Quinn Norton: Trolling, "Men Are Raised To Hate Women" and Other Confusing Statements.
sknight.substack.com
Twitter has been big news of late, with reports that they plan to implement an abuse reporting function. I’ve been asked a few times what my thoughts are on the matter, and I’m all for it. Threatening and unlawful behaviour is completely unacceptable and those who engage in such a manner should be held accountable. I displayed my willingness to side with this sentiment recently by reporting a clearly threatening tweet (not to me) to the police. My only concern is: how will this be regulated? Will Twitter have the manpower (or women!!!!!) to efficiently distinguish abusers and trollers from genuine disagreement or attempts to engage in meaningful discourse? Given the vast numbers of Twitter users and the seemingly unrealistic task of policing it, is it likely to be an unmanned, automated process? An algorithm simply reacting to multiple ‘abuse reports’? Only time will tell. ‘Troll’ seems the buzzword of late. The problem is, that “troll” in the context of the internet has no unified definition. I personally take trolling to mean the act of intentionally making insincere statements to an individual, or individuals in order to provoke a response, or as they would call it, a “victory”. Others use it simply to describe an individual who seeks out arguments online. I’m trolled daily in the former sense. People will tweet me en masse with clearly disingenuous statements in the hope that I may respond. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It often depends on how dull my commute to work is that morning. There also seems to be a small, but persistent gaggle of people who dedicate themselves to ‘atheist bating’, whereby they will say something incredibly ignorant/insulting about atheists online in the hope of provoking a reaction. They then receive such a reaction, and decide this means atheists are stupid. I liken this behaviour to a digital version of feigning a punch and shouting “MADE YOU FLINCH!”, except the requirement of knowing actual people isn’t necessary. I’ve sent over 36.4k tweets on twitter. Most of which are challenging badly spelled aggressive, abusive or downright confusing statements at the expense of atheists. Not one of my tweets has contained a single expletive (unless quoted), a threat or anything I feel could reasonably be characterised as ‘abuse’. Why? Because it's not the kind of person I am. Because I’m genuinely interested in discussion. Why do people say these things? How can they not know the things I know, given my average level of education? Why do people with the least understanding, have the loudest mouths and the worst spelling? I mock. I ridicule. I’m sarcastic. I lose no sleep over this, yet regardless of my commitment to predominantly civil discourse I’m frequently labelled ‘abusive’, ‘a troll’ or even more absurdly, ‘a bully’. It annoys me to no end that the serious issue of bullying is trivialised when used so cheaply as nothing more than a safety blanket to shield those who do not wish to have their idiotic statements questioned. Moving on to a recent exchange with
Quinn Norton: Trolling, "Men Are Raised To Hate Women" and Other Confusing Statements.
Quinn Norton: Trolling, "Men Are Raised To…
Quinn Norton: Trolling, "Men Are Raised To Hate Women" and Other Confusing Statements.
Twitter has been big news of late, with reports that they plan to implement an abuse reporting function. I’ve been asked a few times what my thoughts are on the matter, and I’m all for it. Threatening and unlawful behaviour is completely unacceptable and those who engage in such a manner should be held accountable. I displayed my willingness to side with this sentiment recently by reporting a clearly threatening tweet (not to me) to the police. My only concern is: how will this be regulated? Will Twitter have the manpower (or women!!!!!) to efficiently distinguish abusers and trollers from genuine disagreement or attempts to engage in meaningful discourse? Given the vast numbers of Twitter users and the seemingly unrealistic task of policing it, is it likely to be an unmanned, automated process? An algorithm simply reacting to multiple ‘abuse reports’? Only time will tell. ‘Troll’ seems the buzzword of late. The problem is, that “troll” in the context of the internet has no unified definition. I personally take trolling to mean the act of intentionally making insincere statements to an individual, or individuals in order to provoke a response, or as they would call it, a “victory”. Others use it simply to describe an individual who seeks out arguments online. I’m trolled daily in the former sense. People will tweet me en masse with clearly disingenuous statements in the hope that I may respond. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It often depends on how dull my commute to work is that morning. There also seems to be a small, but persistent gaggle of people who dedicate themselves to ‘atheist bating’, whereby they will say something incredibly ignorant/insulting about atheists online in the hope of provoking a reaction. They then receive such a reaction, and decide this means atheists are stupid. I liken this behaviour to a digital version of feigning a punch and shouting “MADE YOU FLINCH!”, except the requirement of knowing actual people isn’t necessary. I’ve sent over 36.4k tweets on twitter. Most of which are challenging badly spelled aggressive, abusive or downright confusing statements at the expense of atheists. Not one of my tweets has contained a single expletive (unless quoted), a threat or anything I feel could reasonably be characterised as ‘abuse’. Why? Because it's not the kind of person I am. Because I’m genuinely interested in discussion. Why do people say these things? How can they not know the things I know, given my average level of education? Why do people with the least understanding, have the loudest mouths and the worst spelling? I mock. I ridicule. I’m sarcastic. I lose no sleep over this, yet regardless of my commitment to predominantly civil discourse I’m frequently labelled ‘abusive’, ‘a troll’ or even more absurdly, ‘a bully’. It annoys me to no end that the serious issue of bullying is trivialised when used so cheaply as nothing more than a safety blanket to shield those who do not wish to have their idiotic statements questioned. Moving on to a recent exchange with