drift towards the modern connotation of "peer-to-peer" demonstrates.) I personally got online about year or so before this, spent time lurking and learning the ways of the old Internet, only to watch in horror as my peers didn't give a s--t and ruined it for the rest of us.
But then the Endless September came, and most end users by this point weren't versed in "netiquette" or the whole RFC tradition to know how to use such tools and protocols, so anonymity crept in as an accidental default state. (As the drift towards the modern connotation of "peer-to-peer" demonstrates.) I personally got online about year or so before this, spent time lurking and learning the ways of the old Internet, only to watch in horror as my peers didn't give a s--t and ruined it for the rest of us.
"Online anonymity is just a leftover from the early days of the web - a time when there really just weren't other options."
I disagree. I thought about this when we were starting HN, and I deliberately opted for anonymity, though with profiles if people wanted to post stuff in them. When all people know about you is what you say, they judge you based on what you say, instead of who you are.
I disagree. I thought about this when we were starting HN, and I deliberately opted for anonymity, though with profiles if people wanted to post stuff in them. When all people know about you is what you say, they judge you based on what you say, instead of who you are.
When all people know about you is what you say, they judge you based on what you say, instead of who you are.
But there is no such anonymity for the user known here as "pg."
But there is no such anonymity for the user known here as "pg."
It would be (mildly) interesting to see some stats on the difference in votes if pg occasionally posted under some other name. You could experiment over a couple weeks - before each comment flip a coin, heads you post with 'pg', tails with some new account. I guess ignore posts like this one where who you are is part of the comment.
It's impossible because you'd have to separate the comments where pg is speaking as pg, administrator of this site and partner in YC, and comments discussing articles in a less official capacity.
I'll provide a counter-point.
I used to frequent a forum for tabletop wargaming here in Western Australia that was used for discussing the hobby, setting up games etc. Anonymity really isn't an issue there because everyone knows pretty much everyone else.
While it's not quite on the scale of HN, in the 4 or 5 years that it's been running with over a thousand users, it hasn't had a single trolling incident (except bots).... simply because of the lack of anonymity.
I personally agree with one of the comments in the article which suggests a hybrid system
seems like a quick feature-add could fix this: blog comments should just have a tick box that either displays or hides anonymous commentors. some people care what the trolls say, most people don't. so it should be optional.
What a great idea, optional verification and for those people that want to disable non-verified comments, it can remove the incidents of trolling.
I used to frequent a forum for tabletop wargaming here in Western Australia that was used for discussing the hobby, setting up games etc. Anonymity really isn't an issue there because everyone knows pretty much everyone else.
While it's not quite on the scale of HN, in the 4 or 5 years that it's been running with over a thousand users, it hasn't had a single trolling incident (except bots).... simply because of the lack of anonymity.
I personally agree with one of the comments in the article which suggests a hybrid system
seems like a quick feature-add could fix this: blog comments should just have a tick box that either displays or hides anonymous commentors. some people care what the trolls say, most people don't. so it should be optional.
What a great idea, optional verification and for those people that want to disable non-verified comments, it can remove the incidents of trolling.
Anonymity creates a low barrier to entry, facilitating free participation. But at the expense of requiring manual moderation. I don't know how much time has been spent on troll moderation on HN. But let's say you have 100 small sites - moderation could be quite time consuming. And if the sites are too small to allow you to identify trusted users to offload the moderation to (perhaps through some application features), it is doubly problematic. However, identity verification is an easy solution, although at the expense of reducing participation by creating a higher barrier to entry.
This could be easily accomplished by simply putting an end to online anonymity - a trend that hasn't quite arrived yet. [...] Online anonymity is just a leftover from the early days of the web - a time when there really just weren't other options. You just created a handle, set up an account, and began to write. Now that we have the tools to identify each other, shouldn't we begin to use them? Think of all the problems it would solve[...]
This sounds a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's a lot of talk of "the problems it would solve", but what would the costs be?
This sounds a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's a lot of talk of "the problems it would solve", but what would the costs be?
Or how about the complete lack of privacy?
Let's be real, the government has a thing for overstepping its right to follow you around. Why turn every action on the net into a key, value pair that clearly identifies you, just to stop a few teenagers from crapping on a writer of novels for young people and a rock star?
Let's be real, the government has a thing for overstepping its right to follow you around. Why turn every action on the net into a key, value pair that clearly identifies you, just to stop a few teenagers from crapping on a writer of novels for young people and a rock star?
Lower participation and, as a result, maybe lower advertising earnings. On the other hand, the cost of not controlling bad content could be much higher both in monetary and non-monetary terms.
As tons of celebs flock to Twitter in an effort to regain control of their image
Control? You have control over what you put into the world and you have control over what you pay attention to. You do not have control over what people think or say. At best you have influence.
Control? You have control over what you put into the world and you have control over what you pay attention to. You do not have control over what people think or say. At best you have influence.
Delicious very explicitly did not have comments/discussion/etc in order to make it a placid place. This probably cut down the engagement, because there were no discussions to be in, etc.
I believe that most social features are really just mechanical coping mechanisms. Generally to deal with traffic, but some for spam, trolling, etc. We need to come up with some better coping mechanisms. (And news.yc has been inspiringly innovative in this regard.)
I believe that most social features are really just mechanical coping mechanisms. Generally to deal with traffic, but some for spam, trolling, etc. We need to come up with some better coping mechanisms. (And news.yc has been inspiringly innovative in this regard.)
Another article to end anonymity while being utterly blind to the problems of oppression that dominate the majority of the world's population.
People of fame need to accept the trade-offs, particularly people who strive to become famous. So they may not be able to use Twitter like the rest of us. Although I think most people of reasonable fame are using it just fine.
We're talking about about Trent Reznor here, not everyone encourages and profits from typically very young people by writing consistently dark, sex-infused and anti-authoritarian lyrics. He's gonna have to take his lumps.
Plus, like the article says, there are places he can go, like Facebook, where he can deal with a more well identified group. This article is just pushing an agenda that's removed from the real nature of Trent Reznor's online experience and options.
I wish that people who write these calls for removing anonymity would get a more mature world-view.
People of fame need to accept the trade-offs, particularly people who strive to become famous. So they may not be able to use Twitter like the rest of us. Although I think most people of reasonable fame are using it just fine.
We're talking about about Trent Reznor here, not everyone encourages and profits from typically very young people by writing consistently dark, sex-infused and anti-authoritarian lyrics. He's gonna have to take his lumps.
Plus, like the article says, there are places he can go, like Facebook, where he can deal with a more well identified group. This article is just pushing an agenda that's removed from the real nature of Trent Reznor's online experience and options.
I wish that people who write these calls for removing anonymity would get a more mature world-view.
The internet, like the world, has neighborhoods. They change over time, and they have there own characteristics. There are places you can go to have healthy, civil debates, and places you can go to be exposed to flame wars and adolescent behavior.
Big names (Like Reznor) have fans who follow them to whatever online neighborhood they may move into. Reznors' experience may say more about the type of people his music attracts than it does about the internet at large. There are plenty of well-know people who are able to use the internet as a way to engage a readership in meaningful ways, and a lot of it has to do with the audience they attract. If Reznor was a classically trained Violinist, for instance, I'm willing to bet his foray into social media would have had a different result.
Big names (Like Reznor) have fans who follow them to whatever online neighborhood they may move into. Reznors' experience may say more about the type of people his music attracts than it does about the internet at large. There are plenty of well-know people who are able to use the internet as a way to engage a readership in meaningful ways, and a lot of it has to do with the audience they attract. If Reznor was a classically trained Violinist, for instance, I'm willing to bet his foray into social media would have had a different result.
...and I'm willing to bet that a classically trained violinist with a sufficiently large following would prove a very attractive target to trolls.
Are there really places on the internet you can "go to have health, civil debates" that are a) troll-free, and b) unmoderated? The world has neighborhoods, each one tnds to have its own police force.
Are there really places on the internet you can "go to have health, civil debates" that are a) troll-free, and b) unmoderated? The world has neighborhoods, each one tnds to have its own police force.
Everything is moderated to the extent that you can choose to remove yourself from the situation. Moderation in some form has to exist to limit the chaos. It's not black and white either, sure anyone of a certain level of popularity will get trolls to some extent, you are right. That happens in real life too. I'm just saying that it matters 'where' the discourse is taking place and it matters who is involved. If you and I where having this conversation on Reddit, somebody would probably have trolled us already.
Can anyone actually prove that forcing everyone to identify themselves would cut off trolling? Everyone seems to take that as given, but I don't see the evidence. Especially if you define "trolling" large enough to include things like merely being anti-social, or being voluminous, or just anything in general that would make you not want to be online.
You might cut down on the trolling, but merely, say, cutting it in half isn't going to change anything.
You might cut down on the trolling, but merely, say, cutting it in half isn't going to change anything.
It is actually kind of simple really. If you have fixed identity (or even psuedonyms that are tied to a "true name" a la Chaumian credentials) then filtering out bad behavior becomes easier. Users cannot create sock puppets, they get one chance to troll and then join the global killfile or get put a sufficient number of user killfiles as to have the same effect. If the identity was non-pseudonymous or the pseudonym systems supported cross-domain joins it would get even harder to troll since a trolling attempt at site A might get you added to user filters at sites B and C.
The trolls would not go away, but no one would ever see them and this would have the same effect.
The trolls would not go away, but no one would ever see them and this would have the same effect.
If the idea that we should all get identified on the internet takes foot (and I seriously doubt it will), my guess is that we will see an almost immediate fragmentation of the internet.
If you look at wifi maps of any major metropolitan area, they're almost all completely covered with signal these days. A mesh system could be brought up very quickly, with some point-to-point communication to get beyond metro areas. Once that happens I'm sure there will have to be some people who will end up having to tunnel to a "Free-speech zone", but many Chinese citizens are already doing that today to circumvent the Great Firewall. The infrastructure is already in place to escape any attempts at censorship or forced identification now.
Of course, what I'm suggesting is ridiculous... but not quite as ridiculous as recommending we all get on board and verify who we are for every site we visit and every comment we leave.
If you look at wifi maps of any major metropolitan area, they're almost all completely covered with signal these days. A mesh system could be brought up very quickly, with some point-to-point communication to get beyond metro areas. Once that happens I'm sure there will have to be some people who will end up having to tunnel to a "Free-speech zone", but many Chinese citizens are already doing that today to circumvent the Great Firewall. The infrastructure is already in place to escape any attempts at censorship or forced identification now.
Of course, what I'm suggesting is ridiculous... but not quite as ridiculous as recommending we all get on board and verify who we are for every site we visit and every comment we leave.
my guess is that we will see an almost immediate fragmentation of the internet.
Are you saying that we haven't seen that already?
Are you saying that we haven't seen that already?
What, because rock stars don't like talking to (mental and physical) adolescents in open forums?
What, you mean when services expected your machine to be running identd? When finger worked? When your IP uniquely identified you? When sysadmins knew your phone number?
If anything, the internet has trended towards anonymity as it's aged -- the more people are online, the harder it is to track someone down.