Except… They are not trolls. Never were.
Twitter’s recent history has been beset by stories of trolling and extremism. Celebrity users, the great cheerleading asset for the platform in its fledgling years, have been closing their accounts. Many of them have been women.
As damaging has been the supposed use of the site by Islamist jihadis and their recruiting sergeants. But Twitter is fighting back. Boosted in October by the return of its founder Jack Dorsey, now permanent chief executive, it believes it is winning its war on trolls and clearing its decks of violent extremists.
Their answer to this abuse is phone verification. They seem to think that it is working. Whatever. The only answer is to avoid this stupid, pointless site completely.
But, but, but, abuse is not trolling. A troll is someone who winds up others with a degree of intelligence and wit. Someone who is trolling for a bite. Simple abuse is not, never has been and never will be trolling.
Of course, the hard-of-thinking on-line SJW mob that rounds on anyone who dares to indulge in thought-crime is just dandy. I wonder if the owners of Twatter will be taking on those arseholes?
O, to be infected by a ‘Good Troll’. Someone who put forth effort and replies with intelligent whimsy. A rare beast indeed, but when found, should be nurtured and clasped to our breast. I’ve managed to track down a few and made them my internet buddies…
Indeed.
I can troll you if you like Flaxen…….
Disabled toilet
(Only kidding!)
Oh, God, I’d forgotten that moron.
Apparently, he was going to close this blog down over a year ago.
” A troll is someone who winds up others with a degree of intelligence and wit. Someone who is trolling for a bite.”
Forgive any ignorance I show and leaving aside abusive people, if we are defining what is or is not a troll, would it not be true to say that, in order for the troll to get his ‘bite’, he would simply have to hold a different view than yourself and most others, which may be, according to popular opinion, a valid view? In which case, where do you draw the line as to who can be called a troll? In my view, if one can anger all the posters on a blog or forum simply by taking an opposing stance, that tells me more about the posters than the supposed ‘troll’.
The Internet Troll is a wind-up merchant. They may very well hold the same views as the majority, but they’ll take a delight in stirring shit and watching said majority fly off the handle.
It’s as easy as, “Well, to play Devil’s Advocate here, isn’t it also the case that…” And you’re off. (Hell, you can stir the pot nice and violently in a programming forum by just advocating spaces vs. tabs in a code editor. I am not kidding.)
Trolling is essentially a branch of sociology.
The ignorant twits who report on technology in the mainstream media — and particularly at the BBC — don’t believe such nuanced terms can possibly exist in a community that isn’t stuffed with pretentious arts graduates.
These are the same insultingly uneducated pricks who think a “hacker” is a bad person who likes to break into other computer systems and access private data. (The correct term in the community for such people is “cracker”. As in “safe-cracker” and its ilk, which is hardly a difficult connection to make. A hacker is just a slang term for *any* programmer, but was most often applied to one who wrote code quickly rather than carefully.)
You got there before me. The troll is an anthill kicker. They stir things up just to see what happens.
What the media describe as trolls are nothing of the sort.
“It’s as easy as, “Well, to play Devil’s Advocate here, isn’t it also the case that…” And you’re off. (Hell, you can stir the pot nice and violently in a programming forum by just advocating spaces vs. tabs in a code editor. I am not kidding.)”
Thank you for enlightening me. I guess I will never fully understand the concept of trolling or the attitude toward it. I have to agree with your quoted statement, there have been a few times when I have tried to help someone on a bike forum, putting forward a suggestion that has fixed whatever problem for myself in the past, and been torn to shreds within the hour. Its a complete waste of time trying to discuss or argue your side of things. I find that the Americans seem to be the most sensitive.
That’s not always trolling. Sometimes it is a failure to read what has been written and then assume the rest…