Reminder: reddit may be dead, but trolls are not. ( kbin.social )

As we start to see more users join, it's inevitable to see trolls (especially low-effort trolls) making more of an appearance and trying to be controversial and noticed.

Best just to scroll past them. They want to spark unwinnable arguments and rack up negative rep. If something seems absurdly ridiculous or inciteful, just move on. It's not even worth down voting.

Niello ,

Actually, they should be reported. Don't just scroll pass if you see harassment or hate speech.

Ostermac ,

Is that all it takes to trigger you?

Chozo ,

Thanks for providing a comment to test the report feature with.

Frog-Brawler ,
@Frog-Brawler@kbin.social avatar

Not sure there’s anything to report with the previous comment; yet I don’t disagree with it being a dick thing to say.

BurntPunk ,

Way back in the way back we used to call comments like that “flame baiting”. It’s trying to start a fight, nothing more. Forums and BBs I moderated used to technically ban it, but generally the rule has always just been “don’t feed the trolls”. Meaning: don’t comment, don’t downvote, don’t bother reporting. They just want attention, the only thing that hurts them is realizing that this board will ignore them just as completely as their parents already do in real life.

Madison_rogue ,
@Madison_rogue@kbin.social avatar

Yes. Back then there wasn't any upvoting or downvoting, so the only way you interacted with a troll is either engage them or ignore them...preferably the latter.

Images like this were typical...yet helpful.

jherazob ,
@jherazob@kbin.social avatar

Holy crap this is an image I hadn't seen in ages! 😃

Kichae ,

The k-soc terms of service state:

Harassment, hate speech, or any other form of harmful behavior will not be tolerated.

Now, I can't read ernest's mind to determine what he meant by this line exactly, but this kind of mean spirited, bad-faith jab falls under "harmful behaviour" in my book.

tikitaki ,
@tikitaki@kbin.social avatar

i think it's dangerous to be too broad with this definition

harmful in my mind is saying explicitly racist, homophobic, promoting violent, etc type of stuff

i think freedom of expression is something we should not give up easily. in actually harmful speech, i think the pros outweigh the cons. but him saying the word "triggered" is not harmful

Crankpork ,

but him saying the word "triggered" is not harmful

It implies that being against hate speech and harassment is a wrong opinion and while completely isolated and out of context it might not seem harmful, it's part of a cultural shift towards normalizing those things, and implies that anyone who cares is wrong. Seeing that go unchallenged just emboldens buttholes like that.

tikitaki ,
@tikitaki@kbin.social avatar

yes, of course. it's indicative of that type of worldview and it's demeaning

however the key important part is that it isn't hate speech. being pro-hate speech and using hate speech are two different things

sadreality ,

Term harassment gets over used in online discourse to silence others and shut down discussions.

Legally it means actor A goes out of their way to bother actor B, and has do so on more the one occasion.

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Nah, that’s a block user comment, not anything ban-worthy.

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

If you want to be neck deep in that bullshit, you're more than welcome to join exploding-heads.com. Can we have ONE space online that isn't infiltrated by assholes?

You don't have to be a dick to others on the Internet. You can make that choice. Just because you CAN post hateful shit anonymously and not have to face real life consequences doesn't mean you HAVE to.

RemembertheApollo ,

Some people literally would prefer to see the world burn. No idea what’s up with that form of psychological gratification from destruction, but fuck them.

Hellsadvocate ,
@Hellsadvocate@kbin.social avatar

Guys that think the joker and homelander are the best role models.

stopthatgirl7 ,
@stopthatgirl7@kbin.social avatar

How exactly do you report them? I tried to report one troll I saw, but couldn’t find the option.

a-man-from-earth ,
@a-man-from-earth@kbin.social avatar

more > report

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

I wonder if people are going to abuse downvotes and reports. The downvote is not a disagreement button, and reporting just because you find a comment distasteful is not what it should be for.

Niello ,

That'd require you to not be a hypocrite though. If not for disagreeing, then for what reason did you downvote my comment?

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

Because I think you're advocating for a very destructive approach to social media.

As an aside, I didn't know you could see who's voted on a comment. How do you view that?

May ,
@May@kbin.social avatar

Its under more, then activity

Boosts = boosts, reduces = downvotes, favourites = upvotes

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

Thank you!

Niello ,

So you downvoted because you used it as a disagree button. End of story then?

Anyway, let's put that aside and discuss. How is it destructive? If there is a troll harassing a user then is ignoring it better than reporting the troll? How so?

Let me give you a concrete example. This guy exists https://kbin.social/u/WorldKnows45Won/comments
Why should the comment he called the other guy "retard" not be reported? Not only that, the same guy made troll posts sprading misinformation like Trump winning the 2020 election, so it's clear it isn't just a one time thing either. And in the future when there are more bots and troll accounts running around, why would not reporting them be the better option?

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

I am of the belief that banning users or deleting posts, even inflammatory ones, harms free speech and hinders open communication. If you feel a user is "harassing" you (insofar as that's even possible, given you can freely ignore their comments), attempting to have the user banned just pushes the community toward becoming an echo clamber. I say this because people are very, very bad at distinguishing harassment from mere heated disagreement in the first place.

Niello ,

So if someone make a wrong accusation of someone else or if they make a death threat or doxx someone the comment should just stay up. Am I hearing your position correctly?

And I think you missing something. People perceptions are different and they aren't necessarily "correct", yours and mine included. Report doesn't automatically remove someone, but it does allow admins and mods to see it, in other word, get a third party to look at it. Multiple reports also mean more people thinking this is harmful. Just because you don't agree with other people's perception doesn't mean they are wrong and you're right or vice versa. Not to mention that certain kinds of harassments and hate speeches directly break the ToS.

Furthermore, reporting != banning. Reporting on a comment is the voice in that comment is listened to, and it's been decided that it's harmful.

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

You make some very good points that I hadn't really thought of, honestly. It seems like I didn't consider the full implications of my position. I still like to tend toward leaving things up, but I agree with you now that that probably has to have its limits somewhere.

Niello , (edited )

I think it's nice to have a spectrum of agreement on "this is okay", as long as we don't stray into the more universally agreed "this is not okay". It's probably one of the more robust ways to decide where to draw the line when in reality a hard line doesn't exist.

MonsieurHedge ,
@MonsieurHedge@kbin.social avatar

Hope the moderation gets more aggressive soon, or this place is fuuuucked. There's already like three the_donald magazines.

Bradamir ,

Opposing political opinions are not trolls. Let's not be like Reddit where "opposite opinion" = bad.

siuvhne ,
@siuvhne@kbin.social avatar

I wish I could upvote you twice.

ReCursing ,
@ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

No, but fascists are troll (and worse. Much worse). And yes, trump and his cult are fascists

tikitaki ,
@tikitaki@kbin.social avatar

as much as i hate trump we should hate the sin and not the sinner

lots of trump supporters could easily be leftists

Hellsadvocate ,
@Hellsadvocate@kbin.social avatar

...what the fuck? The guy who's got a record of felonies he's in court for, and has been absolutely the most fascist piece of shit to happen to America could easily have leftists supporters? The guy who lost "bigly" in the popular vote and created the most partisan and polarized political voters possible? This is Q Anon level of reality.

If there is a leftist in the "lots of trump supporters", they are by definition, not a leftist.

tikitaki ,
@tikitaki@kbin.social avatar

zizek talks about this a lot. who are trump's most loyal fans? sure, there are the harvard educated elitists who like that he lowers taxes on the rich and the business magnates and whatnot. but the bulk of it in terms of absolute numbers is the redneck poor people

why do they support trump? because their jobs were lost to outsourcing, their wages aren't going up so housing is more expensive, their towns are slowly rotting away. they see these things and feel a (in my opinion, justified) anger towards the establishment.

someone like Trump and the GOP in general comes around, blames the gays and immigrants and tells them they will fight for them. we all know it's a lie and that they are voting against their interests - but the MAGA propaganda has gotten to them first

these same triggers (stagnant wages, anger towards the establishment/elites, erosion of infrastructure, inaccessible healthcare) also causes people to become leftists

these people could have easily flipped one way or the other and the only different is propaganda. we need to reach out to these people and convince them that the left has viable solutions for their problems. if you're interested, i can find a zizek bit where he talks about this but I've seen it myself talking to a lot of trump-supporting conservatives.

some of them are racist bigots and whatnot, but others are just really ignorant old folk who genuinely want the best for most people and have been misled by propaganda

Hellsadvocate ,
@Hellsadvocate@kbin.social avatar

Except the difference is: leftists have empathy. Sympathy. They care for their fellow human whom they haven't met. They are called "progressives" for a reason. Right wing is being regressive, to hurt people not like you. It's about cruelty specifically.

You're talking about moderates that don't give a shit. I'm talking about the actual term leftists.

C4RP3_N0CT3M ,

Irony abounds...

stopthatgirl7 ,
@stopthatgirl7@kbin.social avatar

No, but someone rocking up to a news magazine just to post “Trump won and everyone knows it” with no news article is trolling. Some of these folks are trolls trying to piss people off.

elscallr ,
@elscallr@kbin.social avatar

If that's what the people in that magazine want to see they're not being trolled at all. Now if that shit leaks out, then yeah I'm 100% with you.

sj_zero ,
@SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net avatar

Even among people who like trump, there are plenty of people who know that he lost the election.

Even if Biden cheated (and I’m not saying he did), people who cheat to win elections are called the winner of the election. Laws tend to fine campaigns for cheating rather than changing the outcome of the election.

As an example where a campaign was fined for malfeasance during a campaign, the Clinton campaign was fine for misbehavior in the 2016 election related to the steele dossier politico.com/…/dnc-clinton-campaign-fine-dossier-…

However, although that example was of a losing campaign, up in my home country of Soviet canuckistan, several election cycles ago the conservative Stephen Harper government was fined for election fraud, and that’s all that happened. They were officially in charge and they stayed that way until the election of Justin Trudeau in 2015.

Typically, lawmakers want election issues to be dealt with by the electorate, they’re extremely extremely wary about stepping in and changing elections on their own.

While we’re on the topic though, I would like to remind everybody that it is extremely typical for the losing side of an election to claim that the other side cheated. In 2000, there were plenty of people pointing out fuckiness in the supreme Court decision that ended George W. Bush the election, and in 2004 election machines were singled out as a potential method of cheating by the Democrats when John Kerry lost the presidential election, and in 2016 there were lots of cries saying that there was election interference that led to the election of Donald Trump.

Hellsadvocate ,
@Hellsadvocate@kbin.social avatar

hey children, yes this is a Prime example of a troll.

sj_zero ,
@SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net avatar

You think so?

Seems like an awfully high effort post to be just a troll. Maybe it’s just that other people don’t have the same views as you do.

Hellsadvocate ,
@Hellsadvocate@kbin.social avatar

Hey little Jimmy looks like you have a question?

Oh Jimmy, it's not always about the effort or length of a post that defines a troll. A troll is someone who purposefully stirs up conflict or posts inflammatory or off-topic messages to distract and control the conversation, often eliciting emotional responses.

Check it out: So, imagine you're playing with your favorite toy car, alright? Then someone, let's call them SJ_Zero, comes over and says, "Oh, that's a nice car, but did you see this super-duper rocket? And oh, did I tell you about this ultra-cool submarine I once had? And oh, there was this time when I played with a helicopter..." and on and on they go!

What happened to your toy car? Poof, it's forgotten, lost in the whirl of rockets, submarines, and helicopters. That's what SJ_Zero is doing here, taking us on a whirlwind tour of election history, far away from our original chat about the 2020 election and how Trump lost.

So you get it Jimmy? And that's why you shouldn't feed the trolls.

sj_zero ,
@SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net avatar

You mean like a whole aside about accusations of trolling?

I guess I’ll take your advice.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Ah yes, because all opinions are equal and NAMBLA and Nazis need to be given equal weight for their "opposite opinions".

awsamation ,
@awsamation@kbin.social avatar

That's not what they said at all.

What they said is that just because you don't agree with the opposite opinion doesn't make the person saying that opinion a troll. They may be a hateful motherfucker, but a hateful motherfucker who is trying to talk in good faith.

They aren't arguing some enlightened centrist "everyones opinions are equal" bullshit. They're just arguing that opposite opinion does not equal automatic troll.

LynnTheChaoticWitch ,

You can block people and communities… I’m a trans woman; naziism and really just social conservatism works against me. I still think they should have a space to spout off, just as I should have a space to spout off about how irresponsible, bigoted and cruel their statements are. I also think there is nothing wrong with safe spaces; I mean look at raddle.me and on the opposite end Facebook and Twitter. Taking someone’s tounge doesn’t prove them wrong, only that you are afraid of what they have to say. The words of a fascist should be said and maybe repeated so they can be struck down by those who prefer love to hate.

C4RP3_N0CT3M ,

Thank you for this. The only way to combat ignorance isn't too silence, but to educate. When you silence someone, you isolate them to places where their opinions are only reaffirmed and never challenged, thus exacerbating the ignorance.

Helvedeshunden ,

The_Donald was not about political opinions. It was a hate farm that made neofascists out of people who came for the lulz. By all means let's have actual conservatives discuss politics as a counterpoint to more liberal views, but smack the fascists down - because it's the only way to truly have a tolerant society and civil discourse: Intolerance as politics must not be tolerated. If that basic rule is ignored, everything else fails.

See the paradox of intolerance.

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

That "paradox" is bunk and is only good for justifying censorship.

Kichae ,

No, it's good for getting rid of antisocial shit heads who feel like they're entitled to an audience for their toxic or abusive ideas and beliefs.

Because that's exactly what it speaks to.

Now, if you want to argue with Karl, might I recommend getting a PhD in philosophy and starting from there, rather than whining on the internet?

Metaright ,
@Metaright@kbin.social avatar

Are you saying that disagreement with this person is not legitimate unless you have the same level of education?

stopthatgirl7 ,
@stopthatgirl7@kbin.social avatar

I really like this interpretation of the Paradox of Intolerance:

The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not as a moral standard, but as a social contract.
If someone does not abide by the contract, then they are not covered by it.
In other words: The intolerant are not abiding by the terms of the social contract of mutual tolerance. Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract, and their intolerance should NOT be tolerated.

Link to source.

C4RP3_N0CT3M ,

Imagine if the US applied this to illegal immigrants. Mmm.....so tolerant.

Kichae ,

Don't platform fascists. Don't play apologetics for platforming fascists. Don't tolerate people who platform fascists.

Stop treating fascism as a mere difference of opinion.

LynnTheChaoticWitch ,

I would argue that there is a line where speech becomes hate speech, in fact that line is already defined as criminal libel/defamation and assault.

Kichae ,

Argue all you want. But if you're going to argue that the line between what is acceptable and what isn't is what is legal, first off, uh, no (fascist rhetoric is legal in most places), and second, whose laws do you want to apply?

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