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Good Article of trolling. (Read 481 times)
Aussie
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Good Article of trolling.
Jan 12th, 2018 at 12:40pm
 
This was in today's Courier Mail.  Written by Kylie Lang.  Some bits I have highlighted are very relevant to OzPol.

Quote:
THINK you’d never stoop to viciously trolling someone online when you disagree with their opinion or actions?

Don’t kid yourself.

We are all increasingly at risk of this cowardly and despicable behaviour.

Looking at the comments on a Courier-Mail report this week, when gay men were legally and elatedly tying the knot, there was a familiar refrain of disrespect and disdain.

“Congratulations persons. I hope your union is blessed with many children and grandchildren,” quipped one smug reader.

“Are these men? How pathetically sad,” opined another.

“Once empowered it will never stop for these show ponies,” chimed in someone else.

The most measured comment was this: “Some people will never agree with SSM (same sex marriage). It’s a case of agree to disagree.”

If only this would play out in an environment of mutual respect where there is an appreciation of that fact that people are entitled to their own opinion.

Sadly, what online forums have done with startling success is open up the floodgates for grubs and bigots.

In the past 12 months, there has been a 63 per cent rise in the number of complaints about cyber-bullying, according to a report this week.

These trolls are not, contrary to what most of us think, merely miserable keyboard warriors whose mission is to take others down.

They are not only people who, to quote the Urban Dictionary, are “being pricks on the internet because they can”.

New research shows trolls are not fringe dwellers. Anyone can join this toxic club, and membership is growing.

Stanford University and Cornell University academics conclude that “ordinary people can, under the right circumstances, behave like trolls”.

Through an online experiment and analysis of more than 16 million posts on news site CNN.com, they isolate two primary triggers for trolling — a person’s negative mood, and seeing other troll posts.

Lead author Jure Leskovec, associate professor of computer science at Stanford, identifies “a spiral of negativity”.

He says just one person waking up cranky can create a spark, and because of the discussion context and number of votes or likes, these sparks can spiral into cascades of poor behaviour.

Bad conversations lead to more bad conversations, with people who get voted down coming back with even more horrendous comments.

What a pathetic, anti-social and unevolved way to carry on.

The study suggests “trolling can be contagious”, which is particularly worrisome. When something becomes accepted as the norm, it encourages more people to perpetuate it.

Cue the rise of the sociopath.


Of interest is that the version of the Article available on the www differs from what is in the hard copy.  There, she specifically refers to people who wish death upon another person, like 'farq off and die,'
'I wish you were dead,'
and use vile abusive expressions.

I can think of two people here who do exactly that.


The hard copy article also comments at some length on the responsibility Forum Admins have in bringing that cyber bullying to a swift end.

Of course the Article was written in the wake of the suicide of that teenager, who had the will to live cyber bullied out of her.

Some people seem to have no idea of the impact it has on another in a place like this when for example, their name, their photo, their FaceBook page (exposing their Family Members to attack) etc is posted and gleefully gloated over.
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Bobby.
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Re: Good Article of trolling.
Reply #1 - Jan 12th, 2018 at 7:25pm
 
Good article Aussie,
at least you as a moderator can do something about all those trolls.
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stunspore
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Re: Good Article of trolling.
Reply #2 - Jan 22nd, 2018 at 5:50am
 
Yet trolls like juilar are allowed to keep trolling.
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