What is an 'internet troll'?

[misty]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11392109/Twitter-boss-admits-company-sucks-at-tackling-trolls.html

By Agency

10:28AM GMT 05 Feb 2015

Twitter's chief executive has taken personal responsibility for the social media website's problems in dealing with abuse reported by users.

The acknowledgement from Dick Costolo came in an internal memo, in which he said the company should be embarrassed by the way it handles abuse and that it must take stronger action in the future.

"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," he said. "It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day.

"We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

"I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."
Related Articles

    Britanin's worst Twitter trolls 

    Britain's worst Twitter trolls
    05 Feb 2015

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11393102/Britains-worst-Twitter-trolls.html
 

Mr Costolo's comments came on an internal forum among Twitter employees, after another member of staff raised the question of what more could be done to tackle online abuse in the wake of writer Lindy West speaking about her experiences.

She received comments and abuse on a daily basis and internet trolls even created a Twitter account in the name of her deceased father in order to send insults to her.

"We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them," added Mr Costolo in the memo seen by technology website The Verge. "Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital."

Stories of abuse, threats and internet trolls have become commonplace on Twitter in recent years.

Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, left the social platform last year after being sent disturbing images in the wake of her father's suicide.

Feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian was threatened with rape, sexual violence and death by Twitter trolls during the Gamergate saga after she criticised the way women are portrayed in video games.

In the UK, journalist Caroline Criado-Perez also received rape threats after she voiced her support for the campaign to introduce Jane Austen as the new face of the £10 note.

Twitter users Isabella Sorley and John Nimmo admitted sending the messages to Ms Criado-Perez and both were jailed last year.

John Nimmo and Isabella Sorley admitted sending sending rape and murder threats to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez (PA)

Many believe that Twitter is still not doing enough and, in December, the social platform moved to make the task of reporting abuse easier.

An update saw the process streamlined and fewer steps required in order to report abuse - it used to require filling in a nine-part questionnaire but can now be done in a few steps. Twitter has said that more tools are on the way to further improve the service.

Mr Costolo continued: "Let me be very, very clear about my response here - I take personal responsibility for our failure to deal with this as a company. I thought I did that in my note, so let me reiterate what I said, which is that I take personal responsibility for this. I specifically said 'It's nobody's fault but mine'.

"We have to be able to tell each other the truth, and the truth that everybody in the world knows is that we have not effectively dealt with this problem even remotely to the degree we should have by now, and that's on me and nobody else.

"So now we're going to fix it, and I'm going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and that we don't equivocate in our decisions and choices."

Ms Criado-Perez took to Twitter to agree with Mr Costolo that Twitter "sucks" at dealing with abuse, before defending its efforts.

[faithlilly]

From the Guardian :


Sickipedia, the site where the young Lancashire man Matthew Woods found inspiration to post "jokes" about the missing child April Jones on his Facebook page was "down for maintenance" when I tried to check it out this morning, though I managed to get a glimpse of the kind of content it publishes courtesy of Twitter.

I'll reproduce just one, which should come with the equivalent of one of those taste and decency disclaimers you get on TV: "My dick is a lot like Marmite. My wife hates it when I rub it on her toast". That was from May. That alone should allow you to conclude, if you hadn't already realised from its name, that this site is for the seriously sad and inadequate. That should be the end of the story. The decision of Woods, however, to reproduce "jokes" about April Jones and Madeleine McCann has led him to be sent for 12 weeks to a young offenders' institution. Prior to that he had been taken into protective custody to prevent him being lynched.

Woods pleaded guilty to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive. In mitigation, his lawyer cited a "moment of drunken stupidity", but the presiding magistrate said the comments were so "abhorrent" he deserved the longest sentence the court could hand down. The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it had reviewed the file and was content with the prosecution going ahead.

Woods's case is by no means an exception. The CPS is currently reviewing its approach to social media in the light of several cases in which substantial sentences have been handed down after people have posted offensive remarks on Twitter and Facebook or sent them directly via email.

These cases have included the 56-day jail sentence for the student who tweeted offensive and racist comments in response to the on-pitch collapse of the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba. The latest example is the case of a young man who has been sentenced to a community order for posting the message "all soldiers should die and go to hell" on Facebook after the death of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.

Advertisement

Perhaps the highest profile case is still the "Twitter joke trial", when 28-year-old Paul Chambers was found guilty of sending a "menacing" tweet for threatening to "blow up" Robin Hood airport near Doncaster after it was closed by snow. That conviction – in a case ridiculously pushed by the CPS – was quashed in the high court, but only after a prolonged legal battle in which he was supported by a number of celebrities.

The judgment that day set what seemed like a new benchmark: "If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character."

This was not a case of anything goes, the judges implied, but be careful not to mistake stupidity – no matter how offensive the remarks might be – with criminality.

The same surely applies to the Sickipedia story. Direct incitement to violence is one thing. But we cannot and should not sentence people for bad jokes, poor taste and terrible manners. That is an issue for parents, teachers and, most importantly, peer groups.

In late July, police visited a teenager in Weymouth after he had posted an abusive tweet about the Olympic diver Tom Daley. I commented then that the best response from Daley (who had retweeted the offending missive) and the authorities would have been no response at all. This, I suggested, was the online equivalent of the boy on the park bench or the bore propping up the bar in the pub.

The following day I received an email from a chief constable thanking me. Law enforcement, he suggested, should get on with investigating serious crimes.

[Alice Purjorick]

From the Guardian :


Sickipedia, the site where the young Lancashire man Matthew Woods found inspiration to post "jokes" about the missing child April Jones on his Facebook page was "down for maintenance" when I tried to check it out this morning, though I managed to get a glimpse of the kind of content it publishes courtesy of Twitter.

I'll reproduce just one, which should come with the equivalent of one of those taste and decency disclaimers you get on TV: "My dick is a lot like Marmite. My wife hates it when I rub it on her toast". That was from May. That alone should allow you to conclude, if you hadn't already realised from its name, that this site is for the seriously sad and inadequate. That should be the end of the story. The decision of Woods, however, to reproduce "jokes" about April Jones and Madeleine McCann has led him to be sent for 12 weeks to a young offenders' institution. Prior to that he had been taken into protective custody to prevent him being lynched.

Woods pleaded guilty to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive. In mitigation, his lawyer cited a "moment of drunken stupidity", but the presiding magistrate said the comments were so "abhorrent" he deserved the longest sentence the court could hand down. The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it had reviewed the file and was content with the prosecution going ahead.

Woods's case is by no means an exception. The CPS is currently reviewing its approach to social media in the light of several cases in which substantial sentences have been handed down after people have posted offensive remarks on Twitter and Facebook or sent them directly via email.

These cases have included the 56-day jail sentence for the student who tweeted offensive and racist comments in response to the on-pitch collapse of the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba. The latest example is the case of a young man who has been sentenced to a community order for posting the message "all soldiers should die and go to hell" on Facebook after the death of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.

Advertisement

Perhaps the highest profile case is still the "Twitter joke trial", when 28-year-old Paul Chambers was found guilty of sending a "menacing" tweet for threatening to "blow up" Robin Hood airport near Doncaster after it was closed by snow. That conviction – in a case ridiculously pushed by the CPS – was quashed in the high court, but only after a prolonged legal battle in which he was supported by a number of celebrities.

The judgment that day set what seemed like a new benchmark: "If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character."

This was not a case of anything goes, the judges implied, but be careful not to mistake stupidity – no matter how offensive the remarks might be – with criminality.

The same surely applies to the Sickipedia story. Direct incitement to violence is one thing. But we cannot and should not sentence people for bad jokes, poor taste and terrible manners. That is an issue for parents, teachers and, most importantly, peer groups.

In late July, police visited a teenager in Weymouth after he had posted an abusive tweet about the Olympic diver Tom Daley. I commented then that the best response from Daley (who had retweeted the offending missive) and the authorities would have been no response at all. This, I suggested, was the online equivalent of the boy on the park bench or the bore propping up the bar in the pub.

The following day I received an email from a chief constable thanking me. Law enforcement, he suggested, should get on with investigating serious crimes.

Robert A Heinlein:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
I found that a good guide to prevent ones self looking as stupid as the other party!

[Eleanor]

An Internet Troll is someone who mindlessly abuses for kicks.  There is no one like that on this Forum.

[Wonderfulspam]

An Internet Troll is someone who mindlessly abuses for kicks.  There is no one like that on this Forum.

Indeed, I tend to put a little thought into it.

[Carana]

Indeed, I tend to put a little thought into it.

I was about to ask you for your opinion on the definition of a troll. Could you elucidate?

[Wonderfulspam]

I was about to ask you for your opinion on the definition of a troll. Could you elucidate?

I think it's a matter of opinion.

For example....

"all soldiers should die and go to hell"

That's not trolling.

It's an opinion.

[slartibartfast]

From the Guardian :


Sickipedia, the site where the young Lancashire man Matthew Woods found inspiration to post "jokes" about the missing child April Jones on his Facebook page was "down for maintenance" when I tried to check it out this morning, though I managed to get a glimpse of the kind of content it publishes courtesy of Twitter.

I'll reproduce just one, which should come with the equivalent of one of those taste and decency disclaimers you get on TV: "My dick is a lot like Marmite. My wife hates it when I rub it on her toast". That was from May. That alone should allow you to conclude, if you hadn't already realised from its name, that this site is for the seriously sad and inadequate. That should be the end of the story. The decision of Woods, however, to reproduce "jokes" about April Jones and Madeleine McCann has led him to be sent for 12 weeks to a young offenders' institution. Prior to that he had been taken into protective custody to prevent him being lynched.

Woods pleaded guilty to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive. In mitigation, his lawyer cited a "moment of drunken stupidity", but the presiding magistrate said the comments were so "abhorrent" he deserved the longest sentence the court could hand down. The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it had reviewed the file and was content with the prosecution going ahead.

Woods's case is by no means an exception. The CPS is currently reviewing its approach to social media in the light of several cases in which substantial sentences have been handed down after people have posted offensive remarks on Twitter and Facebook or sent them directly via email.

These cases have included the 56-day jail sentence for the student who tweeted offensive and racist comments in response to the on-pitch collapse of the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba. The latest example is the case of a young man who has been sentenced to a community order for posting the message "all soldiers should die and go to hell" on Facebook after the death of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.

Advertisement

Perhaps the highest profile case is still the "Twitter joke trial", when 28-year-old Paul Chambers was found guilty of sending a "menacing" tweet for threatening to "blow up" Robin Hood airport near Doncaster after it was closed by snow. That conviction – in a case ridiculously pushed by the CPS – was quashed in the high court, but only after a prolonged legal battle in which he was supported by a number of celebrities.

The judgment that day set what seemed like a new benchmark: "If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character."

This was not a case of anything goes, the judges implied, but be careful not to mistake stupidity – no matter how offensive the remarks might be – with criminality.

The same surely applies to the Sickipedia story. Direct incitement to violence is one thing. But we cannot and should not sentence people for bad jokes, poor taste and terrible manners. That is an issue for parents, teachers and, most importantly, peer groups.

In late July, police visited a teenager in Weymouth after he had posted an abusive tweet about the Olympic diver Tom Daley. I commented then that the best response from Daley (who had retweeted the offending missive) and the authorities would have been no response at all. This, I suggested, was the online equivalent of the boy on the park bench or the bore propping up the bar in the pub.

The following day I received an email from a chief constable thanking me. Law enforcement, he suggested, should get on with investigating serious crimes.

I do think anyone visiting sickened is and similar sites should not really be surprised at the content. It's a bit like going into an Adult Shop and being outraged by a vibrator.

[ferryman]

I think it's a matter of opinion.

For example....

"all soldiers should die and go to hell"

That's not trolling.

It's an opinion.

If it's addressed to a soldier, it's trolling.

If it's a generic statement, yes, you'd probably get away with it.

[faithlilly]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11390745/Britains-vilest-troll-Im-here-to-expose-hypocrisy.html

From the article :


"Yet Ambridge insists there are far more dangerous trolls than him – and points the finger of blame at the “pack mentality” of “victims” which he believes will end in more loss of life like that of Brenda Leyland. Leyland, 63, was found dead soon after she was exposed as an online troll who sent abusive tweets to Kate and Gerry McCann.

“Nobody wears the victim badge more readily than the British,” he says. “If you loudly declare yourself a victim then others will clamour to defend you in the faint hope that their 'moral compass' will be seen to be shinier than their sinful neighbours. You can instantly join their collective and become part of the hysterical digital mob – safe in the comfort and security of not standing on your own.

“It’s the screeching mob we should be scared of. When these people descend it is brutal – and in Brenda Leyland’s case it proved fatal. It’s faux democracy by the mob and it’s a powerful and dangerous thing.

“It is grim and it’s unchartered territory. It’s Middle Ages stuff: burn the witch, burn the heretic. The flaming torches, the pitchfork mob. If you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong comment then you can pay dearly for it. Imagine making an unpopular remark at a garden party and the assembled guests decide to harass your wife, family, employers and clients until they decided ‘justice has been served’.

“It is an addiction to some because it empowers the little people that don’t normally feel they have a voice or a cause, and suddenly they have tremendous power within a mob. They’ve never tasted that before. They proudly proclaim ‘we got him!” It’s very similar to obsessive tribalism or religious fundamentalism."

[Mr Gray]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11390745/Britains-vilest-troll-Im-here-to-expose-hypocrisy.html

From the article :


"Yet Ambridge insists there are far more dangerous trolls than him – and points the finger of blame at the “pack mentality” of “victims” which he believes will end in more loss of life like that of Brenda Leyland. Leyland, 63, was found dead soon after she was exposed as an online troll who sent abusive tweets to Kate and Gerry McCann.

“Nobody wears the victim badge more readily than the British,” he says. “If you loudly declare yourself a victim then others will clamour to defend you in the faint hope that their 'moral compass' will be seen to be shinier than their sinful neighbours. You can instantly join their collective and become part of the hysterical digital mob – safe in the comfort and security of not standing on your own.

“It’s the screeching mob we should be scared of. When these people descend it is brutal – and in Brenda Leyland’s case it proved fatal. It’s faux democracy by the mob and it’s a powerful and dangerous thing.

“It is grim and it’s unchartered territory. It’s Middle Ages stuff: burn the witch, burn the heretic. The flaming torches, the pitchfork mob. If you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong comment then you can pay dearly for it. Imagine making an unpopular remark at a garden party and the assembled guests decide to harass your wife, family, employers and clients until they decided ‘justice has been served’.

“It is an addiction to some because it empowers the little people that don’t normally feel they have a voice or a cause, and suddenly they have tremendous power within a mob. They’ve never tasted that before. They proudly proclaim ‘we got him!” It’s very similar to obsessive tribalism or religious fundamentalism."

he is absolutely right when he talks of [ censored word ].......his commemts sum up those that harass the mccanns...for which Brenda was part of the mob

[Lyall]

he is absolutely right when he talks of [ censored word ].......his commemts sum up those that harass the mccanns...for which Brenda was part of the mob

There is some truth in that davel, but to be more accurate you should say 'a mob' (there are two).

But the Ambridge bloke hits the nail on head when talking about what it is the government (and political class) really don't like about social media. The narrative will be about 'trolls' but when the internet impacts on the ability of government to bomb people in faraway lands, that's what they really can't allow to carry on.

[Carana]

There is some truth in that davel, but to be more accurate you should say 'a mob' (there are two).

But the Ambridge bloke hits the nail on head when talking about what it is the government (and political class) really don't like about social media. The narrative will be about 'trolls' but when the internet impacts on the ability of government to bomb people in faraway lands, that's what they really can't allow to carry on.

Everyone seems to have a personal view on what's acceptable or not, whatever the subject.

There doesn't appear to be any consensus as to where one person's rights impinge on the rights of the other.

[Lyall]

Everyone seems to have a personal view on what's acceptable or not, whatever the subject.

There doesn't appear to be any consensus as to where one person's rights impinge on the rights of the other.

Further complicated by most social media platforms (I think) being based in the US. If Twitter had been the brainchild of a Brit it would have been 'controlled' years ago.

But I think the American government (and political class) may view social media differently to the British. Ours may think removing online anonymity is a brilliant idea, but that may not be a cool idea in the US.

There are already laws to deal with 'trolls', as can be seen from some of the above articles. The problem for the McCanns is that there are too many, and the action Sky News took made things even worse (it was imo very idiotic).

But if people like Sara Payne are forced to abandon social media you can be sure the Parliamentarians will want to do something more.

[faithlilly]

Further complicated by most social media platforms (I think) being based in the US. If Twitter had been the brainchild of a Brit it would have been 'controlled' years ago.

But I think the American government (and political class) may view social media differently to the British. Ours may think removing online anonymity is a brilliant idea, but that may not be a cool idea in the US.

There are already laws to deal with 'trolls', as can be seen from some of the above articles. The problem for the McCanns is that there are too many, and the action Sky News took made things even worse (it was imo very idiotic).

But if people like Sara Payne are forced to abandon social media you can be sure the Parliamentarians will want to do something more.

Not sure how intelligent a government would be to sacrifice the rights of the many because of the targeting of the few.