On Twitter my general understanding of a troll (there is also a verb, to troll) is someone who generally you do not follow, but who sees a tweet of yours through a search or a retweet, and who sends you an uninvited message that is either simply offensive, or that is intended to start an argument. It's not simply someone you disagree with: it's someone who is purposely goading of offending you for the fun of it. You will often never have seen their avatar or name before.
Why Do We Feed the Trolls?
Trolls are a regular feature of the medium and probably one of the things that upsets people the most. There is of course a simple mechanism to stop them "don't feed the trolls" - don't engage and/or block them. Would that it were that simple, however. First it takes some restraint if you've just been called a "fucking idiot" or similar not to respond. Secondly, the troll may appear semi-reasonable and you may think you are being drawn into a civilised conversation and want to defend your viewpoint. After a few exchanges your blood pressure goes up a notch and it takes even more effort just to walk away. You're drawn in and it rarely ends pleasantly.
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| Having a Temporary Break from His Keyboard |
What Is The Point of Arguing?
A huge strength of Twitter is of course that it facilitates an exchange of ideas. It is perfectly possible to have a conversation with someone of a different viewpoint that can make you think again about something. Perhaps this is why we engage: we want to listen. Perhaps, if we're really honest, it's just because we want to feel we are "right" and convince the other person and anyone else who sees the conversation of our position. From my experience a genuine reflection and revision of your own position is far more likely to happen when discussing something politely with someone you actually follow and know. Very rarely, you might meet someone new whom you disagree with, but nonetheless like and respect, and then decide to follow from one of these discussions.
Let's face it, though, someone who has strong personal views that abortion should be illegal, that gays are evil, who describes the European Union as the EUSSR, or that my being vegetarian is a lifestyle choice that makes me "an economic burden" (oh yes, I was told this for real over the course of 3 hours one evening recently) is not going to be able to convince me of their viewpoint. Nor am I going to be able to influence them of my diametrically opposed opinion. What *is* the point, unless the act of arguing from your keyboard makes you feel happy about yourself?
Personal Abuse
My last blog was a set of observations on what happens when a celebrity dies. It led to accusations that I was trying to censor people, lecture them, was being authoritarian, and these lovely unsolicited personal messages:
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| From someone I'd not spoken to before |
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| From someone I blocked 9 months ago |
I've also had the head-ghoul, @Old_Holborn message me with the type of thing below. This isn't trolling, it's just sending pretty grotesque personal homophobic abuse. If I see anyone RTing the man I'm quite likely to unfollow them as a result. Why am I in effect naming and shaming these people? Do I have an axe to grind? Yes, I guess I do. I don't see why these people who have sent me abuse in public should not be named here for others to see so they can make their own judgements and steer clear of them if they wish.
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| From Someone Who is Quite Sick |
On a philosophical level, I don't believe there's such a thing as inherently nasty or evil people: only people who in some situations behave in a bad way. I'm sure these guys have friends and family to whom they are pleasant, and often no doubt loving. All I know is that I've experienced them being pretty vile to me and to others, and it's not what I come on Twitter for. I'm able to shake it off better than some I know: if they caught the attention of a few of my friends I know they would leave the medium for good. They can create a stink that lasts months. I hope they feel good about doing this.
Politics
Now we come to politics. I used to enjoy tweeting about politics on Twitter. One of the things I love about Twitter is the flow of news, current affairs and the comments and reactions of an intelligent, engaged group of people I've found on here. I barely do it now for the reasons set out in this blog.
I have found that my enjoyment of Twitter has in some ways had an inverse relationship to the number of my followers. The more people who follow you, the more an RT will reach the likes of someone who wants to pick a fight. It's amazing that tweeting about being vegetarian will do this, or making some simple observations about the death of a celebrity. I really don't know how people with really large numbers of followers cope: I saw Sally Bercow tweet "Is it odd that when I hear an Amy Winehouse song I still feel sad?" and just watched the abuse pouring in at her. No wonder she doesn't seem to tweet half as much as she used to. Get into party politics and just wait for the really argumentative reactions. It's exhausting.
I guess I should man up, just ignore the crap, and say what I want to. I've chosen to shut up instead, because I've found a group of people to follow whom I largely agree with on politics, and prefer to listen to their reactions and discuss them with them one on one, rather than tweet openly in my timeline. There's less chance of an RT and hostile arguments that way. If Twitter is about encouraging free speech and open discussion, then this is a bit of a sad indictment of the way the medium can go. I do have stuff to say about current affairs: instead weariness with the arguments has led me to tweet about my dog, my socks, and what I'm having for breakfast. Great :S
Troll Guidelines
To conclude, and in the true spirit of lecturing people, being authoritarian, and being sanctimonious (thanks again guys!), here are some suggestions I have on the subject of Trolls. I shall endeavour to apply them myself:
1) If you don't want a lot of potential grief, simply don't engage with someone you don't know, who has sent you an unsolicited tweet disagreeing with you. It will very likely, unless you have super-human control and perception in knowing when to get out of the conversation before it heads to aggression, end up in your wasting an evening arguing, and ending up upset or angry. You will convince them of nothing. You may feel "right" at the end of it. So what? Do NOT feed the trolls.
2) Trolling, at least in its mild manifestation, is often a question of perception according to where you are sitting. All the trolls I know are right-wingers. I'm sure there are Tories out there who know a whole bunch of lefty trolls. The same people who behave reasonably to me may pick fights and behave very differently with others. Think about whether a response of yours to someone you don't know could be seen as "trolling". Honestly, why are you sending the message? To be mischievous, to pick a fight?
I'm not above admitting that I've done it on occasion, not that I'm proud of it. I sent a tweet to a random Christian this week who was being homophobic to some friends, who went on to call me a "liar" and rather bizarrely told me to "get a job". I ended up sending a deliberately offensive tweet as as result, when really I shouldn't have got involved. They could have blocked this person themselves if they were upset and are really quite able to look after themselves. Apart from the utter dickheads I've mentioned above, I'm sure no one would revel in the description of being called a troll. Don't inadvertently do anything to deserve the label yourself.
3) To put 2. in a nutshell, the best tweet I read all week was from @Yorkdid. I think he's 18 or 19. I understand it might not be original, but who cares. It is brilliant advice and I'd never heard it before formulated like this. It simply said the following:
There's a real person reading your tweet or message. Put simply, just run anything you're about to send past this simple test: how would I feel to receive this myself? Rocket science it is not.
4) Put the trolling in context. I follow 1100 people. I must have interacted with well over 5000 since I've been on Twitter. I've sent over 60,000 tweets and have probably received at least 20,000 @ mentions, given how much I interact. Of these around exchanges maybe 50, tops, have been nasty, aggressive and have stuck in my head. That's 0.25%. I actively dislike and seek to avoid perhaps 10 people of the 5000 tweeple I've spoken to. That's 0.2%.
It is so easy to get upset and to forget about all the "good guys" and what makes Twitter so enjoyable. Concentrate on the 99.75% and the 99.8%. I know it's not human to do so, but they really do deserve your attention more.
There we go. I feel better for having written this anyway, which I guess is the whole point of blogging. I hope you've enjoyed reading it. I'm now off to "make like a tree and wobble off". Yes, what the *actual* fuck <does> that mean...?
I'm no arborist, but from my limited knowledge and observations over the years, trees tend to bend a little in strong winds but to date they have never wobbled off. I may well make it a life mission to record a tree which wobbles off.
ReplyDeleteAs for Trolls and trolling. I only seem to receive abuse if I mention anything political. I find it completely unbelievable that a few keyboard warriors find it acceptable to hurl abuse and vile hatred at those whose opinions are at variance to their own.
*hunts for trees preparing to wobble off*
And then, there are some who likely have personality disorders. That's not to excuse their behaviour, but if you approach (as I suspect reasonable people do) interactions with the belief the other party is as honest, stable, balanced as yourself, you will sometimes be upset, because some people just don't work that way. The problem is, of course, that in real life people like that are often easy to spot, whereas online, one can never be certain who is sane, and who is nuts (and who is lying).
ReplyDeleteI can see why you might give up saying anything potentially controversial - I certainly feel glad tweeting more outspoken things knowing my account is private and therefore cannot attract spam or casual abuse. It is a shame, though, because as good people give up trying, it leaves the online arena to those who are hateful, overly driven, see the world in black and white, or like to goad. Ultimately, though, you have to live your life in a way you can deal with - there's no honour in taking that kind of stuff if you don't want. I am glad there are outspoken people with thicker skin than mine, so I can keep quiet.
My observations of trolls are identical to yours, other than to note that as a Catholic who is of a wobbly right of centre persuasion, that the trolling I receive seems to be from the skeptic community who wish to attempt to prove my stupidity by having a faith and wish to get into pointless arguments about the existence of God or the noodley appendaged spaghetti monster. Ironically they demonstrate their own ignorance by the nature of their incorrect assumptions, such as that I take the Bible literally and that I am an advocate of Creationism.
ReplyDeleteOne caveat would be that the word "troll" is almost ceasing to have meaning, in that it is increasingly being used to dismiss those with a perfectly legitimate opposing viewpoint. Expressing a contrary opinion, so long as it is articulately expressed and doesn't contain any deliberately offensive or provocative language is not trolling, it is simply an opposite opinion.
I have plenty of opposing comments on my blog, I enjoy a lively and constructive debate and listening to what others have to say, disagreement is not "trolling". If someone reads my blog and really wants to express an opposing point of view, that is more than acceptable, I don't view it as trolling, I think it's important to have the other side out there so to speak.
To dismiss someone as a "troll" simply for disagreeing is a lazy attempt to close down the debate and de-humanise. "You are a troll, your opinion does not matter".
A few months ago, I approved a series of very personal and at times quite insulting and derogatory comments from a very passionate poster who is gay and really wanted her point of view to be heard. Though at times I had to warn her that she was crossing the line with comments like "you are going to hurt your children", I gave her the courtesy of letting her voice be heard.
Though we were diametrically opposed and it was clear we would never come to a consensus, I did not consider this trolling - she just wanted her voice to be heard and I thought it was useful for other commenters (even if it made for an extremely long comments thread).
Quite right, Caroline - I should have made it clearer that disagreeing is not "trolling". It is the act of sending a message to someone with the intent of stirring up an argument for the sake of annoying them. There is an inherent malevolence about it that is not present in just having a different viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is knowing when someone wants a polite debate or is actually a troll: I've been burned too many times that I try just avoid those I don't know and only engage with those I do.
What always surprises me is why some people get trolled and others not. I tweet about politics; about religion; about food; about sexuality. Everything you'd expect to be a sure-fire troll-magnet. And yet it's never, ever happened to me. Don't know whether to feel relieved or ostracised! Well, actually I do. Relieved. Very relieved.
ReplyDeleteGood blog! I'm mega trolled because I stand for human rights in Bahrain. Twitter trolling over that issue leads to featuring in blogs by the same trolls. They are scatological, childish and beyond nasty. The trolls collected photos from my Flickr stream & saved them in a 'cloud' for general troll use. Deeply unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteI still stand for human rights in all countries, for all people. This troll approach, though upsetting & disturbing, does not change my convictions.
The phrase that puzzles you so is a riff on the saying 'Make like a tree and leave' ('leaf', get it?)...
ReplyDeleteI remember telling a Twitter friend, who attracted a huge amount of trolling and personal abuse,that people would be far less likely to say such hurtful things if they had to look into your eyes, rather than at your avatar. I think people sometimes forget that there's a real person with real feelings at the other end.
ReplyDeleteI always wonder why trolls do what they do... Are their lives that unhappy? It's a little sad, kind of. Anyway "tweet people, how you want to be tweeted" is wonderful advice.
ReplyDelete"This isn't trolling, it's just sending pretty grotesque personal homophobic abuse" - yes, I think you have made the mistake of conflating a range of quite different aberrant behaviours on social networks under the "troll" label. We need a new language to differentiate the types of troll and trolling tactic.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a troll but a jokey comment sent to a young man with a thin skin caused him to abuse and defame me. I'm not strong and this gave other people an opportunity to 'take sides' and I got blocked which really did upset me. in the end I got accused of racism which was not only untrue but goes to show how heated people can become about a fewvwords especially when body language can't be seen.
ReplyDelete