Sunday, December 4, 2016
My thoughts on trolls...
When I hear the word troll, two very distinct images come to mind. The first is the fuzzy and yellow creature from Dora, the second is someone who abuses the internet's anonymity as a means to spread chaos without fear of penalty. To find a YouTube comment section without disorder from ignorance or arrogance is to find a four-leaved clover. The most awful of all are those who go out of their way to spread hate. Yet we shrug and call them trolls. Such nasty creatures they are. They bar bridges for the sole purpose to make everyone's life harder. While I can understand it's easier to say something mean behind a computer screen where the connection to the target is so impersonal, I can't seem to wrap my mind around the pure hatred certain people have shown. I've witnessed a complete stranger actually take the time to make an entire twitter account dedicated to harassing my best friend. Someone actually took the time out of their day to tweet a totally random fifteen-year-old, "You look prettier when you cut yourself". Just. Why are you?? I pity the sad, sad life you must have to be so senseless. The worst part? Trolls are actually people like you and me. Sure, they're blinded by some sort of mad desire for turmoil, but at the end of the day, they're just people attacking other people. So just like we've learned from Dr. Phillips, we need to achieve peace between one another if we want to stand any chance against online trolling.
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I completely agree: People have become so comfortable harassing others from the safety of their computers, hidden behind anonymity. I see these things online and my thoughts are constantly drawn to the saying we've all heard when we were younger. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". I've witnessed in-person interactions where people use that exact saying as a defense against the hurtful things people say. Yet, it's like that saying never existed when it comes to hounding people with hurtful comments and exhibiting disorderly conduct online.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your idea of having to achieve peace between one another in order to stand a chance against online trolling. This is an echo to Manjoo's idea of trolling being "difficult to contain because [it] reflect[s] base human society in all its ugliness" and how Dr. Phillips states, "It's not a question of whether we are winning the war on trolling, but whether we are winning the war on misogyny, or racism, and ableism and all this other stuff'".