Can someone define "concern troll" for me?

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Yeah, the quadcopter cat didn’t bother me personally, but I can definitely see why someone could be seriously disturbed by it. Occasionally there are posts where my first reaction is “Gah!” though I can’t think of any at the moment.

I hate to bring this up, because of where I suspect it’ll go, but what about people who want trigger warnings on every post remotely connected to sexual assault? Is that a form of concern driving trollies? I think it’s a genuine desire, but it seems like a group that is used to hanging around one section of the internet where trigger warnings are the norm wanting to expand that rule to everywhere else.

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http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline

I will never, ever understand this controversy.

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The deal with the quadcopter cat is they were actually expressing distaste at the thing being discussed. Rather than a hypothetical someone else might be offended by this. What if a child saw it?? What if a crazy person saw this and then went to your house and stole your cat and turned its still living body into a quadcopter, I mean I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. That’s the difference, right?

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I don’t think that’s concern driving trollies per se, although it can be disruptive. It’s in the same category as people getting upset there isn’t a “NSFW” warning on anything containing a hint of nudity.

It’s a matter of context. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to asking for a little warning when something is going to be upsetting, or inappropriate, when that’s not the typical content of the site. If the site were called Rapey Tales from Rapesville then maybe you’d be concern driving trollies if you commented on every story going “JEEZ GIVE ME A WARNING NEXT TIME.”

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I dunno… I always got the (possibly mistaken) impression that concern driving trollies is, from the perspective of the concern-trolled, the action of a wet-blanket, stick-in-the-mud killjoy who gets in a high dudgeon about the harmless fun enjoyed by everyone else. No concern trolley would describe his or her own actions that way; either they’re utterly sincere in their beliefs and really want us to “think of the children/victims/whatever,” or their commitment to the role they play within their driving trollies is such that they don’t admit to driving trollies.

I think it’s safe to assume that those who plead for trigger warnings are always sincere, except for those cases where they are self-evidently dicking around with the concept. And I, at least, give a lot of leeway to the sincere. I like a certain sizable dollop of darkness in my life. I think there is much value to be had by the catharsis of violent horror movies and books, and gallows humor, and whistling past the graveyard. Life is a cold, miserable bucket of stale shit much of the time for most people, and just as we need to value and appreciate and cherish the good and beautiful things we see and hear and experience, I think we also need to laugh at the absurdities and depravities whenever and however we can (even as we try to the ends of our endurance to eradicate them) lest we succumb to the despair and hopelessness that reality offers us in double handfuls if we don’t use our imaginations to try to elevate our way out.

At the same time, it’s only decent and humane and sensible to realize that we all have different levels of endurance, and different tastes, and different experiences. I can laugh (at a fairly distant remove) at my ancestor who drowned in an outhouse. She can’t. Maybe her children can’t. If they can’t, it’s not my place to tell them they’re wrong, or oversensitive, or whatever. Though it’s difficult for me to imagine a death more horrific than falling through a rotten outhouse seat and drowning in the cesspool beneath, I also find it difficult to imagine a more hilarious ending for a human life. There’s such an utter lack of dignity there, as if the whole Universe flushed humanity down the loo while muttering, “There! That’s what We think of your oh-so-superior species, ye who fancied yourselves holding dominion over all the beasts and fowls and flora of your puny planet! How does that taste?!”

I guess I don’t really resent most “concern trollies,” unless they’re very obviously and actually driving trollies. I want there to be people to occasionally remind me when I’m forgetting about the larger issues, or when I let my compassion erode a bit too far when the absurdity of someone else’s misfortune tickles my funnybone a tad too much. Decades ago, Stephen King mentioned the fad of “dead baby” jokes that were popular in my circles around the time I was in 6th grade. The example he cited was “What’s the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead babies? You can’t unload a truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork.” There’s no sophistication and precious little humor in such a joke; most of the comedy value comes from the listener’s sickened reaction to the punchline. Some people (maybe even some people you know!) might cackle and look forward to hitting some of their buddies with such a zinger. Other people might find the whole thing utterly valueless and reprehensible and beneath preserving even as an archetype for a primitive and obsolete form of proto-humor practiced by underevolved ragamuffins destined to grow up to a life of sociopathy and miscreance. Some people might feel personally offended by such a joke, either due to having recently lost an infant child or possibly due to their own childhood misadventure involving pitchforks and the suffocating pressure of stacked corpses pressing down on them. Who are we to judge them for their reaction?

I don’t know what my point is. Part of me really wants to try to avoid offending anyone, and part of me will be unable to resist slipping a Whoopee Cushion under somebody at a funeral. I guess most of me just needs to remember that there’s a really big and vitally important reason why almost nothing offends me personally: I’ve never been seriously attacked, harmed, molested, oppressed, violated, subjugated, censored, held back, raped, injured, stalked, robbed, overpowered, intimidated, or dropped into a cesspit. And for that I am one seriously fortunate human being.

I’d better remember that.

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Way I see it is that if its not intentional then it’s not trolling. That’s just someone with delicate sensibilities.

Not that I wrote the dictionary entry or anything, it just seems like the wrong phrase to use if no intent was present. Hence why many people being labelled as concern trolls immediately retort with, ‘I’m not a troll’. And rightly so IMO.

Else we might as well label anyone with a non-mainstream viewpoint as a troll, as it would meet the same criteria.

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I think it really depends on the person bringing it up. If you have been sexually assaulted, it’s not concern driving trollies to ask for trigger warnings. If you haven’t, and don’t know somebody who has, and don’t work with assault victims or something (ie, you have no relation to anybody who has ever been involved in a sexual assault), then it’s closer to what I perceive as concern driving trollies, because you are speaking on behalf of a theoretical person who might be offended/hurt/whatever. But I feel like this is another one of those things that is starting to diverge in meaning, where it means something just a little bit different to everybody.

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It’s reasonable and humane to want to avoid provoking painful memories in people who’ve been hurt. But fundamentally, there are too many sources of harm and too many people who have been harmed for well-meaning self-censorship to be really possible. Most of us probably have ‘trigger issues’, but mine are my problem, not yours. I’ll hope you’ll be understanding when somebody gets ‘triggered’, and if you want to try to warn people that you are going to write something that might cause them pain, go ahead, it speaks well of you. However, at some point you’re inadvertently going to garner a reaction you didn’t intend, because you simply can’t know everything about all people who might read your words, and the world is full of suffering.

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Great post.

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Oy, it just occurred to me that a troll is trolling in the sense of dragging a lure and hook behind a boat to catch certain kinds of fish. I thought also of the gay slang ‘trolling’ which must derive from the fishing term, though Wiki disagrees.

Anyway, that does imply intent. Wiki defines internet trolling as not necessarily intentional, citing common usage to back the claim up. It suggests the core of trolling is taking the thread off-subject in one way or another. De-railing the conversation.

If we take the last definition then a concern troll could be anyone who insists on making their aside the central point of the conversation because it has greater moral weight than the original subject.

“This might encourage others to try to cut their own penis off. How would you feel then mister smarty pants.”

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That usually seems to come from the not at all hypothetical chance that if there’s any uptick in any content with a hint of nudity (especially on the main page), the person’s boss will decide that the whole site is NSFW. In this case, they are probably working for an identified concern trolley with a history of blocking sites that they consider inappropriate. Most of these people are fine with adult content but would appreciate still being able to read BB on a work computer.

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It took me ages to get that too, as it’s spelled “trawling” in the UK and pronounced differently. I’d always imagined it was someone acting like the trolley in the Billy Goats Gruff story.

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They’re different methods of fishing. Trawling is with a net, driving trollies is with a pole.

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That makes a lot of sense…

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How about when the slippery slope argument is overused - “we can’t let gay people marry, otherwise people will start marrying their pets and siblings, and civilization itself will collapse!” Or a variation on the “think of the children!” argument: “we can’t allow transsexuals to go public, people will be confused! Not me of course, I support these people.”

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I think we’ve fought the NSFW battle before. It was once called “indecency”.

The Government also asserts that the “knowledge” requirement of both §§223(a) and (d), especially when coupled with the “specific child” element found in §223(d), saves the CDA from overbreadth. Because both sections prohibit the dissemination of indecent messages only to persons known to be under 18, the Government argues, it does not require transmitters to “refrain from communicating indecent material to adults; they need only refrain from disseminating such materials to persons they know to be under 18.” Brief for Appellants 24. This argument ignores the fact that most Internet fora–including chat rooms, newsgroups, mail exploders, and the Web–are open to all comers. The Government’s assertion that the knowledge requirement somehow protects the communications of adults is therefore untenable. Even the strongest reading of the “specific person” requirement of §223(d) cannot save the statute. It would confer broad powers of censorship, in the form of a “heckler’s veto,” upon any opponent of indecent speech who might simply log on and inform the would be discoursers that his 17 year old child–a “specific person . . . under 18 years of age,” 47 U. S. C. A. §223(d)(1)(A) (Supp. 1997)–would be present.

Aclu v. Reno

My question: Do NSFW tags pose the same sort of problems? Shouldn’t an adult be able to discuss matters that are not safe for work (but not necessarily porn) without worrying whether it triggers an over zealous filter? I have heard that censorware can be justified on the basis that it promotes a non-hostile work environment–one in which people think about work but not about sex, but where does this leave the “just look at it meme” on boingboing, which only works if one is thinking about a certain subtext which is not in keeping with an asexual workplace.

I suppose that many of us have a pretty good understanding of what might overcome the least sensitive NSFW filter. One knows it when one sees it. The trick is extending that heureustic to cover what a bluenose (or a broken keyword filter) might think of as “unsafe” without disrupting or compartmentalizing ones thoughts.

Which brings me to an important question. What are “triggers” and why should I care?

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As far as I can tell, “just look at it”, while it may have started that way, has become purely a running gag about unexpected images involving bananas. If the sexual subtext is there and intentional, then it’s either poorly done or reflects a pre-existing mindset I don’t share, since I honestly can’t see it in recent posts.

Folks who’ve been through some kinds of horrific experience (however one defines that) may have PTSD-like reactions to discussion of it or closely related topics. A bit of care, to avoid making folks more uncomfortable than necessary/intended, is not inappropriate. That doesn’t necessarily mean the discussion can’t go forward, but it does mean that blindsiding folks with it should be avoided.

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People who have been mentally scarred by severely traumatic events (note, such events typically leave physical scars too) can experience painful over-reactions to sensory inputs that remind them of those events. For example, if a person was repeatedly mauled by dogs as a child, and a child is threatened by a dog in that person’s presence, you’ll probably see a “trigger event”. This might be a screaming fit, emotional collapse, the immediate and brutal demise of the dog, or something more unique, depending on the person. The triggered person very likely will not have the ability to act in a thinking way to de-escalate the situation, they’ll just react - which is why you should care. We’re all animals.

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So… I should probably avoid talking about dogs in the future, then. Much less dickwolves…

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A better example might be, “I’m concerned President Obama isn’t closer to the center on issues like the urgent need to repeal Obamacare. It may cost him some serious credibility!” You can almost, but not quite hear, “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!” The statement is prima facie bullshit, as the concerned trolley obviously wants Obama to die in a fire.

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