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Trolls Are Swarming Young Climate Activists Online
- olliej 7y agoBetter title: Adults are bullying children
- nostromo 7y agoThe media and activists are largely to blame here. If a child wants to opine on climate change or abortion or whatever, that's fine. But activists and the media shouldn't push to elevate that child to the national stage to score political points. Once you've set yourself up as a political activist, people will respond to your beliefs, and they won't always be kind.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoExcellent. Blame the victim for having an opinion. People are not responding to their beliefs though - this is straight up abuse, racism, and crass insults. Presumably as they are unable to engage with those beliefs at a rational level.
- nostromo 7y agoI did not blame the victim. I specifically blamed the many adults and organizations using her to try and score political points.
- jakelazaroff 7y agoI'm not sure why you wouldn't blame the trolls? There are clear antagonists here.
- cmorgan31 7y agoI have no idea either... this train of thought is rampant in this thread and other forums. Condemn the use of props in politics without a single thought towards the disgusting behavior of everyone involved who attack children and their parents. Did everyone forget how every politician takes photo ops with babies? The token appearances at disasters? Props are not new to politics but direct harassment of individuals under the age of 18 is thanks to the double-edged sword of global connectedness.
- TheAdamAndChe 7y agoInternet trolls are an inevitable outcome of large-scale anonymous communication. We can opine about how the world should be all day long, but at some point adults need to be pragmatic in their care. Just as they shouldn't take children to seedy dive bars because of the inevitable exposure to bad things, so too should they be shielded from communities in which abuse is inevitable.
- vegetablepotpie 7y agoThe activists and media are to blame for the harassment? What about the people doing the harassment? Trolls have 100% responsibility for their behavior. Any suggestion otherwise is not grounded.
- aldoushuxley001 7y agoSad state of discourse these days. Whatever happened to having civilized discussions?
- buboard 7y agoI cant help but think that those girls were selected specifically because they re underage. That they would attract trolls is an inevitability.
- neogodless 7y agoIs the solution to suppress their voices, rather than protect them from trolls and suppress the voices of the trolls?
- crazynick4 7y agoWe shouldn't suppress any voices, unless they're outright calling for violence. We also shouldn't elevate our children to become spokespeople for the world. Let kids be kids.
- simplyinfinity 7y agoIf the kids WANT to participate, why not let them? This girl started protesting by herself.She took initiative, raised her voice and dis something. Should we stop her from doing that?
- crazynick4 7y agoBecause they're kids and they don't have a clue. If I was her parent, I would have stopped her. She should be getting an education, so she doesn't end up as a homeless activist one day.
- buboard 7y agoNo just dont amplify them so incredibly much. They are children in the end, they deserve protection Trolling is a fundamental right , not being trolled is not
- iron0013 7y agoThey would be protected by meaningful government action on climate change. A comfortable childhood will mean nothing to these kids if their adulthoods are ruined by the consequences of the inaction of older generations, and the kids know it and want to do something about it.
- throwaway5752 7y agoIt would be nice if there was some kind of scoring about the probability that something like this was organic or a coordinated campaign with sockpuppets. It's also a glaring example of weak points in current law and Twitter specifically. First, Twitter really needs expand its privacy options. Someone should be able to publicly share an opinion without allowing anyone to reply to their timeline or DM them. On the legal point, sending graphic pictures to underaged girls is a sex crime, and underfunded law enforcement is not keeping up given physical crimes and multijurisdictional nature. Interpol or a related entity has to start chasing down criminals that send sexual material to young people. It is plainly child abuse regardless of politics.
- crazynick4 7y agoSad to see. Although, honestly, the parents shouldn't have allowed their kids to put themselves in these 'activist' positions to begin with. What did they expect? And also, a 16 year old girl speaking at the UN? Is that a joke? I fully support protecting the environment but this is child exploitation for political purposes. These movements should be led by scientists, not children. Is it any wonder people are still skeptical?
- scarmig 7y agoThe movement has been led by scientists for decades. They have been ignored. If it's shameful that a 16 year old is being forced to lead a movement, the shame is on society and the older generations for not doing anything about climate change despite manifest urgency.
- cal97g 7y agoAll it's likely to do is irritate people and that really won't help the cause at all.
- sieabahlpark 7y agoThe girl is autistic (no really, she is) and they're just taking advantage of her. It's just the new David Hogg.
- crazynick4 7y agoSo the idea is that children will succeed where the scientists have failed? It certainly doesn't seem to say much for the scientists.
- scarmig 7y agoI agree, though I wouldn't single out scientists. It doesn't say much at all for the generation that's ignoring the issue.
- buboard 7y agoWhat makes you think that this child abuse is good for the cause? I see a lot of negative reactions
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago>mom of 8-year-old climate activist Havana Chapman-Edwards Is it just me, or is there something disturbing about an 8 year old activist for anything? I cannot see anything good coming from turning young children into activists. Kids that age need love and stability, not the fear that the world is going to end unless they do something.
- Retric 7y agoIt’s a question of agency. Young children rarely get the feeling that anything they do has inherent value. Something as simple as gathering twigs for a campfire is unusual specifically because it’s helpful. Activism at that age is a mix of learning experience and actually useful. So, IMO it can be a positive activity in the right context.
- repolfx 7y agoBut there's nothing an 8 year old can do to be helpful for climate change. At 8 you don't even really understand what the climate is or how it's different from weather, let alone what CO2 or methane are. This appears to just be a continuation of the disturbing trend of adults trying to make themselves feel virtuous by speaking through their children.
- Retric 7y ago8 is ~3rd grade. That’s old enough to look up and understand things that interest them. While I doubt every 8 year old had that understanding, this is about a specific 8 year old. I specifically remember a science class in third grade that had photosynthesis producing Oxygen and asking my dad for more information. In the age of the Internet someone getting the basic chemistry idea that molecules are made from atoms thing down should not be that surprising. IMO, it’s plenty old enough to understand why cars get so hot inside when left in the sun which is about as far as the vast majority of adults understand climate change.
- lancewiggs 7y agoAttacking the messenger* is not ok, particularly when they are vulnerable. It is our duty as a society to find safe places for 8, or 18 year olds, and anybody to express themselves without fear. The fear should be focused on the message, and could turn into: What are you personally doing to combat climate change? What will you say you did when you look back in 2050. *There is an exception for those who seek to undermine the system. The Nazis, the people who send porn to 13 year olds, the columnists who continuously deny climate change is real.
- british_india 7y agoWhen it's too late and the worst of the effects of this climate emergency are upon us, I would not want to be one of these climate deniers. There is going to be a reckoning and the reaction of people whose children are going to die will not be pretty. This is not going away. What kind of person this badly disregards the science? Do these deniers also take their children to Witch Doctors? No? Oh, well then they like _some_ of the science.
- AlexB138 7y agoUsing children as political tools is disgusting. It's blatantly manipulative. Throwing them into the cess-pool of public politics and then acting as if you're shocked they're in a cess-pool, and using that shock to try to score political points, is one of the more reprehensible tactics in the modern play book.
- scarmig 7y agoEven if it's wrong for parents to expose kids to toxic online environments like Twitter, surely you'd agree that someone trolling kids online (like with "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!") should be ashamed of themselves and driven out of polite society, yes?
- AlexB138 7y ago> surely you'd agree that someone trolling kids online ... should be ashamed of themselves and driven out of polite society, yes? I think pretty much everyone involved here, aside from the children, ought to be ashamed of themselves. I don't buy into the idea that people ought to be driven out of society though.
- scarmig 7y agoSo parents are just as bad for letting children engage in activism as the people threatening to murder and rape them?
- authoritarian 7y agoI'd be curious to learn how many of these children actually decided to engage in activism themselves. If there's anything I learned while in competitive sports, it's that parents have no problem forcing their kids into things the kids don't care about because they want their kids to be famous professional athletes and I imagine this situation is similar.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
- cal97g 7y ago> The 16-year-old Swedish crusader single-handedly launched the climate strike movement last year Yes, single handedly, just her, her famous parents, a PR team and millions of dollars worth of support from the likes of George Soros et al.
- dyeje 7y agoHas anyone tried to do an analysis on these trolls? Who are they and why are they trolling? I'm concerned that these aren't normal people and instead people interested in maintaining the status quo are coordinating these activities.
- Porthos9K 7y agoMy default assumption is that trolls attacking any sort of "leftist" activist are either alt-reich channers or corporate astroturfers. I don't assume good faith on the part of trolls, but instead always suspect an ulterior motive.
- faissaloo 7y agoI don't believe they're channers, they're far to numerous and their commenting style tends towards boomerisms.
- Porthos9K 7y agoAt this point I no longer care. If we're not mutuals, and you attempt to reach me on Twitter, you're just wasting your time because I send unsolicited interaction attempts by non-mutuals to /dev/null.
- jfengel 7y agoDon't forget a third possibility: paid nationalist astroturfers. Not all profit is financial. There are other reasons to sow disruption.
- repolfx 7y agoDo you believe it's ever possible for anyone to genuinely disagree with leftist activism in good faith? It sounds a lot like the answer is no.
- Porthos9K 7y agoIt depends. The answer is "yes" when dealing with people with whom I have regular face-to-face conversations. When it comes to randos on the internet who hide behind anime or Warhammer 40K avatars and post mostly memes, the answer is "hell, no".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gatherhunterer 7y agoOf course the trolls are wrong for trolling, but trolling is a fact of life on the web. When I was a kid I was told to never link any online account with my real identity and to always regard every person encountered on the web as a potential bad actor. The article begins with the story of an 11-year-old whose identity is linked to a public Twitter account. There is a distinct lack of recognition for the failures in parenting taking place here. Personal safety and privacy are necessities for a healthy childhood, a public soapbox is not.
- scarmig 7y agoEven if the parents have failed in some way, I hope you'd agree that the people trolling children online are far worse. Including President Trump.
- Stronico 7y agoMy first thought is that it's like taking children to a strip club. Twitter and the online political world are just inherently unfit for children. It would be one thing if the kids were doing original research and social media were the only way to distribute the research, but neither of those are true.
- notus 7y agoWe should be asking how we can make these better environments for children, because saying children can't use a public twitter account is not going to fly. Also attributing it to bad parenting is also a cop-out in my opinion. Not all of these concerns are immediately visible to parents. If they don't use twitter themselves they might not be aware of how it can be used.
- thrower123 7y agoIt would be slightly less hypocritical if some of the same people that are wringing their hands about people being mean to Greta Thunberg weren't egging on awfulness against the Covington kids. I'm not sympathetic to those who are moralizing about trolling this child they like, when they just put down the torches and pitchforks they had out for a different child they don't like.
- Porthos9K 7y agoMs. Thunberg is actually doing something useful: she's challenging those in power to stop being content to profit from the status quo, get off their over-privileged asses, and clean up after themselves instead of leaving the mess for her generation to deal with. We're lucky kids her age are still talking, and haven't decided that the situation is sufficiently dire to justify the use of violence.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoI'm sorry, but I wouldn't equate a young person standing up for protecting our environment and actually making real changes to a young person who decided to take his trolling public and stare down an elder aboriginal man...
- thrower123 7y agodelete
- 52-6F-62 7y agoI'm not getting into this here. It's not the subject of the thread. I don't appreciate the derailing and false comparisons.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jakobegger 7y agoAnd the trolls managed to flag the story off the front page as well :(
- 52-6F-62 7y agoIt's not right, either. The thread had barely started and there seemed to be some interesting, civil comments among the blatant bait. I hope the mods can catch it. You can 'vouch' for flagged comments, but not posts, which usually helps poorly-flagged items.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoAye, it's becoming habitual on some topics. Hopefully the mods will second-chance it, as despite the oh-so-predictable trash comments there's an important issue.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoAgreed. And it seems as relevant as anything to this forum, though on more philosophical/ethical grounds than technical.
- dvtrn 7y agoCults of personality are always strange to behold, no matter who the central figure is, or what their message is (for good or ill), at least IMO & there's a lot about the coverage of young Greta that feels very cult of personality-ish
- Porthos9K 7y agoWhy are children under 13 even being allowed to create social media accounts?
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoFacebook and Twitter never, ever restricted them from doing so. You don't need age verification or ID to sign up.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoThen they should have a reporting option that goes something like "User is under 13" which requires a verification of parental consent to continue use of the account, otherwise it's just a blatant violation of COPPA.
- thinkingemote 7y agoThe fact is that these young activists make great stories. The News Media loves it. It's very good for journalism and publicity. Everyone loves a story.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoSo many claiming it's adults pulling strings and getting their kids into politics or activism. Just one point to make to that: For any kid protesting, or caring about climate, it's been an issue that's been constantly in the background their whole damn life. Longer than they've been able to read. Things we've had longer than 18 years: Recycling bins; climate and associated environmental stories such as species loss on news, documentaries, in schools; politicians talking about, dismissing and greenwashing climate; climate related taxes; alternative lightbulbs, insulation and low-energy promotions from utility companies. [other countries may vary on details, and age of majority] How can they possibly not be forming strong opinions, and wanting to do something? Remember CND and the peace movements? That was part of the kid's and youth culture of the sixties - for that generation that was impossible to miss with the constant Cold War backdrop. This generation gets added trolling and conspiracy claims of it being adults pulling strings.
- petraeus 7y agoKids are simply used these days to deflect any criticism, HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE A 16 YR OLD KID The truth is most of these children are just that, children, they are being used by capitalistic parents as a walking billboard for whatever agenda or service is being promoted. Awareness is great and all but not many people are looking to be more aware, we are looking for practical solutions, none of which are being offered with all the attention goes to idolizing a child.