Are Trolls Ruining Social Media?
You may have heard the news this morning about Trent Reznor quitting Twitter due to the behavior of internet trolls who made the experience both uncomfortable and upsetting. OK, he didn't quite use those exact words - his rant was much more profane - but you get the drift. However, Reznor is not alone in wanting out of the social media scene. Popular author Stephenie Meyer also recently ditched her MySpace page for good, lamenting how she missed the early days when she could hang out with people online.
But "hanging out with people online" is supposed to be the promise and the potential of social media today, not something from days gone by...so what's going wrong here? Have the trolls ruined social media for good?
Hating Celebs is Now a Social Activity
In our culture, celebrity-bashing has almost become a sport of sorts. Entire web sites have been set to profit from the game of picking on those far-more-fortunate than ourselves. From Perez Hilton's gossip blog to smaller sites focused on celeb's style (or lack thereof) to the paparazzi pic-filled giants like TMZ, our guilty pleasure of celeb-watching has turned into the much guiltier pleasure of celeb-hating.
That hate has extended out from the traditional gossipy sites to the very platforms and pages that the celebs themselves maintain. In Stephenie's Meyer's case, that was her MySpace page. At one time, Myer was credited as having made excellent use of social media, notes the Christian Science Monitor. She was responsive to fans and even credits some of her novels success to the friendly and positive community she built there.
But as her fame grew, so did the backlash. After several imitators posed as her online in an attempt to deceive fans, Meyer finally just called it quits. "It was a lot of fun while it lasted, and I really miss the early days when I could hang out with people online. Many of you are hilarious and insightful, and I wish it was easier for me to talk to everyone the way I used to," she writes on her personal web site.
In Meyer's case, it sounds like she made the mistake of thinking she could manage social media on her own, but at her level of fame, she could have really benefited from the help of a public relations team who specialized in social media. Let them handle the Facebook fan page and Twitter account, deal with the trolls, moderate the comments, etc. Unfortunately for her fans, she just quit.
But cases like those from Reznor and Meyer may just be the canary in the coal mine of social media. As tons of celebs flock to Twitter in an effort to regain control of their image and express themselves online, they may be in for a rude awakening when they have to deal with the vitriol and hate spewed towards them from those that resent their position...or from those who frankly just get their kicks from making others feel bad.
How Can We Fix This?
But what can be done to resolve this? Reznor thinks that Twitter needs more blocking mechanisms, but it's possible the problem goes deeper than that. Blocking the bad guys is just a band-aid on this situation. What we really need is a way to force the trolls out into the light.
This could be easily accomplished by simply putting an end to online anonymity - a trend that hasn't quite arrived yet. You see, if you're allowed to leave a comment with no name, no email, and no other unique identifier, then you have a free pass to be as hateful and rude as you like. It's a blank slates with no consequences. While there are some cases where anonymous comments make sense, when engaging in social media activities - be them blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc. - it's just not productive to allow the anonymous trolls to disrupt what's otherwise an often productive and insightful discussion.
As much as some may rail against the lock-in and closed nature of Facebook, the promise of Facebook Connect is that it could address this problem. Finally, people could identify themselves online and have to stand behind their words.
We've heard, too, that Twitter is flirting with the idea of verified accounts. Maybe they should consider extending that option beyond just the public figures and come up with a system that lets everyone verify their account by linking it to their other online profiles.
Online anonymity is just a leftover from the early days of the web - a time when there really just weren't other options. You just created a handle, set up an account, and began to write. Now that we have the tools to identify each other, shouldn't we begin to use them?
Think of all the problems it would solve - not only would it address troll behavior but it would also out the marketers and advertisers who were manipulating the user reviews and ratings on sites like Yelp and Amazon. It would let you know if that blog commenter who disagreed with an article or hated a product had a secret agenda (like maybe they worked for a competitor?). Maybe it would actually put an end to such behavior, allowing the forums of social media to finally be returned to those who just wanted to discuss, communicate, and connect.
What do you think? Leave your comments, anonymous (sigh) or otherwise below.
Update: Join a FriendFeed Discussion on the topic - here or here.
Image credits: Troll - flickr user tandemracer; anonymous guy - flickr user Brymo; Meyer - stepheniemeyer.com
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I do not agree.
Anonymity has always been an important part of online life and its removal would force introverts off the internet.
Unfortunately, this is so true..
Sometimes I mistakenly read what a few people have to say in response to a Yahoo article, or whatever.
I'm shocked and appalled at some of the statements made, and again I'm reminded not to read them anymore.
People sometimes must feel more secure in writing horrible things when they're anonymous, and whether one is a star or a regular Joe/Josephine, it can hurt terribly.
Our Twitter and Facebook links are on our website, and as a result, it's even MORE important for me to act accordingly when I Tweet, etc.
Great article, and I hope there is a solution one day!
Cindy H
Brown Sugar
They see me trollin'....
they hatin'....
Troll Ratings.
You should be able to increase a users Troll rating on every interaction they do. Then as they increase in trolling, they lose right to interact with parts of the site; or are simply visible to everyone as trolls.
Not here on FriendFeed, they're not. That's thanks to the ease of hiding and blocking.
Posted by: Louis Gray
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June 11, 2009 8:51 AM
I actually find Trolls less prevalent in new social media than they are in forums, usenet etc. I think the subscription nature of the medium makes it much easier to simply exclude them.
Posted by: Eoghann Irving
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June 11, 2009 8:52 AM
I think the recommendation for a 'PR team' is a bit much. I am sure that tools will be created to fill this niche.
Posted by: Michael R. Bernstein
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June 11, 2009 8:53 AM
If Twitter and Facebook would just get a .twitter or .facebook top-level domain from ICANN for use by their users, they could have built-in verification *and* anonymity (well, confidentiality at least), provide a great benefit to their users with easy to remember web addresses, and relieve the shortage of names. With a top-level domain, people could appear to be anonymous unless and until they became hateful, in which case it would be an easy matter to check the records and unmask them.
I have run for forums from years and you just have to be ruthless. digg has long had trolls and its diggs fault for not moderating the community.
Take digg for example, if they had moderated it from the start it people would know its not ok.
Simple rule treat people how you would treat them in real life, would half these people go up to a complete stranger and be rude?
However this goes both ways there can be over moderation.
For example I commented on a techcrunch story about plastic logic's ebook reader and the writer took a real kindle fanboy approach so I corrected him. I took 5 mins to write the comment, I was not rude but pointed out his mistakes in my opinion. techcrunch deleted it, for why? who knows maybe its down to habit of just hitting that delete comment button because they get a lot of trolls. however for deleting my comment they just lost a fan and reader.
Spew on all you want, but at least have the courage to tell everyone the physical you has a virtual idiot personality.
It becomes a bit ridiculous when I have to wade through the endless, "whalebutt99", "ivan_da_terrible", and "sexy8one" nonsensical comments to find a thoughtful perspective.
Whalebutt99, tweet me later, we'll do lunch.
There are those who would try to say that anonymous posting of truly nasty comments is protected by free speech. The speech is, but not the anonymity. And allowing trolls to publish their dreck without fear of consequences violates the rights of those the trolls slam to express themselves where and when they wish. In other words, the anonymity violates the free-speech rights of their victims.
seems like a quick feature-add could fix this: blog comments should just have a tick box that either displays or hides anonymous commentors. some people care what the trolls say, most people don't. so it should be optional.
brilliant!
Trolls and their nonsense give the readership depth! i love the crap! Keep everyone exposed, it gives a greater understanding of the audience for a given idea! If even the morons are stimulated by a topic to make an asinine drool, then you know the topic is relevant to todays minds!
Making online life less anonymous will increase the civility of the comments left in blogs. I agree with what @Elizaberh Burton says above:
"There are those who would try to say that anonymous posting of truly nasty comments is protected by free speech. The speech is, but not the anonymity."
Sarah,
I totally agree with you. I'm hoping a solution to the troll problem, something pretty much every web publisher including myself has had to deal with, can be resolved sooner rather than later.
Of course, one could always just turn comments off ...
New to the internet, are we?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h.jpg
There's more to this story than just anonymous trolls. In following @trent_reznor, there seemed to be a group of people whose single purpose was to mock everything he said/did. And this behavior is not just on twitter. They post on the official NIN forums, some have their own blogs, alledgely under their own names; it is everywhere Trent has a cyber presence. Bottom line, no matter what the man did, this group had a negative comment, or ten, to spread around. When he twittered, they blasted what he said, when he didn't - they said he was pouting and it was just a PR stunt, when he fought back - they cried "oh look, what a jerk." In raising money for a man in need of a heart transplant (Eric De La Cruz - and he raised a LOT of money), they berated him for not caring about Brazilian quake victims. I don't blame Trent in the least for leaving and not looking back. It sucks because he had some great observations about life. A celebrity like this who tweets their life, gives the rest of us who don't live that lifestyle a peek...
Hate trolls, but anonymity MUST be preserved. Example: gay person works for a government entity in a state where bigotry prevails and it's still legal to fire someone for being gay. They can't use social media under their real names on any site or subject about being gay. Another one: someone needs to blow the whistle on something REALLY BIG but cannot do it under their real name. Another one: public school teachers can't comment on anything remotely controversial under their real names.
Some kind of system should be set up, as suggested by other commenters, to filter trolls, but not total real-name exposure.
Sarah, GREAT post! I wish there were more advocates to eradicate the trolls from the interwebs! Ryan Carson posted an entry in January speaking to this issue after the situation Michael Arrington had dealt with (http://www.carsonified.com/community/the-web-is-a-mean-place-sometimes). I've followed the Carsonified blog for a while, and I noticed that some people go on there just to rip into Ryan personally. Ryan's a friend of mine and one of the nicest people in the world, so I started going on Carsonifed patrolling for these clowns to find them hiding behind a blank avatar spewing venom, and just started lighting the vitriolic assholes up asking that they identify themselves. There doesn't seem to be a real need for anonymity on open web platforms, such as blogs, twitter, etc. If someone is going to make a comment, they should be forced to identify themselves. I'm a nobody, so I really don't have a problem with trolls attacking me, but I feel horrible for people that have acquired any bit of "internet fame" because sooner...
me, I think that arsekissers and sheep are far worse for social media than trolls.
Posted by: ★ Esther Rudolph
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June 11, 2009 9:35 AM
I think this is another case of celebrity problems. If you have an account with your name expect trolls, bottom line. Don't change the 'net because they can't use their name for their personal accounts.
Its just reversed for celebs...
+1 esther
Posted by: Liz
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June 11, 2009 9:37 AM
@blackfoot girl: You make some good points about where anonymity needs to be preserved, but I'm not really calling for the end of all online anonymity, just anonymous commenting on social media platforms...at least when the subject matter isn't sensitive (e.g. your example about a gay commenter fearing persecution).
For example, can someone tell me why anonymity is needed on tech blogs?
interesting. Sometimes trolls can be cute and cuddly.
Posted by: Thomas Hawk
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June 11, 2009 9:41 AM
If I took every troll who smeared me seriously, I never would have put up my website and run it for the past 13 years. I let that stuff roll off my back, especially if the sources aren't even intelligent enough to spell-check their vitriol. There are many more positive things to focus on in this life than to worry about the often half-formed and marginally intelligible opinions of rude, narrow-minded, ignorant and uneducated people.
-Bill Auclair
Names do not make people play nicely, and anonymity does not make people mean. And name may not be a real name; is my name really "Frieda Fake"? (No; I used to it to make a point!)
Insulting letters, rude comments and fake messages from "celebrities" were around looooong before the internet. In the world of entertainment, FanZines were full of those things when they were printed and mailed. Arguments about politics played out in newspapers and magazines. Trolls would troll and people would have flame wars in the Letters and Editorial sections. And it would last longer-- far longer-- because issues would be printed daily, weekly, monthly or bimonthly, not instantly.
I am sure that currently-disgruntled celebrities would not be upset if a teenaged fan posted anonymously, "I love your work but I can't let my parents know because they think that pop culture is the work of the devil. So I'm posting this anonymously to tell you that I'm a fan." I don't for a minute believe that they would not welcome such a post. Well, you can't have it both ways.
I think you are worrying about nothing just because a few celebrities are upset. Trolls come and go, but public discourse always remains.
I have not patience for people that lack manners or common decency. I do not hesitate to block them or ignore them.
I commented to my wife the other day that I think I am done with Digg. You used to be able to have insightful conversations there. But now, when you spend the time to write well thought out comments, people don't hesitate to give you one line, smart ass know it all answers.
I have better things to do than waste my time with people only interested in tearing others down.
The call for an end to anonymity made in this article bears some further thought and investigation of the nuances of this issue. I would recommend taking a look at some of the rich literature around both surveillance and civil rights for another facet on the issue. Foucault's Discipline and Punish, Paul Virilio's The Vision Machine, Gilles Deleuze's article "The Societies of Control" would be good background on the surveillance topic. Yes, we do have the mechanisms online to identify individuals, and they are being linked together - but this is a problem, a very large and looming problem, rather than a happy occasion to be celebrated. The celebrity culture and sub-culture that you evoke here really well is part of a strange dis-ease. The culture of hate is truly pitiful, but some of the responsibility must lie in the hands of the media. In a way, we see television's and tabloid print media's long-term effects show up online in this arena. So: how to bring troll's into the light? I really like that idea, but not via the methods proposed. They should be brought into the light by focusing light on them, not the light of a police helicoptor, but the light of tough love on the part of their fellow social networkers. Make it too bright for them, but just bright enough for Trent et al to return to being part of the conversation.
I don't think you understand what anonymity is. Forcing someone to create an account without verifying his identity is not anonymity. It is separation of person and persona. Having a name that can't be traced back to a human but can be used to link up a series of communications means that the persona can acquire fame and attention. Pride is enemy. Pride drives online personas to do things that harvest attention. So that people will say, "Did you see that neat thing [Username] did last night to that Facebook profile?"
Anonymity is not giving anyone any identity at all. If there were no personas, pride would not drive people to create personas, because there would be no personas. Pride cannot draw attention to itself when there is no connection between current and previous communications.
Connecting personas and their driving persons can only boost the pride individuals feel when they gather attention from the masses. If attention has nothing to focus on, pride has nothing to hold on to.
Humans are driven to act normally in the absence of a reason to act outlandishly.
Trolls RULE FAGGORT~!
"can someone tell me why anonymity is needed on tech blogs?"
Because offering a quick thought on a tech blog is a radically different level of participation than giving a tech blog my full name, confirmed email, and a direct verification link to my entire social profile (friends, tastes, job, education...)
Sorry, random tech blog. I might give you a couple of sentences for free. But if you want all my verified personal details, pay up.
Seriously DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.
Giving them something to fight against only makes them stronger.
I agree with Blackfoot Girl (#19) - Marijuana Legalization also falls into this category. I believe it is the right thing to do for many reasons - my current (or future) employer may not and there is no reason they need to know my opinion unless I explicitly give it to them. That side of me is private although the issue is a current and public one.
This is not a surprise and has been going on for years. But generally on a smaller scale, so goes unnoticed by the news.
The result will be the celebrities, sports pros, and pros in any area of expertise (doctors, chefs, whatever) will get fed up, remember why they hide from the public, remember the worth of their work and knowledge (as Reznor has), and leave.
It is unfortunate for those of us who truly like to learn and hear from professionals.
Eventually, I think a few of the pros/celebrities might do what Reznor suggests and create their own closed communities -- EXACTLY what they have now offline, and EXACTLY what the advocates of openness on the net are railing against.
So, imo, things will come full circle (inet portraying RL)...and "normal" people will remain in the dark...the internet will have "openness" -- but will consist of the clueless communicating with the clueless, and we'll be dolled out polished bits via publicists, gossip rags and PR firms.
...bummer
I've watched trolls and spammers take over and destroy ICQ. I've watched it happen to Yahoo chat (there was a day when you could have a conversation on Yahoo chat, really!) It would be devastating if people were to lose Twitter, too. PR teams are not the answer. I don't want to read a tweet by a paid proxy. Search out and vapourise trolls! (Not literally, obviously. That would be wrong.) Develop a Troll button or other alert that marks a comment as abusive or otherwise inappropriate. Then, if someone has enough of these demerits on his/her account, suspend the account. Why not? Suspension would allow the person to appeal if s/he feels the suspension is unfair. Let's do this before other people bail, allowing yet another conversation salon to be turned into a bathroom.
I disagree one hundred percent with the PR layer between a media figure and a social network. How is it different from a news piece or a magazine article? It's the personal involvement that makes MySpace or Twitter different from 'media'.
At the same time, I strongly recommend features such as 'report abuse' on fellow network members who engage in unwarranted troll behavior.
Twitter - which has regularly evolved around user patterns - could introduce such a feature which would hopefully be one of the TEMPORARY solutions to trolls.
I've watched trolls and spammers take over and destroy ICQ. I've watched it happen to Yahoo chat (there was a day when you could have a conversation on Yahoo chat, really!) It would be devastating if people were to lose Twitter, too. PR teams are not the answer. I don't want to read a tweet by a paid proxy. Search out and vapourise trolls! (Not literally, obviously. That would be wrong.) Develop a Troll button or other alert that marks a comment as abusive or otherwise inappropriate. Then, if someone has enough of these demerits on his/her account, suspend the account. Why not? Suspension would allow the person to appeal if s/he feels the suspension is unfair. Let's do this before other people bail, allowing yet another conversation salon to be turned into a bathroom.
what louis said - they try to get a foothold but then poof they're trolling alone :)
Posted by: mike "glemak" dunn
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June 11, 2009 11:44 AM
If people would report it and then block, it would be much better. However, it would mean that Twitter would have to bulk up on their Abuse team.
Even if you are not a celeb... if you have enough followers or say one thing, you might have a hater on hand. The wankdom is everywhere, not just on the popular social media sites, but in fanfiction, fanart, and more. As for celebs, they should just grow a tougher backbone. To just quit is just not even right and shows a side of them that would be disappointing to their fans - creating more backlash.
Of course, they could all start a sockpuppet account and boost their egos. I have seen that one a few times... just as lovely. *sarcasm*
I have no problem posting my information elsewhere, but for some, they like the anonymity. They might not interact without it, yet most people abuse it. No matter what you set out to do, there's always going to be people out there you want to stay far from. I have a decent-sized network of Facebook and Twitter friends and it's not been a problem for me. I can tell the trolls from miles away and have nothing to do with them.
hmm, I agree with the post 12, because I believe anonymity essential to the internet. While trolls will comment without limits because they are not afraid of repercussions, I think many people who post intelligent and useful comments feel safer this way. Millions and millions of people use the net, anonymity also means privacy. What if, as a teacher i wouldn't want my students to know about all my comments and interests. Many fans comment on their idol's websites, sharing their personal experiences they don't want anyone else to know about.
To have a "troll rating" would be an easier way to limit the persons' accessibility and legitimacy. Like many of you have commented, without recognition or impact, perhaps trolls would no longer have the incentive to comment so.
(I apologize if my english isn't that great.)
blackfoot girl — couldn't agree more. Removing online anonymity is a creeping process, which, if not vigorously resisted, shall reach the logical conclusion — you shall have to insert your passport into your computer (or have it built into you) to do anything at all online. I guess that's not exactly what the commenters here want, or what anybody but a tiny fraction of control freaks want, but that's the logical outcome. Once you start tightening the screws, the impulse to tighten them a bit more becomes irresistible. As one author put it, "freedom is never very safe" — nor very polite. Troll-haters, get a life!
Regarding celebs — a lot of them already have closed online communities, where the less intelligent of them get all the adulation they wish for.
Yes, lets get rid of anonymous so that way if any bloggers say something bad about the latest homophobic racist anti-semite domestic terror incident all the people on Storm Front can firebomb their house and kill thier children on the way home from school. GENUIS.
I don't know that I feel like I need everyone to identify themselves directly, but I would like the ability to troll-mark. Or Troll-Rating like Ivan suggested.
The IP addresses are logged right? So if you find troll like behavior we should be able to ID it as such, kinda in the same way email has evolved to allow us to ID spam.
After a certain limit we should be able to block out posting from certain folks.
IP address logging often doesn't work — lots of fellas are sitting behind NATs or are forced to go through proxies etc. In my experience, banning by IP is not very productive.
Completely disagree. First off, you don't seem to understand anonymity. I can claim to be Steve Jones... but that's not my name. YOu want to force me to signin on Facebook? What's to prevent me from being Steve Jones over there too? And what if I don't have or want a FB account? A real-sounding name doesn't prove the commenter is actually a person with that name, just that they claim it.
Your use of the image of V is ironic too - an anonymous rebel who overthrows a corrupt tyranny - anonymously. While you're at it, why not just force ID cards on everyone? And make them electronic so I have to use them like a SecureID to leave a comment on RWW! and...
Your question is a form of that old chestnut "what do you have to hide? You must have something to hide." But we have employers and others googling us all of the time, making judgements about us and potentially making decisions about whether or not to hire us based on what we say online. Even if you're not a troll, being open under your own name can be risky. Two examples - 1) I like wine. I might post about a wine dinner I went to, perhaps I blog regularly about it. What if an HR person sees that and thinks "Oh, he drinks, I hate people who drink a lot/are wine snobs/whatever" and nixes me from an interview and 2) If you post online a lot you'll eventually post when tired, in a bad mood, etc. Almost always, you cannot edit your post or delete it... the comment's there forever. I'm not talking hateful stuff, just blunt or snarky.
You ask above why I might need anonymity on a tech blog... instead of answering that, let me ask you this - where's the line? You concede that it might be risky to admit one's gay when commenting on, say, a post on gay marriage, so is anonymity OK there but not on RWW? Where's the line and what's the criteria?
Eliminating the choice of anonymity in a web-wide is Big Brotherish. Next up, national ID cards. Then let's install software on your system to see where you go and... oh, hold it. Where was that line again?
You ask why I need to be anonymous on tech blogs. I'll ask.. why do you need to know my real identity?
Disagree with Sarah yet again. it would simply would create even more ruthless commenter's. there is nothing that prevents them from hacking identification systems, mass creating fake identities, ramping up personifications, etc, etc, etc..
it may reduce the amount noise that in the end is pretty harmless and would only create worse scenarios.
So you are confusing the need of federated auth and identification for better moderate and handle a commenting community with the illusion that you can actually get rid of bad commenter's without hurting participation,community value and mindshare. you cannot have the cake and eat it too. it is choosing one or the other in the end.
But Anonymous comments should be left alone since it is better for them to be that, than being personifications and fake personas or worse. Techcrunch does get this and that is why it just erases comments but don't puts any kind of moderation since it would hurt their post page views, participation, mindshare and influence.
That is just my expert opinion since i have been around online on a daily basis for 15 years.
Did anyone ever hear of "usenet?"
How about BBS?
Trolling has been around for long, long time.
This isn't new.
The people joining the internet are n00bs.
i'm not for the trolls; but i think we should ditch celebrities; it's 20th century. i like this movement; we should keep it off the internet too; the internet should be a democracy, for the people, byt the people. we should celebrate ourselves, not who we're told to celebrate.
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