5 Ways to Stop Trolls From Killing the Internet
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You might not be aware of this, but there are a lot of dickheads on the Internet. Since this phenomenon seems to get worse with the size of the crowd, it is theorized that we will reach a critical mass; an Asshole Apocalypse, if you will. That's when casual Internet users--and the corporations who want their business--will step in. There are ways to solve this crisis, but I'm telling you now, you won't like some of them.
But first, the problem...
There are two huge, growing industries at stake: social networking and online gaming. Social networking is at the heart of "Web 2.0," the future of the online world, the Facebook/MySpace/Twitter web where users create all the content and their parent companies make billions just for hosting it. It's a pretty sweet deal.
Or it would be, if they could only convince everybody to use it. But they're finding that lots of users will communicate online with people they know (virtually all use email and 37% use private text messaging), but only 8% use message boards or blogs or anything else that exposes them to the Internet's assheads.
Hell, look at this site. We just had an article that was read by 305,396 unique users in a few days ... but fewer than 100 of them joined the conversation down in the comments. That's .002%, folks. It's not that the Cracked comments are mostly retarded or nasty; it's that for a normal person, the memory of getting called a fucktard in public even one time is striking enough to make them avoid the comments forever, even if it was accompanied by 10 non-fucktard comments. It's human nature to remember the fucktard. It's the same in gaming. There are reports that most people who give up online gaming aren't frustrated by the games themselves or technical issues. It's the sheer number of fuckwads they have to play with. Even on the most popular online multiplayer game, World of Warcraft, 70% of new players stay in modes where they don't have to interact with anybody else. So there is a clear barrier to entry for the vast majority who haven't joined the Web 2.0 party, and that barrier is a moat full of dipshits. How can we bridge it? I see five ways: #5.
Develop Anti-Troll Software
Imagine a world where you get in a heated argument in a hallway, but before even one sentence can get fully out of your mouth, a robot voice pipes up and tells you to cool it. Well, what sounds like really stupid science-fiction in real life is entirely possible online. Of all the futuristic movies to turn out to be cruelly accurate, who would have thought it'd be Demolition Man? I'm talking about programs like: StupidFilter: This highly experimental piece of software is in beta and will some day be able to recognize comment stupidity the moment it's posted. They have a demo on their site you can play with. You plug this code into your comment section and it's like a strap of tape over the mouth of every teenager who can't type a sentence without including the word "fail."
Robot9000: This is a program invented by Randall Monroe, the XKCD webcomic guy that requires every post to be unique. If someone types "First!", no other post can ever consist of just that. This sounds pointless to anybody who's never been in a chat room or message board before, but the rest of us know better. Mindless repetition of jokes (or "memes") is one of the primary tools of bored trolls who want to fill a thread with noise to drown out the signal. For once, many will find themselves using keys other than Ctrl-V. Audio Preview: Linguists speculate that no single body of written communication in the history of human language has ever been as collectively retarded and horrible as the comments under YouTube videos. After the aforementioned Randall Monroe suggested a feature to force users to hear their comment read aloud before they can post it, YouTube implemented that very thing (though only on an optional basis). Many a YouTuber has sat in dismayed silence after realizing that "lol wut", when spoken aloud, did not sound as clever a they had first believed.
Real-Time Voice Censor: Now we're in the realm of the real Demolition Man-type solutions. Want to know how bad Microsoft wants to control the trolls on Xbox Live? They've patented a real-time voice censoring program. Yeah. You curse into your headset and it bleeps it in real time. How does it know the difference between "The cock crows at midnight" and "My cock grows at midnight"? With technology. Don't question it. Of course, widespread use of this stuff will just kick off the same "DRM vs. pirates" arms race we see any time they try to control human behavior with software. The humans always win. Also, the technology has to get a whole lot smarter before we can even try. Playing with the StupidFilter demo I linked earlier taught me that it doesn't find any stupidity in the sentence, "lol, wut your mom farts lolcats." There are better ways. For instance, you can... #4.
Start a Posse of Moderators, and Arm Them
Right now if you have a blog or forum or anything else with open comments, and you don't have a human moderator to watch it, you're going to wind up with a wasteland. As soon as more than one troll shows up, they will feed off each other until everyone else is gone. You have to control them. And don't start talking about free speech; the troll's goal is to shut down speech, to either fill the channel with noise until no one can talk to each other, or to get everyone talking about him instead of the subject at hand. He's a guy in a coffee shop screaming nonsense over a bullhorn. 
And it's here where the marriage of creative software and human moderators can make all the difference. With things like... Disenvoweling: This is a bit of code that will suck all of the vowels out of a targeted post, so that this: "What an unfunny piece of shit. Somebody should be fired for letting this guy write for the site." Becomes: "Wht n nfnny pc f sht. Smbdy shld b frd fr lttng ths gy wrt fr th st." The theory is that it makes people slow down and try to parse what was being said and thus robs the post of its impact. Also it makes the troll look retarded. Karma: Geek megaportal SlashDot was among the first to use this, a way of allowing the community to moderate itself. Registered users can vote every post up or down, and each user winds up with a karma "score" that is just the sum total of all the "up" votes minus the "down" ones they've ever gotten. We use this in the Cracked forums (where each member's karma score is visible to other members at all times). You can only vote once per day, so even a coordinated karma voting campaign couldn't change a score faster than the rest of the community could correct it. Yes, it works. Everyone claims they don't care what their karma is, yet any time a person sees an unexplained drop, I get an email complaining about it. You just can't ignore a number right next to your name that announces what the community thinks of you.
But we're still thinking small, on a site-by-site basis. After all, assheads will simply migrate to places where security isn't as tight. If this is an Internet-wide problem, we need to think big. But how? |
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Who cares about the trolls. Most people go on cracked to read the lists or watch swaim, not hope and pray that their opinions will somehow change the cracked community. Trolls want attention, just like screaming five year olds want attention, just don't give them the time of day.
I've seen sites become ghost towns with only trolls on them. They wait til someone new signs up for the forum, then assault them until they leave. They don't even realize how pathetic this sounds.
But more admins and arming them? Nope. The rest of your ideas are sound but not this one. I've also seen sites where it's just administrators. ALways at least half of them become mad with power and start making their own rules and the other half are too wussy to do anything about it. They start getting rid of the trolls, which is good, but then they move on to people they disagree with. They also see someone being negative, although in a good way with constructive criticism as a troll. They then see new members on the site as being "noobs" and therefore have nothing good to say. I've seen new members banned after only typing in one suggestion for improvement.
Pretty soon it's just the admins and those who sucked up to them. The suckups are another type of troll who always bait others into a bannable offense. They're always the one to put in a heated barb, disguised by words, and then type an apology for it almost as soon as they enter it. By this, they avoid being banned, but bait another into an offense. They will apologize also to the administrator(s) usually in charge of that section with a particular bit of brownnosing, already knowing how to flatter said admin.
Administrators like these often defend their actions by adding new rules almost every 5 minutes until the "read these rules before posting" section is as long as an encyclopedia. Even normal people are afraid to type ....anything after reading just a little of it.
As you can guess, the correct way to work with administrators is to have someone monitoring them occasionally just to see if they're doing a good job or are becoming drunk with the power. Just occasionally "tuning in" is enough to see. ALso be ready to post apologies to those unfairly banned. A simple scripted email is enough.
I agree wholeheartedly that some offensive measures against trolls are a good thing. Offense would also work on hackers. Seems most people use defensive measures only and we all know there is no such thing as a perfect defense. Imagine how many hackers we'd have if/when they're detected as hacking, an offensive/defensive virus came out, sought out the computer of the hacker and turned it into little more than a calculator or hat rack.
I find the last suggestion (passing laws) to be very ineffective. Sure, while some trolls/criminals could be stopped by this law, some will always slip through.
Let's equate this law concept with a commercial fishing net cast into the ocean. Fish that are too small, i.e. mere nuisances, will pass right through the holes of the net. Fish that are too smart, i.e. expert criminals/trolls would simply avoid the net and swim right around it. Many unwanted fish, i.e. innocent people, could be caught by mistake as well.
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And how does one propose enforcing this law? To do so would require keeping an eye on every single computer in the country--a daunting concept, to say the least. In addition, this so-called "eye" would need to be impervious to hacking, tampering, and even simple breakdowns. It must never slumber nor sleep.
Most importantly, there must be some sort of "off switch" so the enforcement of this law--no matter what it may be--can be deactivated in the event of unforseen circumstances that render this law less effective or even completely moot.
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Yes, there have been suicides due to online trolls. Yes, there are numerous criminals out on the Internet. But a law will not completely stop them. It may temporarily incapacitate them, it may change their attitudes about their evil, but it will not stop them totally.
Why waste taxpayer money on something that probably won't work and will create numerous problems of its own?
@EllaNutella
tl;dr.
This isn't your personal blog.
Let's clear something up - the US Constitution covers free speech as far as it's not detrimental to "public peace". In other words, blasting loud music with profanity in the street is okay, as long as it's not a nice, rich, quiet neighborhood populated with snooty housewives and their snotty 3.5 children and their man-of-the-house office-working husbands. In times of war (in other words, the whole of US history)the government is permitted to restrict what we say if it seems like it might encourage protest when they can't spare people to negotiate or put down the protest. There is unrestricted free speech - I like this kind of music, I like that movie, I don't like that food - and restricted free speech - let's protest about unjust situation XYZ. Look up the court cases Cohen v. California and Tinker v. Des Moines.
"Restricting trolls" is not a valid reason for the government to butt in. We can moderate ourselves if we get over the fact that just because we don't see the people, we don't need to be polite or to contribute. As soon as governments start controlling what we can *say* on the internet, they can start to control other things. It's a slippery slope. Ideally, they would get rid of trolls and stop there. But we're talking about a government, and governments - US or otherwise! - are not content to just do one thing. 1984, indeed. I personally don't want Dick Cheney or Obama or Secretary of Somethingorother to know what I think of the latest VH1 video. Also consider governments like North Korea, where they don't know about Google.
And really, if people don't use the internet that much because of trolls...isn't that "better"? Didn't they just imply that using the internet makes us more distanced and anti-social? Methinks people are confoozled.
Don't get me wrong. Trolls annoy the crap out of me. But I do believe that the internet is the last truly free space on this planet - it's got its propaganda, but there are bloggers, reporters, forums, sites that report facts better and infinitely more neutrally than television (Fox, I'm looking at you), and allows us to interact with people beyond our own culture. Rules and restrictions FROM THE USERS THEMSELVES (who know better than outsides what goes on and what's acceptable) do not infringe our freedom as internet users, it just helps keep it friendly and a place to debate rather than yell about stupidity.
Think about all the large empires that fall because they're just TOO BIG and have subjected too many people. The internet isn't lawless, it's without government. That's an important distinction to make. Once we are put under the heel of a government, then things start to fall apart because the internet is TOO BIG.
The karma system only works if the people doing the voting aren't trolls themselves trying to enforce their own opinions.
How pathetic. This article does nothing except blame trolls and not themselves. You can't "destroy" trolls.
How do you define "troll"? Well, from this article, it's just "anyone who acts like a retard." And that includes both sarcastic and literal. In other words, you can't tell the difference between a troll and a retard. Yes, there's a difference. Just look at Youtube comments. 99% of the time, they're not trolls. They're retards.
And these solutions are terrible. #5 has major targeting issues (although I do like Audio Preview) and can't be done with the technology now, or even in the future. Computers can't think like humans, and never will. And the rest of them rely exclusively on how much one depends on their INTERNETS REPUTATIONS. It'll only work as a double-edged sword. While it hurts stupid people, it also heightens attention whorage (a rather highly overlooked problem).
It might just be me, but I think valuing your reputation on the Internet (the entire Internet, not just one section) is utterly pointless and stupid.
You don't want to destroy every troll, you only want to destroy bad trolls. Good trolls have wit and humor, and can destroy someone who truly deserves it (i.e. someone who gets offended over the Internet), and don't mean all the things they say. Bad trolls are synonymous to retards. YES, THE WORLD NEEDS ITS TROLLS.
This work is genius. More sites need to use these codes to filter out the unwanted dwellers waiting to whip out an insulting and/or disturbing comment about baby-eating, mother-[censored]ing, or any other various subjects that cause massive eye-rolling.
@ Strangel
LOL That's true though.
Wooooow. o.o #1 was an eye opener! It's so easy to think that the way things are on the internet right now will stay the same forever, but boy does that change my mind. And in this day and age, the change could come faster than we think. >.>...
I think I agree that I'd rather keep the trolls than have the laws passed. After all, I don't want my friends/parents knowing what I'm doing instead of homework.
lol, pipecleaner, I'd like to see your constitution do anything about the speech of the billions of people who don't live in America. Incidentally the free speech protection clause protects you from the US *government* restricting your speech (with the exception of hate speech laws, possibly - not being American, I'm not an expert on the nuances of American law), so that you can't be arrested for saying you don't agree with government policies. It does not protect you against webmasters moderating forums. Even American webmasters.
There's also an awful lot of people who use the anonymity to connect with people who have similar interests without the risk of being ostracised, beaten or murdered for their differences. Not child-rape differences, but awful things like being gay in a conservative area, as one example. (That includes conservative countries, not just parts of America.) Apparently people are douche-canoes in real life as well, and apparently this can be more dangerous than internet trolling. (Not to downplay internet trolling, as obviously that can have severe consequences as well.)
lol, wut your mom farts lolcats.
Yeah, this article is both insightful and hilarious, great job.
At the usual risk, i interject with my two cents. Simply put, no one wants the trolls and while the majority of trolls are just people who post snide comments, horror stories are growing. You can't just insist people develop thicker skin and deal with trolls. The fact of the matter is, if you saw someone getting picked on in real life you would sympathize and possibly intervene, not insist they get tougher. Why should people leave forums and message boards alone, they want to type out some thoughts let them. The government isn't going to infringe upon people's freedom, it's going to make sure power-mad trolls are just like assholes in real life: Minor nuisances
Oh, David. You could never have a negative 174 karma!
Psssh yeah, tell this to Gaia online x)
omfg this is ridiculous. I'm sorry that some people on the internet cant take a joke and are stupid about a lot of things. but this is just ridiculous. after that last one, i think everyone should read the book nineteen eighty-four. its about a socialist government that has absolute control over everyone and no one has any freedom. we have the right to say whatever we want!!! its part of the constitution and no one can change that. they are wrong about that last thing in saying that it will eventually get passed. unless the united states is taken over by like the chinese or something, we will be protected from this. it infuriates me that anyone would think that that is ok too. what is the world coming to? and also who gives a f**k if people troll??? it is what makes the internet interesting and worth while. so you need to stfu and gtfo with all your computer software and stupid ideas to get rid of trolls.
I can see the last entry becoming a reality. Most likely, it won't be all it's made out to be, instead simply being a money sink for the government, a hassle for the innocent, and a minor inconvenience for those it is supposed to hinder.
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Woah... I'd much rather have trolls, even the most retarded ones, than laws against anonymity. That's dangerous dictatorness, that is.