Free speech / trolling
This article in the New York Times magazine is just…. gobsmacking. Its the kind of journalism I love the newspaper for. Having managed internet communities for nearly a decade now, I know a bit about getting used to trolling. But some of these whackos are just, well, whacko. Anyway, the writer posts a question half-way through:
Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle”? Is the effort to control what’s said always a form of censorship, or might certain rules be compatible with our notions of free speech?
One promising answer comes from the computer scientist Jon Postel, now known as “god of the Internet” for the influence he exercised over the emerging network. In 1981, he formulated what’s known as Postel’s Law: “Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others.”
Discuss. Don’t troll, though.
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Interesting, I like his motto. That’s pretty much how I try to operate.
And I think it sounds a bit like Disraeli
“I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad”
trolling and ad hom posts are one thing, but when you censor posts that are simply point out inconsistencies on your blogs all it proves is that you have a classic itchy left trigger finger…
I feel so naive, I mean obviously I knew there were people who trolled as a hobby; I didn’t realise there were people whose actual life was devoted to it – people for whom things like sleeping, or having dinner, or going on holiday, were an unwanted distraction from their true vocation of trolling. Beloved HP troll Flanker did bother to troll HP on holiday in Argentina; when I was on holiday in Cannes recently it really never occurred to me to argue with people on the internet.
Y’all stink!
ha ha its very amusing. sounds like most political journalism must be trolling then , as well as politics as we know it.
‘Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it?’
I’d say: yes and no, as usual it depends on the type of speech, and the intentions behind it, doesn’t it?
The trolls featured in the article are very complex characters indeed, my immediate thought was ‘Jesus/Socrates crossed with a psychopath.’
I think that Fortuny fella has a definite point. Trolls are (on the whole) immature attention-seekers endowed with IT skills (or just the ability to type), as far as I’m concerned.
I’m glad you brought this up, I have thought about this a lot over the years. When I started discussing all this in US Republicanland it was definitely “trolling” and it was great fun. Between two of us we wound one guy up so much he deleted his blog, but he was calling his blog “Jenjus Khans Atrocity Committing Death Machine” so he deserved it.
When I moved on to another blog (Rightwingsparkle) I had very clear alternatives, be rude and get banned or try and engage, and see what happened. I am very glad that I chose the later. I haven’t “got through” or solved anything or even won anyone round to my way of thinking (yet) but I have made some genuine friends on “the other side” and found that we aren’t that different, which didn’t surprise me at all. I think in a time when people are blowing up random strangers for what they believe it is always good to talk, if you can and we can, so we should.
If what we fear about the unsustainability of all this is true, and I fear that it is, these sort of cross boundary friendships could become very important.
davebones,
On a very right wing US site, I asked whether the US was essentially, the ’cause of all evil’. I left a conclusion out, though posing the question was enough.
Well, you’d never have seen a more split discussion. The first hundred posts attacked me and the next hundred thought otherwise. I am simplifying.
The point is that attacking a dearly held belief, that, for instance the US is a perfect society worthy of applying it’s model to the world at large is, in fact naive, stupid and downright wrong. This is not a world view that they seemed to share. It will indeed, bring the more rabid nutcases down on you. If you can survive that, then there are more sensible voices within the US community.
I expect I was trolling, when I wrote that post. But it was an interesting exercise..
I’d have thought any direct challenge to a preciously held consensus was trolling? “Knitting is wrong” on “Knitters Weekly”, is trolling, I’d have thought.
Off topic a bit, I agree with you that friendships across geography and politics are likely to be hell of an important. That is glue.
Incidentally, I left that site with more friends than enemies. ‘Cause, you do tend to engage on a personal, as opposed to a political level, after a while.
Oh,
Davebones,
That was also an education for me. I try, very hard, not to do that sort of thing anymore.
Although, there is still that wee devil in me.
I try to reserve it for agenda driven lunatics, these days. Is that trolling?
Perhaps it is.
I don’t have the energy to troll. I really don’t. And I also don’t get why so many right-wingers like to spend time on left-wing sites rather than vica versa. I read right-wing sites to see their discussions and debates, but see little point in commenting. Apart from the occasional insult. Terrible, I know.
Between two of us we wound one guy up so much he deleted his blog, but he was calling his blog “Jenjus Khans Atrocity Committing Death Machine” so he deserved it.
heh
I find it boring to be surrounded by people who agree with me. I find little education in it. Whilst Sunny et al surely consider me a ‘troll’ and would rather I didn’t post here, I do not see myself as such (heh, perhaps this is always the case within the trolling community)
this was the final straw.
you are right though it is probably mostly pointless. I would love to make a film about grass roots republicans one day though. I am the same as Marvin though. I actually don’t like the organizational side of “left wing” politics. I haven’t had good experiences with them. I can’t fit people into neat categories of for and against either. I think simplifications of this kind drive us apart as a species. They are also just too obvious for me, I like to see what is underneath.
like Douglas says, you tend to engage on a personal level after a while. I like that about humans. I have noticed it between Policemen and protesters over the years on mayday at and the old reclaim the streets stuff.
You can be a bit annoying Marvin sometimes, but I don’t see you as a troll. I do have quite a thick skin with most stuff.