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Huh, interesting to see a lot of people here coming out as apparently pro-troll. Or at least troll-neutral. There are a lot of problems with certain modes of d

Huh, interesting to see a lot of people here coming out as apparently pro-troll. Or at least troll-neutral. There are a lot of problems with certain modes of discourse in the US, but is anyone here willing to argue that trolling has possibly positive transformative benefits, similar to political satire? If so, I'd like to see that argument made coherently, as I have yet to hear it. If not, then any "victim-blaming" really should be called out as at least a red herring. IMHO, "political correctness" is not the problem, it is a symptom. Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities.

lutusp 10y ago
> Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Easy to flag as a problem in a world with so much blatant inequality. But a system designed to erase inequality would only have the effect of amplifying small differences, and most people would seek victim status -- just as they do now.
Mikeb85 10y ago
Trolling absolutely can be a form of satire, and has existed far longer than the internet. While there are trolls who do it simply to spark anger or get attention, some do it to point out the absurdity of an argument. > IMHO, "political correctness" is not the problem, it is a symptom. The problem is that society is becoming increasingly stratified, and large swaths of it don't accept differences of opinion. > Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. I'd say it's the opposite. If anything, it points out the deep hypocrisy among certain groups to accept different opinions. When I think of trolls that exist outside the internet, I think of something like Charlie Hebdo, which satirizes a subject in a rather extreme way that's meant to provoke. Or a public figure like Milo Yiannopolous, or even Kanye West.
- samirillian 10y ago
  > The problem is that society is becoming increasingly stratified, and large swaths of it don't accept differences of opinion This sentence started so well! This fixation on opinion is really strange to me. There are real, "stratified" power differentials in our country that have nothing to do with opinions. Radical Islam was not created by people talking nice about their Syrian neighbors. But plenty of people have been killed by nutty trolls inciting nuttier Muslims to violence. IMO stratification of opinion is always well downstream of the stratification of something more elemental: ethnicity, sex, mode of production, etc.
brudgers 10y ago
a lot of people here coming out as apparently pro-troll is anyone here willing to argue any "victim-blaming" really should be called out "political correctness" is not the problem, it is a symptom the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities Trolling is in the eye of the beholder.
- breatheoften 10y ago
  This is logically false -- it implies that no action, even deliberately undertaken can be called trolling -- which is just a ridiculous fluff claim. It's akin to saying "you can't talk about beauty because it doesn't exist". At the very least, we can objectively define trolling when both the poster and at least one responder think a post is trolling. Reality actually allows far less strict definitions and there is nothing at all that prevents real empirical analysis to be performed on those concepts. Your narrow logic is without merit and carries no ability to advance any communication on the topic at all.
  - khedoros1 10y ago
    > This is logically false -- it implies that no action, even deliberately undertaken can be called trolling I took it more as an expression of something like Poe's Law. If someone says something inflammatory, is it a troll, or is it an honest expression of opinion? You can theorize about the author's mental state, but you can't know what they're thinking. Without extra information, the difference rests in the reader's perception.
    - breatheoften 10y ago
      With respect to any particular objective definition of trolling, there may exist perfect snowflake comments that are not trolling but are identified as such by the definition. There exist plenty of definitions that can be imagined which make the above snowflakes very rare in practice. If the beholder argument is that the existence of a single such snowflake invalidates the possibility that useful objectivity can be used to study the concept of trolling -- then the claim is ludicrous. We can study the notion of trolling without getting every single label right every time.
rconti 10y ago
Nope, not willing to argue that. Trolling is purely destructive in the way that vandalism is; in a way that theft is not. I view it as the lowest form of humanity.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  Because no graffiti/vandalism has ever been social commentary, or employed by 'positive' movements.
- ythn 10y ago
  Trolling is purely destructive? How about playing devil's advocate? Is that purely destructive?
  - grzm 10y ago
    You can assume the role of devil's advocate in good faith, with the aim of moving a discussion forward.
ythn 10y ago
I think political correctness is not a symptom of anything; rather, it's a calculated effort to control language and shape ideals. If you can control the way people talk about things, you can also shape the way they come to think about the things they are talking about. Just look at LGBT scene. In 2003 it was culturally acceptable to ostracize/demonize the LGBT crowd. You could use the word "gay" anytime you wanted in reference to anything ("this pencil is so gay... it keeps breaking") or "fag" if you got annoyed with your friend. Enter massive PC effort where "gay" and "fag" are now pushed into taboo area and you have to use PC terms in reference to LGBT people. 10 years later, mission accomplished, people now think that it's okay to be LGBT simply because you made it taboo to say offensive LGBT slurs. The problem is that PC is basically censorship-lite and can be weaponized to fit all sorts of agendas, good and bad.
transient5648 10y ago
> Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Do have to bring that into everything? Online trolling is hardly about inequalities if you can manage minimal information hygiene. The authors analyzed CNN comments which I assume have no realname requirement [I don't actually see any comment section on their page]. Which means you can act with out much identity-signalling at all. Only when people choose to bring their real-life identity to the table others can bring discrimination into the game. If they don't then "trolling" is just a range of non-constructive or self-serving behaviors that may serve as amusement to some parties while bothering others. It's not like it is unfairly targeting any particular group, because anyone can be a troll and anyone can be a victim. > anyone here willing to argue that trolling has possibly positive transformative benefits, similar to political satire? Trolling and satire seem closely related to me. If the target does take it seriously and is mislead by the satire performer then it is both at the same time. https://i.imgur.com/eivlSBa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eivlSBa.jpg
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Trolling needn't have anything to do with any of those subjects. It has, however, become associated with them, as trolling is inherently anti-PC.
- transient5648 10y ago
  > trolling is inherently anti-PC. You can also troll acceptable targets. It may be a little less glorious if you're not defying the mainstream.
alexandercrohde 10y ago
I'm not one to play devil's advocate, so I'd appreciate being heard out on this: I don't want to necessarily contend that trolling is "good," but I think it can be done in a way that is healthy. I liken it to in college, when there is that one dude who's way-too-serious and so you play a practical joke on him/her to get them to cool their jets. For example, in college there was this kid Chris, and he printed schoolwork in the psychology lab printers and was always TERRIFIED they'd get mad at him for doing so (you were only allowed to print schoolwork related to psychology on those printers). So one day a few friends printed out an official-looking notice that he was in serious trouble for doing so, and that he had to pay a fine of $23.35 and slipped it into his campus mailbox. Now you may think I'm just a jerk for this, and maybe I am, but for me this act was an olive-branch. If he had laughed it off and called me a "fucker" he would have been more a friend. I think when somebody is overlysensitive to something your friends can sometimes intentionaly desensitize you by bringing it up too much as a way to relax your trigger (say your roommate is afraid of snakes so you put a rubber snake in their bed). Now I have no idea if other people who do this kind of thing do it with good intent or not, and it's entirely possible that Chris hates me more than ever and is even more paranoid about following silly rules. But I can say that I at least consider this type of thing a potential bonding activity.

lutusp 10y ago

> Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Easy to flag as a problem in a world with so much blatant inequality. But a system designed to erase inequality would only have the effect of amplifying small differences, and most people would seek victim status -- just as they do now.

Mikeb85 10y ago

Trolling absolutely can be a form of satire, and has existed far longer than the internet. While there are trolls who do it simply to spark anger or get attention, some do it to point out the absurdity of an argument. > IMHO, "political correctness" is not the problem, it is a symptom. The problem is that society is becoming increasingly stratified, and large swaths of it don't accept differences of opinion. > Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. I'd say it's the opposite. If anything, it points out the deep hypocrisy among certain groups to accept different opinions. When I think of trolls that exist outside the internet, I think of something like Charlie Hebdo, which satirizes a subject in a rather extreme way that's meant to provoke. Or a public figure like Milo Yiannopolous, or even Kanye West.

samirillian 10y ago
> The problem is that society is becoming increasingly stratified, and large swaths of it don't accept differences of opinion This sentence started so well! This fixation on opinion is really strange to me. There are real, "stratified" power differentials in our country that have nothing to do with opinions. Radical Islam was not created by people talking nice about their Syrian neighbors. But plenty of people have been killed by nutty trolls inciting nuttier Muslims to violence. IMO stratification of opinion is always well downstream of the stratification of something more elemental: ethnicity, sex, mode of production, etc.

brudgers 10y ago

a lot of people here coming out as apparently pro-troll is anyone here willing to argue any "victim-blaming" really should be called out "political correctness" is not the problem, it is a symptom the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities Trolling is in the eye of the beholder.

breatheoften 10y ago
This is logically false -- it implies that no action, even deliberately undertaken can be called trolling -- which is just a ridiculous fluff claim. It's akin to saying "you can't talk about beauty because it doesn't exist". At the very least, we can objectively define trolling when both the poster and at least one responder think a post is trolling. Reality actually allows far less strict definitions and there is nothing at all that prevents real empirical analysis to be performed on those concepts. Your narrow logic is without merit and carries no ability to advance any communication on the topic at all.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  > This is logically false -- it implies that no action, even deliberately undertaken can be called trolling I took it more as an expression of something like Poe's Law. If someone says something inflammatory, is it a troll, or is it an honest expression of opinion? You can theorize about the author's mental state, but you can't know what they're thinking. Without extra information, the difference rests in the reader's perception.
  - breatheoften 10y ago
    With respect to any particular objective definition of trolling, there may exist perfect snowflake comments that are not trolling but are identified as such by the definition. There exist plenty of definitions that can be imagined which make the above snowflakes very rare in practice. If the beholder argument is that the existence of a single such snowflake invalidates the possibility that useful objectivity can be used to study the concept of trolling -- then the claim is ludicrous. We can study the notion of trolling without getting every single label right every time.

rconti 10y ago

Nope, not willing to argue that. Trolling is purely destructive in the way that vandalism is; in a way that theft is not. I view it as the lowest form of humanity.

Mikeb85 10y ago
Because no graffiti/vandalism has ever been social commentary, or employed by 'positive' movements.
ythn 10y ago
Trolling is purely destructive? How about playing devil's advocate? Is that purely destructive?
- grzm 10y ago
  You can assume the role of devil's advocate in good faith, with the aim of moving a discussion forward.

ythn 10y ago

I think political correctness is not a symptom of anything; rather, it's a calculated effort to control language and shape ideals. If you can control the way people talk about things, you can also shape the way they come to think about the things they are talking about. Just look at LGBT scene. In 2003 it was culturally acceptable to ostracize/demonize the LGBT crowd. You could use the word "gay" anytime you wanted in reference to anything ("this pencil is so gay... it keeps breaking") or "fag" if you got annoyed with your friend. Enter massive PC effort where "gay" and "fag" are now pushed into taboo area and you have to use PC terms in reference to LGBT people. 10 years later, mission accomplished, people now think that it's okay to be LGBT simply because you made it taboo to say offensive LGBT slurs. The problem is that PC is basically censorship-lite and can be weaponized to fit all sorts of agendas, good and bad.

transient5648 10y ago

> Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Do have to bring that into everything? Online trolling is hardly about inequalities if you can manage minimal information hygiene. The authors analyzed CNN comments which I assume have no realname requirement [I don't actually see any comment section on their page]. Which means you can act with out much identity-signalling at all. Only when people choose to bring their real-life identity to the table others can bring discrimination into the game. If they don't then "trolling" is just a range of non-constructive or self-serving behaviors that may serve as amusement to some parties while bothering others. It's not like it is unfairly targeting any particular group, because anyone can be a troll and anyone can be a victim. > anyone here willing to argue that trolling has possibly positive transformative benefits, similar to political satire? Trolling and satire seem closely related to me. If the target does take it seriously and is mislead by the satire performer then it is both at the same time. https://i.imgur.com/eivlSBa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eivlSBa.jpg

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

>Trolling, to me, just aggravates the actual problem: deep socioeconomic/racial/sexual inequities. Trolling needn't have anything to do with any of those subjects. It has, however, become associated with them, as trolling is inherently anti-PC.

transient5648 10y ago
> trolling is inherently anti-PC. You can also troll acceptable targets. It may be a little less glorious if you're not defying the mainstream.

alexandercrohde 10y ago

I'm not one to play devil's advocate, so I'd appreciate being heard out on this: I don't want to necessarily contend that trolling is "good," but I think it can be done in a way that is healthy. I liken it to in college, when there is that one dude who's way-too-serious and so you play a practical joke on him/her to get them to cool their jets. For example, in college there was this kid Chris, and he printed schoolwork in the psychology lab printers and was always TERRIFIED they'd get mad at him for doing so (you were only allowed to print schoolwork related to psychology on those printers). So one day a few friends printed out an official-looking notice that he was in serious trouble for doing so, and that he had to pay a fine of $23.35 and slipped it into his campus mailbox. Now you may think I'm just a jerk for this, and maybe I am, but for me this act was an olive-branch. If he had laughed it off and called me a "fucker" he would have been more a friend. I think when somebody is overlysensitive to something your friends can sometimes intentionaly desensitize you by bringing it up too much as a way to relax your trigger (say your roommate is afraid of snakes so you put a rubber snake in their bed). Now I have no idea if other people who do this kind of thing do it with good intent or not, and it's entirely possible that Chris hates me more than ever and is even more paranoid about following silly rules. But I can say that I at least consider this type of thing a potential bonding activity.