This is the second of a small series of articles “Anti/Social” discussing why I have not ever, and won’t use popular social media platforms, and why you probably shouldn’t either, if you want to remain a happy, centered, adult. This is about Trolls.
My previous posting is Here.
I want to speak here to my second major observation:
2 — All social media always attracts ‘trolls’ who publicly and cruelly antagonizing the maximum number of people possible, without reason or purpose.
A suppuration of trolls always appear in social media. (I like “suppuration”: there is no collective noun for Trolls. In other writing, my new favorite term is a “conjugation of porn stars.”). The suppuration appears sometimes slyly, like a tingle on your lip then suddenly there’s a massive herpes lesion — unhappiness. The suppuration then abruptly causing chaos (trolls appear even in lightly moderated context — J.K. Rowling probably doesn’t even realize she’s a twitter troll).
There are so many different types of trolls on social media, it’s hard to really consider them all. There’s the basic vitriolic troll (“all of you must die” is a common type message). There’s the threat troll (“I know where you live”). The insult troll (“Can a human be as stupid as you? Yes!”), the oblivious troll (“Why don’t you people people just buy real estate instead of whining about rent control?”), the ‘splaining troll (“You should really try breastfeeding. It’s better for your baby.”), the concern troll (“I support feminism, but wouldn’t they get further if they weren’t so anti-male?”), and a new breed of influence troll (“Breakfast at the beach in Bali just feels safer in the pandemic, you should think about it, here’s a photo”), and the injured party troll (“It upsets me to hear biological men called women, it’s just crazy.”).
It doesn’t seem quite to be an effect of anonymity (Trump and Rowling are instant counterexamples) though anonymity certainly accelerates troll-colonization of social media. It seems related to ‘ultracrepidarianism’ (a recent favorite word) – ‘being expert in a field you are not qualified in’ a little bit, it’s also about confusing facts with opinions and feeling, sometimes the need to always have the last word, perhaps just being a bully - there are so many troll behaviors I’ve seen in Usenet in the 80’s, discussed in the prior article, it’s hard to really understand the underlying model, but the outcome is always the same – people getting upset by what they read, censoring what they may write, and ultimately abandoning the platform. To me, it’s simply an outcome of unmoderated social media. The conversations always dive to the lowest common denominator, which is usually insults, and when the trolls are most successful, paradoxically, everyone abandons the platform.
Knowing Trolls
Internet fostered the creation of “Godwin’s Law” in the early 90’s, in which the longer a conversation grows on internet (substitute social media here), the higher the likelihood that one or more contributors will be compared to Hitler. When you’re in a Godwin-heading conversation, you’re working with trolls. Valuable use of time? Made you feel better? Nope — time to go! The Trolls have taken over.
What Usenet, from my first article, didn’t have as troll behavior was modern technology mutations - networks of trolls (conspiracy networks), cancel trolls, video upload trolls, troll robots (no human being involved!). There are so many ways to upset people now, so many ways to bully, divert conversation and drive self-attention. It all looks the same to me in the end. It’s important to recognize that the moment you are reading something in social media which is intentionally infuriating - time to go! The Trolls have taken over!
What’s fascinating is how attracted Republicans are to public media. There’s a reason. I could make the case that the entire visible Republican party is simply a gigantic suppuration of trolls, infecting media, spreading incendiary lies, diverting issues, and attempting to antagonize the maximum number of people possible for no reason other than to sour everyone on civic engagement — “abandon the platform!” Pure troll activity.
Troll Management
There are troll management techniques we learned from Usenet in the 80’s. Here’s an example. I was speaking recently to a woman who headed up a reproductive rights organization in SF, who was clearly shaken, or pissed, with having to ‘managing responses’ on their public website to informational blogs. The depravity can be considerable. I told her that in the early ‘80’s, we found the simplest response to a troll message, aside from ignoring it, was a recipe. Just post a recipe in response and the troll diversion dies instantly.
Short recipes that can just be a keystroke macro work fine.
Heat oil, lard, or fat in an 8-qt. Dutch oven over high. While whisking, sprinkle in flour until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, whisking continually and slowly (to avoid hot splatters), and scraping the edges and sides of pan until roux turns the color of dark chocolate, 40-50 minutes for 1 cup of roux.
She loved it, and I recall her husband looking startled, and happy that there were some simple lightweight tools she could use. Trolls had really taken their toll.
When it’s possible to nullify responses from trolls with recipes or other humorous, but engaging media (economic statistics?) — but why does it kill troll talk? Three things happen:
- The trolls are infuriated because clearly nobody cares, or responds further to their invective. Often they stop posting, but they are still lurking and will lash out.
- It makes a game out of troll riddance for some of those involved, and frankly we’re all curious about short, fun recipes, but the time and effort to purge infuriating posts makes everyone, over time, tired.
- It’s easier to troll than to block. The coordinated blocking will, in the long run, tire people and fail. Entropy and noise always win if there’s no investment in energy and time.
But, it takes energy and time. And when faced with Demon Speed (later in this series), even the best automated recipe posting from the “The Joy of Cooking” wears down. Troll management at the individual level unfortunately becomes overwhelming, which leads me to another key observation.
3 — Groups of people can coordinate responses to stop the cesspool of Troll, but they will always lose in the long run outside of moderated forums.
The recipe post and other techniques can work on small scale, and did, but ultimately trolls added and added to Usenet groups, until the Usenet groups were completely unuseable — kind of the state for certain forums on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, on and on. Again, for what I see in social media, I hear substantial complaints which simply tell me that trolls, even ones that are conforming to ‘moderation’ are abundant. But there’s always (misplaced hope) that groups of people can coordinate responses to stop trash, but history proves that they will always lose in the long run.
By moderation, of course, I mean imposing rules of engagement, and their being uniformly enforced on social media. Do not not attack people individually or in groups. Keep on topic. Do not advocate self-harm. Do not advocate violence. Do not commit Fraud. Do not commit libel. Do not advocate governmental overthrow, violation of civil rights. Do not threaten, coerce, or blackmail individuals to leave the platform. You know, “the honor system”. Active moderation ensures that communications meets standards before it is allowed to be seen by others. So simple!
Over 10 years of Usenet – roughly all of the 80’s – in certain unmoderated and moderated groups, frequent posters and people with shared views found ways to counter bad behaviors by coordinating anti-troll activity. The “recipe” in the last posting is an example. But, with expansion, the inevitable problem comes that spam and troll messaging reaches such a volume that no team, or filters, can really stem the tide. New readers and posters come on all the time, and don’t understand or participated in coordinated management, and eventual real messaging simply ends up disappearing into chaos and junk. The people seeking for value from the social forum just leave, because it becomes a waste of time.
What’s become interesting to me is that even externally moderated forums can become polluted by noise if there isn’t sufficient coordination and moderation. The pure volume of irrelevant information and lies, which conform to moderation but aren’t necessarily blocked or removed in ‘social’ media eventually also rises. In Usenet, it became impossible in certain groups to remove or cancel all spam. It became impossible to redirect irrelevant discussions to relevant groups. As noise rose, even those moderating and attempting control just gave up.
The only coordinated way to manage was human review and approval of messages, which strikes many as ‘a bad thing’, but it’s no worse than masking real content through noise (the term “steaganography’, hiding information in noise, is probably relevant). One of the reasons I am a big fan of Wikipedia is because it’s so relentlessly curated and controlled, and stays relevant. Social media sites which aren’t relentlessly curated and controlled become irrelevant and simply die.
So, ask yourself. Am I reading messages which infuriate me on a social network? The Have I reacted only to have the reaction make me even more furious? Is my news continually filled with irrelevant messages, are conversations diverted by tangential information intentionally, or even unintentionally? Do I feel more tired, more exhausted, and less informed after reading from a social media network? Are postings creating envy, sadness, feelings of inadequacy? Why are you bothering with it at all then?
Trolls consume lives: your life, and the lives of others. That’s a reason I never use social media systems.
(The kicker: (non-social) media systems which platform trolls, say network news, also become irrelevant and die. Just watch.)
Next up: Fast Track Hell.