Death of a Troll | Hacker News Reader

Death of a Troll

theguardian.com

160 pointsprostoalex91 comments

Haha I'm the owner of the site. Surprised it made it to hacker news. There's a whole world out there with countless stories unravelling that the naked eye can't see. I'm very happy to have had a special glimpse into one of these worlds.

If you've got the time, I'd like to get some reflective thought from you: Based on your glimpse, what did you learn about people, online communities, or morals and ethics that you believed or didn't consider before?

I wish I had something eloquent to say here. But what I've realized that the online world is not any lesser or greater than the real one, it's just a completely different one with it's own social dynamics. People impart virual actions on each other with real consequences.

Otherwise I don't think I have special insight into people's morals and ethics. People remain complicated. You just get a better chance to see them in a different light when you expose them to a different medium.

Can't wait to see how people will behave in VR worlds, if it were to take off ;)

Thank you for being honest in your answer. Often such questions feel to me like - so how does the wine taste, or the beer - it's fuckin' hard for me to describe - it usually goes - well bad, or good...

On the forums that I have run, I have seen 2 deaths faked.

The most recent was in December 2014 where a person claiming to be the partner of the guy who had allegedly died was then asking for contributions to help cover a funeral.

At the time it sowed a fair degree of mistrust, and the only way the community was able to move on was to pull together in secret to prove conclusively whether or not the person had died. What this meant is that about 50 people spent a chunk of time checking morgues, hospitals, location hints, police reports and other details until not only did we have an overwhelming amount of evidence it was faked, but could actually prove he was alive and well.

But then what? What do you do with someone who has done that?

The only answer that was palatable to us is that the person should be permanently excluded from the community.

It's taken the real death of another person to remind us that not everyone is like that and to restore a lot of the trust and faith in each other.

The damage a fake death does to a community is significantly more than the damage the person who faked it does to themselves. And you can be sure that the person who does it will lose a lot of friends forever and find it hard to find a place in which someone doesn't know someone that knows.

The world isn't a big enough place for someone to get away with this now, it's all interconnected.

So their physical death is faked, but they are effectively dead to the community because of the breach of trust.

But then what? What do you do with someone who has done that?

Report him to his local police? Collecting money on that basis is criminal fraud in lots of localities.

Otherwise, ugh, yeah, not much you can do besides serious shunning.

A bit pedantic...but I couldn't help but think, WTF is going on with the Epic Mafia's website? The article describes the troll as effortlessly hacking the site, including locking mods out of their own forum, and sending them emails with links that unban friends upon clicking. The smallest site operator can throw up a phpBB board without such issues...It sounds like Epic Mafia is running on a custom written app that is full of SQL injection vulnerabilities. I hope they've gotten them fixed up before trolls external to the community prey on them.

This is not to say that the troll is just some script kiddie. It sounds like he has some serious social engineering chops, besides programming experience. I'm guessing this is the fake newspaper website he made to post his own obit? http://www.sctribune.com

If you visit one of their fora (eg. https://epicmafia.com/forum/36) and open your browser's console, the message displayed indicates the kinds of troubles it sounds like those poor moderators have had to deal with (specifically addressing the "social engineering" part of your comment, I think).

From a quick look at the source, it seems like the forum pages have the same fairly minimal markup as the rest of the site, which is slightly indicative of its being a custom forum app rather than something battle-tested (but I could be completely wrong, of course).

Mafia/werewolf is one of those games that tends to get out of hand (Diplomacy is the other big one, at least for me). I played a few games online, but realised it was bad for me - whichever side I was, I thought about nothing else while the game was running. When I was hospitalized my thoughts weren't on my physical problem but on how I'd be letting my team down. Games are fun because they're games, they're supposed to remain circumscribed - when a game starts to take over your life, it's time to stop.

Diplomacy is the only game where I've deliberately toyed with an opponents mental state in order to win. I knew that a key backstab combined with some carefully worded global press would cause the player leading the opposing alliance to have a meltdown. I did it anyway. Best German victory game I've ever had.

It worked so well that he got despondent and stopped talking to anyone in the game. Within two phases my global victory was assured.

Diplomacy is the most absolutely fascinating game, but I have mellowed out some and stopped playing - some newer games also have great strategy without the time commitment and mentally/emotionally taxing gameplay.

Diplomacy was banned at my house because it always caused tears and angry outbursts, often within moments of the first set of orders being revealed, always before the third set, and I can't even remember a game going further than five moves.

The lesson I learned from this game: Don't play it with people you like.

Maybe that's why my experience was pretty boring. I played with a group of people I'd met specifically to play a game of Diplomacy, and their inevitable betrayals didn't hurt at all.

Colonial Diplomacy was a pretty good variant that had a much different vibe to it. Less anger and less negotiation. If Diplomacy is a careful rock climb, Colonial is the 100 yard dash.

My only hate when playing Diplomacy is running into people who are OK with group victories. Those people suck the fun out of the room and cause the most problems.

Given the time involved in playing out a live game I'm okay with 2-player victories.

Very frequently when everyone is off the board save 2 people it can be boring to play for 2 hours to figure out who the victor is.

I'm fine with it as a time saver, but I've run into one two many people who actually play for joint wins.

I run a werewolf bot on an IRC chat. The key to keeping it fun and not dramatic is to reduce the time duration of the game. We also have a forum dedicated to mafia which gets diabolical. But when people are on chat, it's all fun and games and our own inner jokes/memes. Nobody is /really/ pissed off.

I think one of my problems with all of this is that many communities allow people with unchecked mental illnesses to continue to manipulate and harass everyone around them.

I ran a meetup group with a few other co-organizers and it's amazing the amount of abuse people will take.

We had members that would come into the group, harass the rest of the members and continue with inappropriate behavior during our meetups.

We had one guy that would come in and basically corner any girl in the group and ask them out. During the meetup he looked like he wanted to hurt someone (he had angry looks on his face all the time), and wouldn't really talk to anyone or get to know the members.

After confronting the member, it continued. Since I was running the group with other people, I told them we needed to kick this guy out of the group. They outright refused. They felt that we shouldn't be exclusionary and that this would be 'mean'.

This guy eventually left when he was trying to get into an ivy league school and he sent us a blank entrance form and wanted us to fill it out for him. He sent us all angry emails and never came back.

I left the group shortly after this because I couldn't be part of a group that didn't protect its members.

More communities need to kick people out for inappropriate and harmful behavior.

I've heard that this is somewhat common in nerdy communities, or at least common enough that someone felt moved to write about "geek social fallacies": http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

It's not really common in nerdy communities as such, just mostly those somewhere between the mainstream and the incredibly niche. There's an interesting TV Tropes write up on that here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackas...

That article would be better if it removed all the "geek" spam. It isn't a "geek" phenomenon.

I run a nerdy community. #1 and #2 are so impossibly ingrained in my users that this was both painful and cathartic to read. The only "potential fix" the author has is for people to read this and recognize the signs, but #2 prevents me from telling anyone there about it sigh

What are these people supposed to do? Your solutions sounds like certain cities solution to the homeless problem...kick them out of the city. I'm pround of the other members of your group. The mentally ill and socially inept should be shown kindness and we should lead by example. Not just kick everyone out that makes us uncomfortable.

I have the opposite reaction. That group sounds like one where women aren't safe. It's important to show abusive people that their behavior won't be tolerated in the spaces they want to occupy. No consequences = no change.

That group sounds like a place where I wouldn't feel safe, or particularly welcomed.

The "homeless" analogy fails, because the Meetup isn't a city; it's an optional event run by volunteers. They don't owe a particular asshole membership, and they harmed the very group by allowing him to stay.

If we do want to try to stretch the analogy, with the meetup-as-a-social-gathering being our city, then the asshole was breaking one of the city's ordinances - a social rule of not being an asshole who harasses others. Homeless and homeful alike would be arrested and fined, or put in jail, if they flung bricks through the windows; someone who's breaking social norms and making others feel unsafe ought to be expelled from the group.

The question is, do you completely ostracize the immature and potentially abusive people or do you socially shame them but offer them a legitimate path to being able to be in a group? Geek groups are frequently the last resort socially - its way down on the social ladder (at least when I was growing up) and people frequently are way behind on both social skills and tact. As such, they end up being a catch-all, and the last place that they can go to grow without completely removing themselves from society. Should that mean that people should feel safe? Of course - thats why you meet in public, and have other people around.

Not defending this person, of course - just offering a wider perspective. I'd certainly pull this person aside frequently - if the group allowed for it constantly rather than shaming the person then I'd immediately look to leave the (now toxic) group if I couldn't convince them of the danger.

It sounds more like the group in this case had a "hands off" approach. If they talked with the individual, gave him chances to change behaviour, which he did not do, and then cut him loose that's one thing. Ignoring his bad behaviour, and just asking like if you stick your head in the ground for long enough it will go away isn't useful to anybody.

There is a line somewhere between 'this person makes me uncomfortable' and 'this person is a real threat to my/our safety.' We should always show kindness, but we also need to protect ourselves and people we care about. It's a tricky balance, for sure - but I don't think we can say that we must always tolerate everyone being a part of any group regardless of their behavior.

I think the difference is whether the problematic behavior is actively engaged in, or passively. Being uncomfortable by being in proximity to a homeless person is your problem, as that is a passive state of theirs, but being uncomfortable with a homeless person that confronts you about how you have money and they don't is their problem, as they are actively causing the situation.

As communities we deal with situations like this all the time. That's why we put criminals into jail, for forcibly separate them from the community at large (the nation) because they are actively causing problems (and to punish them), and it's not feasible to exile them anymore.

Let's keep going with this analogy. A city has some set of just laws - assault, for example: you can't just run up to strangers and scream at them and make them feel unsafe.

A meetup is a social event, and as such it has social rules, which are the equivalent of laws here. Making people feel unsafe and being an asshole is breaking those social rules.

A city can fine people or put them in jail; a meetup can forbid people from attending.

One key problem with this analogy is that everyone has to live somewhere, even the homeless. But not everyone needs to go to a special interest meetup. The organizers of the meetup didn't owe more to this one asshole than they did to the group, yet they made the entire group pay the cost of interacting with him.

What is an 'unchecked mental illness'? Are you a Doctor?

If the member's behavior was so inappropriate, why did everyone else refuse to not associate with this person?

I find this believable. Having real empathy demands strength of character; it requires putting yourself in the shoes of a victim and feeling what it's like to be shat on. If you do it, and still find their suffering to be overblown, then that's your call to make. Most seem not to however: most will simply call an act of cruelty "awfully insensitive" or "woefully misguided" or some light phrase until it happens to them.

Good on you for leaving those weak-minded people behind.

Very fascinating story to me, especially regarding the behavior being face-to-face, so I'm grateful you shared. I'm behind in getting my tail in gear, but I do have a personal essay in the works refelecting on my experiences with un-moderated vs. moderated forums and comment platforms. I've witnessed some pretty clear social behaviors (e.g. forming cliques, 'groupthink' habits) which seem to vary by the platform and moderation level. A dynamic exists, in my opinion, that can turn a community into a cesspool.

> I left the group shortly after this because I couldn't be part of a group that didn't protect its members.

Interesting. I've left groups that aggressively "protect" members, particularly those who do so even in online interactions. I find the aggressive protection detracts from honest and blunt communication or debate, I've seen people who basically think any remotely conservative opinion is rooted in misogyny or racism and should be immediately dismissed. It's something to weigh certainly, have to find the right balance appropriate for the group.

I left Wikipedia because of the user Giano. Whilst he is good at writing articles (but consistently violates NPOV), he is a bully that has somehow managed to remain on the Wiki.

"In real life, ..."

"His real life and his virtual life were completely separate."

I think we need to stop validating the delusion that the activities one engages in online are somehow not part of "real life".

This is certainly correct vis-à-vis the real implications, but usually not the behavioral tendencies. In a way most "virtual lives" seem more similar to the real life of actors and public figures, i.e. persona-oriented.

Its certainly more experimental. Thats what you lose when privacy goes away.

Despite the name, "real" and "virtual" here are actually communicating something. What would be a better name?

Offline and online are the terms I (try) to use when referring to "real life" and "online" for similar reasons: online is still "real life".

I say (try) because hold habits die hard and an occasional "real life" slips in here or there.

I've moderated forums before. Small ones, nothing like the scale of Epic Mafia, but there was still drama, there were real friendships, and there were trolls.

Fuck this guy.

Even in "death", trying to do something he thought might be helpful, he ended up hurting a lot of people. I have no sympathy for him.

The article mentioned that he talked about getting into therapy, but I had a hard time understanding whether the depression was something he actually battled with, or if it was just part of his persona; regardless, I hope he gets into therapy and knocks this kind of shit the fuck off, lest he die friendless and alone. I don't hope for this so that he can live a full and happy life; I hope for this so nobody else gets harassed and doxxed.

Aww, come on. That idea that therapy is not going to help anything and ridiculing the therapist is absolute bog standard behavior of depressed persons - I'd go as far as saying it is part of being depressed.

Sure, but Eris lied about anything and everything. Pretending to be depressed and suicidal is probably the easiest way to get sympathy, which is cruel not only because you're an asshole for lying about being depressed, but also because it casts doubt on people who are actually suffering from depression as well.

I wonder how much of what Eris told the author was verified. Is he actually going to church? Does he actually have a Pennsylvania girlfriend?

>His real life and his virtual life were completely separate.

Whoa, whoa, whoa - that's maybe something a person like Eris would say, as some kind of defense, but even after faking suicide, getting a fresh start, and going back? No, they're not separate. That's an addiction[1].

This whole story reads like a functioning heroin addict who finally can't hold it all together anymore. I completely understand there's a great deal of trauma and history to acknowledge - depression and physiological issues are not minor things to be brushed aside in discussion. Context does matter.

All that noted, what a selfish way to go through life. What a perfect example of lessons to teach young people about interactions online, in that shared community values (morals? ethics?) aren't baked into the online experience - in fact, quite the opposite. The freedom can be abused, and having some personal buffer zones is important, otherwise a person will end up lying to themselves and others like Eris, saying that they have a real life, which is just one of the many lies they will tell to make themselves feel better.

[1] Speaking from experience in online gaming community multiplayer Half-Life, which was a significant social outlet in conjuntion with the GamersX and eventual stand-alone [R]age Board for Elites. A lot of this story is familiar, both good and bad memories. RIP Neo Babson Maximus.

Some people just like it. It's not an addiction, there's no "reason", it's just fun to be a dick online. Why does nobody ever think of this? There always has to be some sort of grand underlying psychological reason.

You're reaching much too deep into it, even comparing it to Heroine addiction. Just, wow.

As noted I was basing some things on personal experience and observations, so while he might "just like" being a dick online there's this thing called biology which can influence why we like the things we like.

>You're reaching much too deep into it, even comparing it to Heroine addiction. Just, wow.

If you're going to talk down at me, at least spell heroin right or don't bother. I'm already familiar with the Greater Internet F-Wad Theory.

"it's just fun to be a dick online."

Because someone who would go to those lengths to just 'be a dick online' has an underlying psychological problem. They get off on it, and it's not something a healthy society should want to continue.

At what point does that behavior become escapism, especially given that these actions took place on a forum for a game where you're very explicitly allowed to be trollish?

I would contend that:

(a) everyone universally fantasizes about nonconformity at one time or another (go ahead, disagree),

(b) almost everyone has too much of a stake in their life to actually follow through on it, so they bottle it up,

(d) those who troll like this have found their hobby that works for them and are actually more psychologically healthy than those who have not.

Just a theory. I've known some trolls who are easily among the smartest, sanest people in the world, and who are totally normal in all other aspects of their lives. Some are dear friends. This activity has been described in these terms by more than one of them. Countercultural behavior is practically a rhythm throughout history, and trolling is the Internet's counterculture, which can be mean because of anonymity. Some people go too far with it, yes. Some people go too far with anything, though.

My point is be careful ascribing psychological illness to something you do not understand. That is crazy. Trolls don't care what you think. If you and many others respond by calling them crazy, what are you really saying? Think about it. Appealing to a good and decent society that ought to do something about this menace is pretty strange, too.

I have trolled before. I'm not good at it, but I have. I can vouch for the positive feeling it produces and I've come to terms with what that means about me and my self. This is the thesis of numerous psychological works as well as, say, Fight Club (it's uncanny how well that story fits the big points I hit on, including taking it too far and plurality of self, and I don't think anyone disagrees that Palahniuk was onto something).

>Trolls don't care what you think.

False. Trolls derive joy from the grief of others that they have inflicted. That's what trolling is. See also: Sadism

Being a 'Contrarian' is different than trolling, but that takes some mental work to see how it can be constructive rather than simply a knee-jerk habit to elicit a negative response.

>False. Trolls derive joy from the grief of others that they have inflicted. That's what trolling is. See also: Sadism

You are trying to frame something fundamentally illogical, logically. Trolling just is. It's narcissism at its peak.

Trolling is the opposite of charisma. It's making your point in an extremely childish and negative way instead of educating someone on something and getting them to see your point of view. It's step 1 of persuasion, except most people have moved past this phase subconsciously (as in obviously name calling and acting like a baby won't get you what you want) and those who haven't, are branded as trolls.

I meant they don't care about your opinion of them personally; otherwise, you are mostly correct.

Given the options "enjoys being a dick online" and "enjoys being a dick online AND has a mental illness", the first is more likely.

I think you're missing the point. If someone gets off on being a dick to other people in any context, whether it's online or in person, then that person has a psychological problem. They are under the impression that what they do online is not connected with "real life", and they enjoy being a dick to other people. Both of those things are very negative qualities for a kid to have (although not uncommon, because kids), but if someone still has both of those qualities as an adult then yes, it is absolutely a symptom of a psychological problem.

Trolls are vandals. They subtract value from the community. They are worse than useless.

I am mentally ill and have to stay away from some forums. They are not moderated and when someone finds out I am mentally ill they call me names and troll me. I would try to report the abuse and nothing is done. I would try and troll back. It is very unhealthy and these sort of environments just socially conduction people into becoming trolls.

Hacker News is different were the users mod posts and comments and flag them for administrators that do a good job at moderating. I don't have the same problems here that I have on other sites.

If someone is being a troll a dick or a jerk, moderate their comments and posts, and let them know why you are moderating them. Ban then if you have to.

It felt a bit surreal reading that, and reading the comments here. I know that many of us seem to spend more and more of our time seeking validation online (a state of mind I already struggle to understand), but this is a lot darker than I'd imagined.

Speaking of dark, I see this story as somewhere in the middle.

Here's the dynamic: There's the 'feel good' stuff of raising money for good causes or getting people to send letters to a sick child - all of which takes online validation to spread - and then there's the 'dark side' where those who are vulnerable and seeking validation online can be exploited and driven to suicide. A Mother-bullying-neighbor-girl case comes to mind, and I don't think it'll be the last.

It's not a new phenomenon to be seeking attention - that's pretty much hard-wired in some people's composition - but the online dynamic (+ influences by Kardashian-esque mentalities of fame uber alles) has added a new wrinkle to figuring out how to deal with such compulsions.

This was a lot more interesting and than I thought it would be. I never thought I'd see such a romantic story about a forum troll... Seems like most people involved are now in a better place than before. Good for them.

EM doesn't really sound like a place for unhealthy, depressed people. Yet most of the characters in the article all seem to have psychological issues themselves, including the main character, Eris.

I feel like I just watched a whole movie

Better than a movie. Its not a remake, reboot, sequel, or formula. A startup should be able to disrupt Hollywood. There are stories out there.

The author needs an editor, and an agent.

Yeah but in my version of the story Eris dies at the end.

Too predictable, too morality fable. Better off with the truth.

Nope, audiences expect a certain level of payoff and just when it seems like he's in the clear, like things have turned around and they can maybe sympathise with him, BAM.

I've seen quite a few cases like this online, where people on various forums have faked their own death. Sometimes it's for attention (someone literally faked that they were dying of cancer to get people to make Youtube videos of a game they were working on), sometimes it's just wanting to leave the community (someone else faked their death in a car accident to stop working on a project that others were pressuring them about).

Either way, the linked article was an interesting read. Least partly cause it felt like watching a documentary with the wildlife or civilisation replaced by forum/online game goers.

Really interesting, but a lot of grammar errors and runwithfire gets doxxed by the author within the article. Don't papers have editors anymore?

You might want to do a search for the term 'The Grauniad'.

Ha, that's pretty awesome. Still going strong.

My main issue with the article is that despite only using pseudonyms, the author easily revealed the real life name of one of the individuals by quoting her Twitter account.

Maybe the author doesn't understand technology, but this shouldn't have slipped by editing. Which really leads me to believe there was none.

pero non vero pero bene trovare

EDIT : Ho! The comments seems to say the guy really existed.

Btw; should I tell the author that Eris means the goddess of discordia (misunderstanding that becomes conflict) and not of chaos. Which make the choice of the pseudonym even more interesting ... for a troll. I would have chosen Hermes (god of the pranks, liers, merchants, ambassadors, thieves, crossroads, boxing, and messengers).

And that is brother Ares is the god of war // dreadful conflicts (he is re-used as the leader of the knights of the apocalypse in the bible).

So bad St John never took the time to be versed enough in greek mythology to know that the goddess of intelligence always win vs Ares/Ires.

I sometimes think the christians/jews/muslims lacks something compared to the greek civilisation when it comes to dealing with our fears.

The article was well-written and gave me the feeling that I traipsed all over the various subjects' lives. As someone who has done his fair share of what I feel to be innocuous trolling, I'm glad I've grown up.

I can appreciate the skill involved in faking his suicide. Kind of a dick move, though. I've had someone threaten to kill himself before; that one was a bit more selfish, as he was pretty clearly trying to guilt me into staying in a relationship with him, but I digress.

I don't know what to feel about this story.

I have to say this article was quite well-written. I couldn't stop reading, even though I really wanted to.

That stuff happens in every community, but it's particularly present in communities with high occurrences of mental health problems. That's why you don't trust unconfirmed information. I cannot take it seriously anymore when people 'die'.

The Boy Who Cried Suicide?

So did he actually die or not? The article was somewhat unclear.

It was crystal clear. He faked his suicide. He's a massive jerk.

Sincerely, it was kind of funny, specially taking into account the dark mood that sets in in the beginning of the article.

It probably wasn't very funny to most of the people who thought their good friend had died, especially those who've dealt with actual suicide in their lives.

The article was entirely clear - he did not die, he faked his own suicide.

I'm on my phone so it wasn't easy for me to see that.

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