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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.

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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.

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.

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