Now who is engaging in the art of controversy? I affirm nothing regarding the self-righteousness of trolls, only of those who would sacrifice freedom of discourse and justify it as troll-prophylaxis. As Benjamin Franklin said, “those who are willing to sacrifice their freedom for a little temporary security, deserve neither”. I’d say that goes double for “freedom of speech” and “people being mean and tricksy”.
That is not to say that I think the only meaningful expression of freedom of speech is getting all up in peoples’ faces - I despair of the view that the worthy use of free speech is continual antagonism and expression of bigotry. Not as much as I despair of conversations stopped and threads locked because someone thinks that an arbitrary ‘troll event horizon’ has been breached (or that they don’t like the line being taken and ‘trolling’ becomes a convenient excuse).
