There’s another troll story in the news at the moment. This time it is the online bullying of a Down’s syndrome girl.
A 16-year-old girl with Down’s Syndrome has said she wanted to cry after hearing “internet trolls” were mocking her image online.
Heidi Crowter from Coventry spoke to ITV’s Daybreak with her mother Liz Crowter, and admitted she was almost brought to tears after learning photos of her were being used by online bullies to insult people with Down’s Syndrome.
Okay, there’s a couple of things going on here. Firstly, there is the matter of copyright violation. I am aware that this is a difficult problem to deal with – having had to deal with it myself. Being a tenacious cove, I chased the bastards back to their host and got the images removed and kept doing it until they got the message. As a consequence, the user responsible was banned from the message boards hosting the image.
It is, however, a problem inherent with the medium. As soon as a browser views an image, it is saved in the cache on the computer’s hard drive. So, effectively, the viewer has made a copy of the image. This makes it very difficult to police. Oh, sure, there are little tweaks you can indulge in to make life more difficult for the miscreant, but ultimately, if they are determined, there’s not much to be done, really. Facebook are dealing with it in the only way that they can; removing unauthorised uses from their site. However, the image has been taken and it can be used elsewhere at will, should the perpetrators wish to do so. The only answer to this is not to post images, which is a sad indictment of our society, frankly.
The other issue is that this is not really trolling. Bullying, certainly. Nasty behaviour, yup. If they are targeting this girl, then it may well be stalking, but it is not trolling. The troll is a bit like the student I knew when I was at college; an immature practical joker who derives amusement from making others react to his taunts or deliberately contrarian argument – an argument he will change to suit the audience. Both have one objective; to cause disruption. If he can start a flame war he is a pig in shit.
The media seem to be describing any and all bad behaviour online as trolling when it self-evidently is not. But, then, when have journalists ever managed to get the facts right?
I think the MSM are being lazy and calling everything trolling. Even Dizzy had a crack at them for equating flaming with trolling.
http://dizzythinks.net/2011/11/stop-saying-flaming-is-trolling.html
Lazy? You understate, methinks.
“But, then, when have journalists ever managed to get the facts right?”
I think they’re just following the government’s “facts”:
Internet “trolls” are ruining the web for millions and millions of people. Therefore the only possible solution is that the state comes to their rescue.
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the start of a subtle campaign to show the absolute necessity of ID cards as well as how essential it is that the state takes complete control of the Internet.
Yet there is no need to have any form of government approved identity is there? Comments can be traced back to the relevant computer from which they were made – even if the troll, cyber stalker or bully tries to hide behind an anonymous proxy, for proxies will give up their secrets if you know how to ask.
“Yet there is no need to have any form of government approved identity is there?”
None whatsoever.
But when has that ever mattered to them on any other issue?
Well, I’ve worked in intellectual property, unfortunately. Absolutely soul-destroying job. But I do have quite a bit of experience with this. Copyright violations are not black and white, and the laws vary from country to country. The key is understanding fair use. The UK doesn’t have very strong fair use protection, meaning that pretty much any aggrieved party can claim copyright violation even when the image was used in criticism, or some small part of it was used, etc. It really isn’t copyright violation if the image is used for education or criticism or parody, although again the UK has gone back and forth on this so many times that it has become increasingly difficult to predict an outcome. It will be, basically, whatever a judge “feels” about something rather than the facts and the intent.
You also have to consider if the image is being used to generate revenue and/or for passing off one’s goods as another.
There is so much bullshit info on the web that people really don’t know what is and what isn’t copyright.
Now “moral rights” is a good thing to use, particularly in France, which has just about the strongest moral rights protection in the world. Moral rights gives you a right to object to how your work is used and to say “I do not agree with my image/artwork/creative work being used for a particular thing. You must stop using it at once.” You don’t even need to define it. So even if you assign the copyright to a company, for instance, if that company uses it in a way that you don’t like, you can force them to stop. In the UK, moral rights are not granted automatically. You have to specifically assert your moral rights. Contracts are usually drafted so that you have to waive your moral rights.
Well, I’m probably boring you now.
Thanks for that – it is illuminating. That said, my experience was pretty positive. I discovered that my images were being used and manipulated without consent or attribution. I took the matter up with the owner of the forum concerned and they very quickly removed them and banned the guilty user as not only was it in breach of my terms and conditions regarding usage, it was in breach of theirs.
My approach is pretty relaxed, I am happy for people to use my images, but ask first, attribute and don’t hotlink.
“she wanted to cry after hearing “internet trolls” were mocking her image online”
Hearing. So she may never have known those images were there if her mother hadn’t told her.
Why would you cause your own child distress if you didn’t absolutely have to ? Or did this mother absolutely have to…and for whose sake ? 😐