How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by tdkl on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:06PM (#12322022)

> Trolling is, overtly, a political fight. Liberals do indeed troll–sex-advice columnist Dan Savage used his followers to make Googling former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s last name a blunt lesson in the hygienic challenges of anal sex; the hunter who killed Cecil the lion got it really bad.

> The alt-right’s favorite insult is to call men who don’t hate feminism “cucks,” as in “cuckold.” <snip> Trolling is the alt-right’s version of political activism, and its ranks view any attempt to take it away as a denial of democracy.

I honestly don't like this burden of trolling to be placed on the right, because both sides consist of people with emotional issues and incapability to handle them. And to be honest, such people don't deserve online access.

The 90's and early 2000's were refreshing where you had to be a certain geek to get to the web, which was a filter enough.

[edit] To clarify, my impression of the article is that it's not balanced between both sides. Might have something to do that "troll" doesn't necessarily mean the same, as user Fifer82 suggested in his comment "I don't mind trolls. There is a difference between a troll, a bully, a wanker and a psycho"[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12321968

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by honkhonkpants on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:17PM (#12322138)

This is an odd bit of false equivalence. Santorum got what he had coming, because he's a galactic-scale asshole. Making up a funny joke about an ignorant reactionary seeking to impose theocracy in America makes perfect sense when that person has been elevated to a position of rare power.

On the other hand making up a name for people who fail to hate women doesn't have quite the same logic.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by dragonwriter on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:20PM (#12322164)

The logic may well be the same. The moral axioms on which that logic applies obviously differs between the people who support one and oppose the other and those who either see them as equivalent or who have the reverse support/oppose position.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by honkhonkpants on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:27PM (#12322235)

I can't tell what you meant.

Mocking a powerful politician is fair game. Indeed, mocking the powerful is a necessary function in a republic or democracy, and should be practiced in direct proportion to the hypocrisy openly demonstrated by the target.

Mocking random members of the public (calling them cucks or faggots in threads on reddit) serves no function.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by htns on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:53PM (#12322521)

That was exactly the original point. The article is weasely in its cherry-picking of examples. The veneer of civility is very thin.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by James001 on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:12PM (#12322087)

Really? You're going to deny online access to people with emotional issues? That's like, the entire population. That's not even a slippery slope, that's just falling off the cliff entirely.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by forgottenpass on Friday August 19, 2016 @03:11PM (#12322680)

I honestly don't like this burden of trolling to be placed on the right

The 90's and early 2000's were refreshing where you had to be a certain geek to get to the web, which was a filter enough.

We should have never let the normals onto the Internet, and doubly never should have given them the time of day to talk about it. They've taken every disagreement that they discover online and cast it into onto the left-right spectrum (or some other bullshit narrative about who the people really are and what they really want). They make things intractable and will profit off complaining that they're intractable.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by chongli on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:14PM (#12322107)

I honestly don't like this burden of trolling to be placed on the right

What are you talking about? Your quotes demonstrate that both sides do it. Are you suggesting liberals are to blame for trolls like Milo Yiannopoulos?

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by tdkl on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:18PM (#12322141)

> Are you suggesting liberals are to blame for trolls like Milo Yiannopoulos?

There are liberals and there are liberals, this is what I believe: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-4/Newt...

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by lostlogin on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:11PM (#12322068)

Doesn't that very quote also mention liberals, with 2 examples?

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by tdkl on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:16PM (#12322122)

True, I've added it as the article somewhat started with that, then continued to rant on the "alt-right" only. I got the impression that it's not balanced at all.

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Re:How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet by beat on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:35PM (#12322321)

Well, there is a pretty strong correlation between "alt-right" and "unbalanced"...

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