While I’m sure Dr. Tamerius was an excellent psychiatrist, I am equally sure that I am not a psychiatrist at all. I have neither the patience nor training to act like a psychiatrist. I suggest that such skills are needed to impose this set of rules effectively and consistently.
As the general consensus of this thread seems to be, I’d say the vast majority of us are better off just banning trolls when we run across them.
I think if comment threads filtered out entries with words like ‘libtard’ and ‘rethuglican’ the quality of conversation would be dramatically improved.
That’s seriously nasty thing to do. I know many awesome people who live in Russia, mostly from Furry and LGBT+ communities. They are already living in oppressive country, excluding them just because they live in Russia doesn’t help at all.
I appreciate where this is coming from, but I don’t think it’s practical in most cases if only because of the amount of time involved. For me, when I’m gaming or twitter-ing, or whatever, I block a lot - even for minor things.
If someone uses a pejorative like libtard or conservatwat, throws out any racial slurs, makes obvious troll attempts, etc. that’s enough for me to know what their mindset is. Any intelligent person worth engaging will not present themselves like this.
It’s not worth the time to engage.
Block and move on. It keeps the noise down
So, to sum up, block first. When enough people have blocked a particular troll, they will eventually wind up trolling Dr. Tamerius, who will help them become a better person.
If I know the person, and I feel they’re acting in good faith, sure, I’ll try this. Call in rather than call out, right? Like, we all get broccoli in our teeth sometimes that we can’t see for ourselves and need others to point out. I’m grateful when people do this for me, and I’m more than willing to give that grace.
Do anonymous people online deserve the same treatment? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
I agree with the sentiment in public forums, no tolerance policy – that’s how I’ve always dealt with online communities that I managed (happily I don’t do much of that right now). Negotiating with trolls drags down the quality of the atmosphere in the community, even with good outcomes then net total is negative.
But I am all ears on how to successfully deal with trolls because I have friends and family that are trumpies and by definition they are trolling reality, even when they don’t head out with the intention to spoil. I want strategies and tactics to successfully deal with them. I think that is the value of the proposition here. Forget about online interactions for a moment. Lets work on face to face.
I find a relentless barrage of ‘yo mamma’ quips to be the perfect response. Often, actually, they are quite informational for said troll and invite introspection
Isn’t Phase II exactly how’d you’d treat a misbehaving toddler? Amazing similarities.
I guess the naughty step is fine if it’s someone you want to potentially keep talking to and need to let them know they’re crossing some lines, but for randos on the internet make life easy and just skip straight to block. In most cases it’s probably not worth the time to do anything else.
I’m extremely interested this topic. Can you give some examples of questions your wife often asks them? As much as she and you would be willing to elaborate.
She did say that over time, by applying and modeling this method, she got the whole community on board and it changed the whole culture. I don’t know, but it didn’t seem like everyone else was a psychiatrist too.
A lot of people here are saying it’s not worth the investment of time and energy, and I don’t know, but if it didn’t pay off well, I’m sure she wouldn’t keep doing it. She said it actually reduced the amount of troll behavior, so it actually sounds like the return on the investment was high, not just in some lofty moral high ground feeling, but less actual work. People are imagining going it alone on the open sea, but the Dr didn’t actually do it alone. It was a group effort. So there could be an aspect of leadership that’s missing in this formula.
Nonetheless, I’m willing to give it a try sometimes. I’m actually having some success with one on my very first try. And he came in extremely hot, guns blazing, exactly the type I would have previously immediately Phase 3’d (stern warning). It’s eerie.
I’m currently watching a documentary he asked me to watch because of a question I asked him. I said I’d commit to watching at least 5 minutes (no conditions attached) and asked if he’d return the favor and watch 5 minutes of something I thought would interest him. It’s past midnight so it’s probably too late for a reply, but the documentary turned out to be quite good and I’ll probably finish it.
I know the golden rule of the internet is “don’t feed the trolls”, but personally, I love slipping them metaphorical-laxatives. The way I see it, if I’m tying up their attention by trolling them back, then they won’t have time to troll other people.
It’s not nice, but I’m ok with that.
Depending on how one defines it, we’re all someone else’s troll from time to time.
I’d say the other part of the problem is that the algorithms are either crap at their job or (in my view more likely) also try to push the occasional ‘opposite’ interests at us.
If the algorithms really did just nudge us towards more and more likeminded people/views then we’d have fewer trollies since we’d all just be sitting in our little silos agreeing with each other and therefore fairly swiftly ending up saying nothing since there would be nothing to talk about.
If instead you occasionally send the rabid Trump supporter/opponent stuff they’ll hate, they are encouraged to respond, thereby igniting activity on the social media platform.
I thought the same thing. You can’t make your whole activism about converting internet trollies. It might save a few confused idiots from their worst impulses, but it would burn me out so fast. I limit this kind of patient, hand-holding to the trollies in my own family, and then go out to live my life after blocking the rest.
This depends on your community, though. There are other ways to set the tone, and blocking people also does that for a lot less effort. Furthermore, on YouTube for example, nearly 100% of the trollies are drive-bys. They shitpost one thing on every video they watch and never come to my channel again. Because of that, there’s no value in my trying to improve their moral standing. I have to focus on the quality of my channel, and the most efficient way to do that is to instablock people.
I also strongly suspect she’s not dealing with anywhere near the volume that YouTubers do. A half-dozen people on Twitter or a blog, sure, it’s worthwhile to try and connect with them. Trying to “improve” trollies on YouTube is like trying to fight a tsunami with a bucket and mop.
This is YouTube’s problem, not mine. Their algorithm rewards videos that attract trollies and they don’t give us good tools to moderate efficiently and effectively. The platforms are on the hook to fix this, not poor already-over-worked content creators.
Or, you could say, the algorithms are great at doing their job, but the programmers are crap at theirs. It’s no coincidence that an industry dominated by already-privileged white men who are then rewarded with extraordinary privilege for doing mediocre work tends to reflect a worldview that cannot comprehend systemic injustice and socioeconomic inequality. Not only are the core functions of these platforms poorly conceived, but their creators lack the very capacity to understand where to begin and therefore their platforms do as well.
Well, in addition to being an online warrior, she’s also a teacher, so when I relayed your question I got this fairly complete answer:
I use a method I think of as “driving trollies the trollies” in which I treat them as harshly as they treat others, while using scientific studies as the foundation of my attack. It’s an ugly approach, and of course I don’t do this to anyone else on the internet, but it is extremely effective in dealing with trollies.
The first and most important thing is to be certain that I’m dealing with an actual trolley, not just someone who’s emotional about the conversation they’re participating in. Any normal person can lose their cool online sometimes and it wouldn’t be fair to call them trollies. A trolley is someone whose enjoyment of online interactions generally comes from inflicting mental pain on others. They go from place to place insulting people, picking fights, being cruel, etc., purely for fun.
There is no reasoning with these people, they’re online in the first place to get a kick out of hurting others and there’s only one way to deal with them: take the fun out of the present interaction. There are two ways to do this, either by ignoring them until they’re convinced they can’t get a rise out of you and move on, or by hitting them in the only place it hurts for them.
Although ignoring them is best, in dynamic group forums, an experienced trolley can usually find someone whose skin they can get under and start torturing them. That’s when I step in with Strategy Number Two, which so far has never failed to shut a trolley down instantly, and no more is seen or heard from them. That strategy is to assert psychological dominance by publicly unmasking them using super-aggressive language. Here’s an approximation of my most recent trolley smack-down:
[trolley’s username], do you enjoy upsetting people on the internet? If so, you’re probably manifesting signs of an anti-social personality disorder. Unfortunately, there’s no reliable treatment for such a mental defect, and you’ll likely spend the rest of your life understimulated by normal interactions, and in order to feel much of anything, you’ll always have to stoop instead to behavior scientists associate with “the dark tetrad” making your actions extremely predictable. If you lean towards sadism, you’ll act one way, if towards machiavellianism, you’ll act another way, all because of your bad wiring. Here’s an interesting article on the subject: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists
The exact wording isn’t what you need to remember. The point is proving to the trolley in front of everybody that you have the upper hand and there’s nothing they can do about it. Also pointing out that what they have is a mental disorder / defect they cannot cure or correct. Including the link to the article I think is key, though, and I make sure to wrap up with it every time.
Are there any other countries you deem unworthy of participating in the Internet? I mean, I get it, it’s so much nicer talking among yourselves, without all those enemies of democracy being able to weigh in. Just limit the dialogue to North Americans, and maybe select Europeans… it’s not like any threat to democracy or peace every originated here.
