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Comment by KaiserPro | Hacker News Reader

Sigh The Trolls have been with the internet from the start. I would say that actually they are mostly contained (why? because its really fucking difficult to be anonymous. Plus you are more than likely to be prosecuted for whatever you've done)

So whats changed? more people are on platforms like twitter, and seem to think that fake internet points are real.

The vast majority of "trolling" is pretty low grade "die", "sexual slur", "lol rape", "exploitation of personal detail that you've shared" Thats not trolling, thats people just being arseholes.

They are anonymous people, they have no impact on your life, ignore them.

edit I should point out that yes swatting and doxxing still happens, and the impact is massive. but it is still rare.

The advantage of a twitter profile is you can delete it, and start again. I wish I could have done that in real life. It would have helped me escape the daily torment of my bullies at high school.

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On the contrary... these trolls have SWATted, stalked, ddos'd, called, doxxed, and harassed normal people.

They've spammed business, social media accounts, email...

For some people the impact on their life is very real.

I can't use my name publicly on the internet because of trolls. This impacts my life in a huge way.

Yes, I should have made that clear.

you were trolled, and it is clearly devastating. What most people think of trolling is just someone shouting WANKER at the screen.

I hate this attitude of "blame everything on the trolls". You can't use your real name on the internet because using your real name on the internet is basically asking for trouble. You have to defend yourself in the same way you have to look at ads and read media critically and don't believe everything someone says on the phone or in the mail. It's really nothing new, it's just on the internet this time. Scamming and spectacle has always been a good play.

People are simply not trustworthy, especially in large numbers, the internet just provides more exposure, so "don't be dumb" applies even more. Defending yourself is simply part of living in society.

You say:

> People are simply not trustworthy, ...

In my experience the vast majority of people are trustworthy. The problem is that the tiny minority of people who are not trustworthy are winning the internet because they have time, and shout loudly. More, some of them do obnoxious and potentially dangerous things.

That's why people get upset - because it is a tiny minority that spoil the whole thing. If only we could stop that tiny minority ...

> In my experience the vast majority of people are trustworthy.

Sure, but in quantity there will always be some people - even some of those normal, trustworthy people who feel particularly strongly about something and decide to go on the offensive.

There's nothing you can do about that, that "tiny minority" of abusers will always exist in any given situation involving enough people. Ignoring this effect is stupid. Trying to counter it is a waste of time and potentially harmful to speech. Defending yourself is the cheapest option, just do it. Tell other people how to do it.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I'm beginning to feel like the trolls are smarter than the people who whine about trolling in this day and age - they're able to defend themselves better at least.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but citing your experience with people is equivalent to trolling. Your anecdotal evidence doesn't agree with what's been studied in Behavioral Economics.

The problem is not that a tiny minority are untrustworthy; the problem is that a large majority lie (a little bit) often and by nature.

I think this actually explains a lot of what's considered "trolling" when it comes to political topics.

Many individuals stretching the truth for their side just a little bit adds up to a warped picture in total and gets blamed as if it's a goal.

> ... citing your experience with people is equivalent to trolling.

That's an interesting point of view - thank you for sharing it. I will think hard on what you say.

I had to take down the website for my business and can only accept brick & mortar transactions because of trolls... but sure I guess you can win at your commenting game by claiming everything is shit.

I've been running a business with multiple locations for 10 years and I've never had a problem more serious than trolls on the internet doxxing me.

See, this is the problem. Don't blame it on "trolls", analyze where you screwed up and how you could have defended yourself better so you know what to do next time. Then open up shop under a different alias.

If you're not vigilant about your own security and safety, no one else will do it for you. Take responsibility for your own actions.

Someone literally came to my house, where I live.

Why was that information available on the internet?

That's the kind of risk you take if you make that kind of information available on the internet. Think of all the possible things someone could do with your address and assume those will be done. That's the type of precaution you should be taking.

It is pretty hard to operate a business and not have this information be available for a sufficiently interested person.

I do it myself. It's completely possible.

Get a PO box or pay a corporate privacy company to forward your mail.

Depends how you operate though I suppose. Unless you're running a physical business from your house you probably don't need to disclose.

Doxxing a business owner is generally very straightforward even if they take careful steps to hide their identity - there's a huge paper trail behind any real business.

If you think you can't be doxxed, you're probably just lucky.

My city publicly lists assessing information if you own property. Many do.

Why are you so set on blaming me for this? Do you want copies of restraining orders I had to file on the two people who came to my house?

When do you think someone should start being responsible for behaving dangerously?

Why were you selected over any other business owner? Just seems odd you would be selected at random and then two different people would make an effort to drive out to your house "for the lols".

Sorry, if I go into details it'll be pretty obvious who I am. My entire point is that internet trolls aren't just some sort of harmless fun for a lot of people.

> My city publicly lists assessing information if you own property. Many do.

People tend not to just browse city property listings for fun.

So why were they able to get to that stage - did they have your name? Why? What did you do to piss them off? Could you have done it anonymously?

What did they want?

This is pretty egregious victim-blaming. If someone is getting abused it is the fault of the abuser and no one else.

You're as much a victim here as someone who downloads a tiny executable off a filesharing network and thinks it's the latest movie or game. Or falls for a Nigerian scam. These are accepted facts of the internet. We defend against them. Just as much as publishing your address or information which can be associated to it should be.

Precautions are important. You can never rid the world of evil, but you can protect yourself from it, especially trivially in this case.

We made Nigerian scams illegal. We defend against them partly by prosecuting them. We work hard to reduce the frequency and the impact of them. But you're not saying that we should do any of that for trolls. I don't accept that trolling is just something that necessarily happens and that we need to accept. We can hold trolls accountable and work to reduce trolling overall.

> We made Nigerian scams illegal. We defend against them partly by prosecuting them. We work hard to reduce the frequency and the impact of them.

And guess what? They still happen. We already have the laws to attack the kind of "troll" that shows up at your door in many cases - but guess what? It still happens. Ultimately the law only gets you so far. So we must defend against them in more effective ways - like individual knowledge.

It's a lot easier and more effective to guarantee safety with online matters when you behave safely online than when you start taking risks and expect the law, the website or whatever else to deal with the consequences. That's just wishfully naive thinking.

Yes, in an absolute sense, all harm should be blamed on the abuser, I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But the prevention potential is so much higher if you can attack it at it's destination than at its source - like using a firewall on your server instead of just saying "hacking is illegal, therefore no one will hack me".

I tell my kid not to run in the street for a reason. On the Internet, you can run in the street all day, and if someone hits you, it's not your fault because "victim blaming is wrong".

Yeah, its one thing to say victim blaming about something that's difficult or expensive (monetarily, freedom or time) - it's quite another to use it to discourage individual defense.

There are people who simply cannot effectively defend themselves.

They don't have the knowledge. They're visually disabled. They've got cognitive decline, for whatever reasons.

And the scams and attacks keep coming.

Generally not trolls, so much, though that can be a thing as well.

I'm not completely against there being some wild corners of the Internet (though you might want to take a look at some of danah boyd's recent writing on 4chan and /b/, and what grew from them, and why, and how), but there's a rather large part of it that really has no business being like that.

People get hurt. Money and life savings are lost.

Not everyone's a street-wise, healthy and hale 24 year old.

Then you buffer them. You limit input and output to trusted family, friends and support staff.

Try that some time and tell me how it goes.

Yeah, I get that.

But damn, if you could later change permissions, and then they would forget, that would reduce your risk. It could get confusing, however.

Well, I can't use my name publicly on the internet either, because I enjoy trolling too much.

I'd say it has a pretty profound impact on your life: share personal information online, get 'trolled', and then watch that encounter become permanently associated with your name.

I could have explained it better, but what people call trolling, and actual trolling are two different things.

Apparently posting a link in reply to someone is now "trolling"

> So whats changed?

Eternal September ? As access got more and more widespread, the average savviness of new entrants lowered and they became more and more susceptible to the permanent trolling ? In turn, the new entrants have a bigger voice outside of the internet, and their parole is taken with more value than those who roamed it from the beginning, unmoved by the usual trolling ?

I'm sorry, but this "ignore the trolls" meme has been proven wrong time and again these past few years. It's not a solution.

Ignore trolls work when they are motivated by attention. It does not work when they hate your guts and seek to harm you however they can.

That is like saying "just igore bullies" to bullied kid. It does not work.

I'm going to get specific here.

I'm not talking about a bullying campaign that's branched out into the digital world, that is what I would class as actual trolling.

I run a blog that talks about the specifics of labour law. A number of posts resonated with a profession that was going through a tough time. As time drew on, what was professional unity devolved into infighting along two lines: accept a new contract, or not and carry on industrial action.

I advocated the new contract. It was the best offer(in my opinion), went from salary with a paycut and increased hours, to effectively an hourly rate with punitive overtime pay(for the employer)

Now, This is where I supposedly got trolled. I was innundated with comments saying that I had "betrayed an entire profession", "I couldn't add up", "I'd never worked as X what the fuck did I know"

In my posts I swear a lot. Instantly I went from an amusing post with some political points that "really hit the man" to "a dirty troll who's foul language betrays a profession"

I just expressed an opinion.

People engaged with me, and I them on twitter. When I didn't change my opinion, I was a troll. When I used high quality sources, I was a shill.

Unless someone doxxes you, (either in public press, or 4chan) you can just turn it off. Twitter/facebook/email can all be erased.

You do not have to respond. They want a response, to re-enforce their own opinion.

"Twitter/facebook/email can all be erased."

That can mean professional or social isolation for quite a lot of people - or at least disadvantage. The moment your blog, github account, facebook account or twitters matters for employers, peers, business, conferences you would like talk at or negotiations is the moment when walking away affects you.

That's a little exaggerated I think. I don't have a blog, an active GitHub account, and don't use Facebook or Twitter at all. Yet, by some miracle, I have a robust social life and am gainfully employed. I think people overstate the importance of these services (most of which, by the way, did not even exist 15 years ago). I choose to post here but could stop tomorrow and it would have zero effect on my personal or professional life.

B-b-but how will I growth hack my way to a 4-hour-workweek selling ebooks about how to growth hack, without constant, obnoxious self promotion under my real name on all corners of the Web?! God's sake, I can't possibly be a thought leader anonymously! You savage.

What you just describes is normal capitalist economy. People selling and promoting stuff. If that person is able to make a living with just 4 hours a week work like that, they are pretty skilled. Are you saying it is ok to harass them out of that business just because you are jealous?

It is nice example of someone who would be really harmed by leaving.

No, I'm saying there's an inherent conflict between those for whom the "No One Can Tell You're a Dog" Internet is and should be how things work, and those for whom making money under their real name by polluting it with garbage is part of how they do business or build their ridiculous "personal brand" or whatever. For the former, the latter complaining that they're being harassed because they plastered their real world details on every virtual surface they could find comes off as 1) n00btastic and/or 2) entitled whining, and the continued pushes for increased real-name use and harsh moderation from that corner (and the continued intrusion of commercial activity, especially ads and the OMG-we-actually-live-in-a-sci-fi-dystopia spy economy but also marketing trash masquerading as content) represent attacks on the quality and freedom of the Internet.

Just because people get to run around filling the real world with junk to make a buck doesn't mean they're entitled to feel welcome everywhere they might want to do that, or that they can expect to be given a pass on common sense or the norms of the media they seek to degrade. They can console themselves with the fact that they're almost certainly going to win in the long run, I guess, since money always does.

That said: yeah, prosecute actual harassment when possible. "NEVER POST YOUR REAL WOLD DETAILS PUBLICLY ON THE INTERNET" remains and should (but won't) remain excellent advice, however, and I wish more people would follow it, and if they've chosen to ignore it to make money I wish they'd quit trying to make everything worse rather than saying "oh, gee, I ignored that and bad things happened, I guess I should stop ignoring that" (but they won't, because money).

Congrats. And everyone else is expected to be exactly like you and have nice real world community and job that does not involve real identity on the Internet. Gotcha.

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