BBC confronts Facebook troll

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57372861-71/bbc-confronts-facebook-troll/

by alvivar • 14 years ago

233 125 14 years ago

news.cnet.com

gk1• 14 years ago

What are we to gather from this? That assholes on the Internet are also assholes in real life?

"Confronting" people like this does little to change their behavior. At best, it publicizes their identities, and causes some minor level of disgrace, but why would that matter to them?

tomelders• 14 years ago

I doubt "we" are meant to learn anything form it. But "they" could probably learn a lot.

wmf• 14 years ago

That assholes on the Internet are also assholes in real life?

That's actually useful information because it contradicts the received wisdom that trolls won't troll offline.

JumpCrisscross2• 14 years ago

I think it was meant to educate us, not him. I assumed trolls were spineless and used Internet anonymity to massage their egos. This guy, though, had no qualms with reconciling his online and real identities. This was interesting for me.

Further, for those trolls that do care about the perception of their real identities, perhaps pointing to something like this and saying "you sound like this guy" is enough to change behavior, albeit at the margin.

coryl4• 14 years ago

Hmm, this is actually an entertaining idea.

I'd like to see a Chris Hansen style confrontation, where they track down trolls, confront them with what they've written, and then see how they justify or apologize their way out of the situation.

Peroni• 14 years ago

I can't imagine a 13 year old defending his racist rants behind a veil of tears being particularly entertaining. The fact that this particular guy happened to be an adult is probably a bit of an enigma within the world of trolls.

coryl4• 14 years ago

You're probably underestimating the number of grown men with 13 year old maturities.

TheCapn• 14 years ago

I think people forget that reality TV and the like are edited and spliced to appeal to the audience. Anything you see on TV is weighted to determine if its entertaining or not... should a show/news cast adopt the OP's recommendation you can safely assume that each "lead" they track down that ends up at a kid would be simply swept away because it doesn't make for good TV.

roguecoder3• 14 years ago

I think you are under-estimating the percentage of trolls that are grown adults.

Then again, I grew up in a place where the local paper's letters to the editor read like a best-of collection of racist trolling (pre-internet, even.) Most of the letter writers were over 70 and still spouting ungrammatical poorly-articulated vitriol.

ilamont• 14 years ago

Saturday Night Live had a skit that was similar to this a few months back:

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/18/internet-trolls-on-snl.html

anons2011• 14 years ago

I watched this last night. On the whole it was a pretty stupid programme with equally stupid people not knowing how to report and block people. Why not just ignore sites like littlegossip, and why have a formspring account.

"I love that the whole thing is narrated like they're tracking down an animal in nature. I loved the end "So, there you go, an internet troll. That's what they look like." Yep, that's what they look like." - this did make me giggle though.

darklajid2• 14 years ago

I have the feeling that this is the ultimate 'feed the troll' reaction. Actually caring enough to track them down, talk to them and reason with them about obviously attention-seeking and ill-meant content? Why?

coryl4• 14 years ago

Well, we can't forget that even trolls have day jobs, bosses, friends, family, acquaintances. This particular troll wrote some mean, racist, inhumane comments. He wants attention, but not to his real self, which is why he posts under a fake account.

So as a society, what do you do with such offenders? Freedom of speech wasn't really meant to protect garbage like that. Well, one option is you can publicly shame him, or at the very least engage in a real conversation to see what his logic is. The internet is a free place, but we can't become so desensitized to racism and hateful comments that we dismiss is at part of our daily lives, as nothing to be concerned about. People do end up reading nasty comments, and it does affect them.

darklajid2• 14 years ago

So .. we form a mob and lynch them?

If I forget my 'ignore them' position for a second: Either they do violate the law or they don't. If they do, the law is responsible here, not you/we. If they don't, it's a rather weird idea to hunt them down and blackmail them to stop that behavior or you're telling the employer/his wife/his mom about those Facebook posts.

Let's focus on improvements to moderation systems and teach people around us that they shouldn't take random posts on the internet serious.

joering23• 14 years ago

> Freedom of speech wasn't really meant to protect garbage like that.

whether its a garbage or not, that your personal opinion. even if it would be opinion of 99% of population, you would still find people liking his writing.

I am not sure where the problem is: whether it is him writing this stuff, or others unable to ignore his writing. I don't mind trolls; they are sort of a challenge. If someone is smart enough to get intelligent individual involved in the garbage conversation, then its that individual fault. internet is a product of humanbeings and like in real life, there will always be statistical noise, an asshole in the neighborhood, one stupid dude out of 100s your working with, etc.

Checking with Wiki, troll is someone fed off someones responses to his comment. I bet if you ignore this guy long enough, he would stop trolling.

betawolf33• 14 years ago

I saw the whole episode this snippet came from, and I feel it should be mentioned that the whole thing was very much an assault on online anonymity.

The angle was that people can be very immature and very nasty via the Web when their identity is obscured, which is hardly something to dispute. However, the programme seemed to be hinting that public forums should be more regulated to prevent this being possible, which seems to be a poor alternative.

One of the more memorable snippets involved them contentiously asking a Facebook representative why Facebook can't run phonelines to manage abuse complaints from users.

mootothemax• 14 years ago

I feel it should be mentioned that the whole thing was very much an assault on online anonymity.

Which is kinda ironic, given that this guy apparently just doesn't care, despite knowing that his name and face are going to be broadcast on primetime BBC1.

zedshaw3• 14 years ago

Everyone who's for anonymity or pseudo-anonymity wants an all-or-nothing solution where they are totally hidden. The people who propose making everyone known want everyone to totally put all their information online with no protections.

What annoys me is there's a very simple middle solution: You are anonymous to other users, but not the company running the site. If you do something like this, then the company has the right to out you, similar to a DMCA takedown.

With that you could have those people who want to stay hidden from others, but you'd prevent idiots like this because it'd be easy for someone to report them and have them outed. It would only take a couple of bad trolls getting their "troll bit flipped" for the behavior to be reduced.

YmMot2• 14 years ago

You use the phrase "outed", which to me implies public exposure, so my post is based mostly on that premise. If that's not the case, please just clarify and ignore the applicable parts.

In theory that sounds nice, and to a certain extent there are some similar systems in place already...but I just don't see it working that well overall.

We already have a system like this for sex offenders, and it's got some serious issues. In such a system it would either be up to each site to have a public "troll list" or they would have to have some central repository. In the case of the former, anytime you look at a sites list you won't be able to tell which ones are just someone who made an offensive comment or two on a single site and "repeat offenders" who are on many sites lists. You'd have to collate the lists somehow and even then you'd have troubles of differentiating the various "levels", mistaken identity, etc. In the case of a central repository that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

Then there's the question of what constitutes an "identity" for the purposes of being able to post. A name? An address? Those don't seem suitable to me for such purposes, they're too fudge-able and temporary. A State ID# or SSN seem too personal and permanent. If the former are compromised, you can limit the damage somewhat, the latter less so. There's the issue of proliferation. Even if you use addresses, every single time you put your info out there is the increased risk of it being compromised. It's not unreasonable to want to limit the amount of times you expose yourself to the risk of security breaches.

There's the issue of the practical burden it would place on the sites. This isn't so much of an issue since it would be voluntary, but it's something to consider.

I think the ethical issue of whether it's ok to out someone who obviously has enemies on the internet is a tricky one. Again it gets to the issue of what constitutes an "identity" for these purposes. If it's too specific it becomes dangerous to release, or even store...and if it's not specific enough it becomes dangerous due to confusion, or loses it's sting.

There's also the question of whether it will really deter anyone. As much as they like to try and evoke the image of a deliberate prankster, I don't think most trolls really think things out that much. It strikes me as impulsive behavior. So they get hit on one site after an impulsive trolling and just move to another one.

Assuming that it's specific, I think the possibility of some sort of violent retaliation needs to be considered. You could argue one reaps what one sows, but I don't think that's an attitude that belongs in the consideration of organizing a society. We should value protecting everyone over punishing wrongdoers. A balance needs to be struck between removing the cause of harm from society and not discarding anyone.

Overall I wouldn't be surprised if such a system comes into being. Some walled gardens where members are authenticated based on a one way hash of some personally identifiable information, or a cryptographic key-fob or something...and if they cause a ruckus their access will be revoked. However I think such a system would have enough problems that it wouldn't take off except in isolated pockets that highly value having an exclusive discussion among a verified group, and there I think it would be more about that than preventing trolling.

For trolls, I think measures similar to what is mostly used now will continue to be the main defense. The ability to moderate, vote, etc.

unreal37• 14 years ago

SecondLife does this.

You have to use a real name, address and credit card to register an account. But in-world, no one knows who you are and there is no practical way for anyone to find your real identity. And for misbehavior (griefing or harassment), they can block you (by IP I guess) for days, weeks, or forever.

djbender• 14 years ago

This validates his existence, why even give this troll a voice?

bioskope• 14 years ago

Is it just me or does that BBC dude come off as pro-censorship?

lamby2• 14 years ago

Not just you. I facepalmed at "...and possibly illegal".

tankenmate2• 14 years ago

Incitement to racial hatred is against the law in the UK; you can do prison time for it.

rhplus2• 14 years ago

As commented above, yes, it is possibly illegal under UK law. For example:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he: (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_harassment,_alarm_o...

xedarius• 14 years ago

"Burton looks like so many large, smoking men whom you'd see in a British pub"

What a ridiculous stereotype.

whostolemyhat• 14 years ago

Not to mention you can't smoke in pubs in Britain - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban_in_England

amouat2• 14 years ago

A better link is probably: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smoking_ban_in_wal... as the piece was filmed in Wales, not England.

54mf• 14 years ago

"...trolling community..."

I'm out.

mediacrisis• 14 years ago

Not being familiar with privacy laws in the UK, did he have to sign a release to have his face shown on that program? If so I fail to see how its effectively shaming someone if they willingly submit to be filmed.

tankenmate2• 14 years ago

There is a public interest defence...

danso3• 14 years ago

No...he's a figure of documentary/journalistic interest. Else, virtually every photo of a perp walk would have to be blurred out.

bilbo0s• 14 years ago

Commenting on this particular troll is probably beneath the majority of us.

However, on a general note, I think it is important to realize that every text message you send, every cell phone conversation you have, every post to the CNN forum you make, every tweet you send ... is directly attributable to your IP whether you use your own name or not. With Facebook and Google tracking everything you do, whether you are logged in or not, I would go one step further, and say all of these things are directly attributable to you personally.

I would strongly urge young people to really think about what they are putting out there. Consider this, the military was doing the equivalent of credit checks for sensitive positions during the 60s. Now you need a credit check to do ANYTHING, even things that don't require credit. How long before an internet and phone background check is standard in the background checks organizations do before offering jobs?

I can tell you the military is doing this sort of screening right now for sensitive positions, but at least you are confronted about it. It still basically ends your career, but they will give you a chance to explain your posts. In the private sector in the future, they will just deep six your application and you won't know what happened. Or they'll let you in at entry level, maybe, and subsequently you'll start running up against an invisible barrier as you try to advance beyond the first or second layer of management. Or you will find resistance to you advancing into management at all.

Also be mindful, it can affect more than your professional life. Think about what the background checks for apartments will look like in the 2020s. Or what 'dating sites' will be like in the 2020s.

Please consider your future before you make comments on ... say ... Hurricane Katrina ... that might be misconstrued. Or post an opinion on ... say ... American soldiers in Afghanistan ... that could be taken out of context and viewed in a negative light.

All that said, the absolute best defense against these sorts of situations is just not to be a douche, which isn't very hard. If a guy or girl is dead...leave them in peace. If you can't say something nice...just don't comment.

buro92• 14 years ago

I've run forums for a long time and bullying surfaces frequently. Most trolls use Tor nowadays.

Only very rarely do I get traceable IP addresses that can be dealt with in any meaningful way, and that's usually when there is an invasion of trolls for a day or two and some drop their guard.

The only time I've ever successfully stopped a troll was about a decade ago when I traced it back to a uni and was able to raise a sysadmin.

By and large, for the majority of forums and social sites out there (which is where most bullying happens) there is very little that the admins can do even if it's reported to us.

About the only thing working is stopforumspam.com , whereby hundreds of forums are blocking IP addresses for a short while across all of the forums. It's made for spam, but I and others submit trolls to it too (when we're absolutely sure there's nothing of worth in the person and it's not just differing views).

JoachimSchipper2• 14 years ago

Tor is nice, but how long will it take until textual analysis against a large corpus becomes available to everyone with an interest? We already have fairly advanced plagiarism detection mechanisms and Bayesian spam filters; similar ideas allow author-identification.

I would, in fact, be somewhat surprised if nobody has proposed deploying this kind of thing against, say, Anonymous.

joshu2• 14 years ago

FWIW we ended up tracking TOR exit nodes on Delicious, and then we used "account created on tor" as a flag to the bayesian.

IanDrake2• 14 years ago

As a real world example to back you up:

One of my projects was shut down by Craigslist (NotifyWire.com). I took down the site and posted the details explaining why NotifyWire was going off-line.

Six months later, while attempting to refinance my house, I was told to take my name off the mortgage application because my corporation was under legal threat by Craigslist and thus was a liability that the underwriters might cite as a reason to decline the application.

That was an eye opener for me.

joering23• 14 years ago

wow thats actually crazy! designing a simple bootstrap website that "failed" and later on Craiglist reported it somewhere that your future may depend on?? can you share some more details?

joering23• 14 years ago

I agree with you other than in this part: > How long before an internet and phone background check is standard in the background checks organizations do before offering jobs?

this is a typical scenario of unaware teen: he signs up for facebook, put bunch of pictures, then get in some sort of trouble due to that (stalker, troubles at work/home/school etc). That is like a cold shower. Most teens learns from first, second, third mistake. Then they stop posting photos OR at least think twice before clicking upload.

Not only it would be incredible abuse on FB part to share your history in a way that your data could be as valuable as credit card history, I am sure people would stop using Facebook had known their _private_ facebook life stopped them from getting a credit card or some other benefits.

AlexBucataru• 14 years ago

> If you can't say something nice...just don't comment.

That's great advice, both online and face-to-face. Well, probably "useful" rather than "nice", and say it respectfully; e.g. when debating an idea, arguing your position may not be seen as nice...

It is all so true that what you say can come back to haunt you. It is the responsibility that comes with the freedom (of speech, in this case). You cannot have one without the other, but while it is important to understand and accept the responsibility, you shouldn't let it frighten you into giving away your freedom.

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

While your advice is generally sound, I'm concerned about the implied exhortation to self-censorship of controversial, but legitimate, views that it carries with it. Really, 20 years from now, if they're doing those kinds of background checks, will the checker care more that the checkee trolled some RIP group, or espoused support for Wikileaks? Will they care more that the checkee called someone "a fucking retard" on the comments of a blog post, or that they wrote a post arguing in favor of fighting back against cops who attack citizens?

Ultimately, the obnoxious-but-innocuous comments are just noise; it's the political views that run counter to the mainstream that will raise the most flags, and which require the most freedom from censorship, self- or otherwise.

rdouble3• 14 years ago

Each checker will not do the digging themselves, rather, companies like Palantir will offer info products like "Individual Troll Quotient" or "Online Political Summary" which will be used in the same way credit profiles are for lending. This already exists above board with systems like Klout, and in the background a number of companies sell services like these to marketers.

gorgonville• 14 years ago

> the absolute best defense against these sorts of situations is just not to be a douche, which isn't very hard

...unless one is already a douche, in which case it might be very hard.

The behavior of insulting people for no reason, like bullying generally, seems to transmitted via anti-rational memes.

Which means that the people who engage in it don't understand why they do so; they just know that it gives them some sort of psychological relief.

dotBen• 14 years ago

Many of us would say and do crazy things on Usenet (in my defense I was aged between 13-17 when I used Usenet). News servers would delete the posts after 30 days and there was little to worry about, or so we thought.

...until Deja News came out - a cached, searchable store of all Usenet posts, which Google later acquired.

Everything we put out on the Internet can and probably will be stored by someone forever.

stefanve• 14 years ago

that every text message you send, every cell phone conversation you have, every post to the CNN forum you make, every tweet you send ...

I don't know if it was on purpose, but when I read that the music of i'll be watching you popped in to my head

maeon3• 14 years ago

I do not agree with the statements of the troll but will defend his right to say it. The internet is making the world like a small town. Piss on people on the internet will be like pissing on people in line at Walmart. You can, but people are going to hate you, and you will never be forgiven by anyone for anything bad you do unless you hire a professional to erase your histories.

coob• 14 years ago

Except you can't piss on people in public?

zedshaw3• 14 years ago

Wrong. I'd defend his right to say it if he weren't anonymous. In the US you do not have a right to anonymous speech. In most countries you don't have this right. You can mostly say whatever you want in public because the people around you will know who you are and can respond.

rdouble3• 14 years ago

You do have the right to anonymous speech in the USA as upheld by the Supreme Court in McIntosh vs. Ohio in 1995:

http://www.acluohio.org/about/historicacluohiolitigation.asp...

and again in Watchtower Bible vs. Stratton in 2002

http://epic.org/free_speech/watchtower.html

rhplus2• 14 years ago

This particular guy was located in Wales. Speech is protected under European and UK law, but I'd say that it's not quite the same extent as in the US. For example, there are particular laws against defamation, harassment or racism in speech. One particular law his actions may violate is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_harassment,_alarm_o...

JanezStupar• 14 years ago

Trivia:

Nimrod 7 is an asshole cyborg character from a Cyberpunk game Bloodnet (Microprose 1993).

Basically Nimrod is an excellent cyborg warrior. But if you have him on team you will face A LOT of unprovoked attacks.

http://www.sysabend.org/champions/characters/mweisler@rz.uni...

This guy seems to have his character covered pretty well.

danso3• 14 years ago

Good find. Have to say, that's a great obscure reference.

danso3• 14 years ago

So...how did they find his real identity? Was that covered in the entire episode?

buro92• 14 years ago

Someone in the "troll community" gave the BBC reporter a USB stick on it with his identity and lots of samples of hir activity.

lucisferre• 14 years ago

It's good to see Facebook has it's moderating priorities straight. Just for the record its:

Holocost Deniers: Tolerated

Breastfeeding Mothers: Not OK

raganwald2• 14 years ago

This is an incredibly important point. There are two stances to take. First, FB can claim they are a “common carrier,” does not censor, and not responsible for what people post (just as the telephone company is not responsible for what people say on the telephone). Second, FB can pick and choose what is allowed but bears responsibility for what it allows to be posted.

Whether you like or dislike their particular choices, the very fact that they censor breastfeeding mothers means that they are accepting moral responsibility for what they decide not to censor.

I do not accept the statement that they “Abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive and ignorant. However, we believe people have a right to discuss these ideas and we want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed.” Where was that line of thinking when they censored breastfeeding?

sellandb2• 14 years ago

From Facebook's standpoint I would imagine that these are viewed as completely independent policies. On one hand Facebook does not want to censor discussion, on the other Facebook does not want to host explicit images. The distinction that you draw above simply has to do with their definition of what is an explicit image.

Would you make the same argument if we were talking about Holocaust deniers and personal pornography? Because I am pretty sure that is the distinction that Facebook is making. You just disagree on what constitutes pornography. (I am not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you around that definition either way, just saying that I think you are arguing a different argument).

JoachimSchipper2• 14 years ago

> Whether you like or dislike their particular choices, (...) they are accepting moral responsibility for what they decide not to censor.

Less charitable explanation: FB knows that basically nobody cares about nazis, especially after you've trotted out "free speech", while there is actually a measurable number of people who'd give up Facebook over breasts.

DrMcFacekick• 14 years ago

As far as I understand it, the "censoring" starts when someone flags a photo for review. So if I see a photo of my friend breastfeeding and find it to be in bad taste, I flag it- it then goes on to FB for review and perhaps a takedown. No one seems to mention that in the breastfeeding scandal, SOMEONE had to flag the photo for review, which means that someone found it offensive. So it's not Facebook going through every single picture ever posted to find ones to take down, it's Facebook responding to user requests to take pictures down.

I wonder what the ratio of flagged pictures to removed pictures is. I imagine it's pretty high.

However, the original argument is flawed. Holocaust deniers fall under First Amendment rights, breastfeeding falls under obscenity law.

jwatzman• 14 years ago

Breastfeeding mothers are just fine: https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=340974655932193#Does-Face...

amouat2• 14 years ago

On a side note, how can CNET claim credit on a screenshot of a BBC program?

stfu2• 14 years ago

Ah, good times when BBC Documentaries had actually high quality documentaries. Fascinating how their investigative journalism got all the way down to hunting people who talk trash on Facebook and exposing them. Are these really the most substantial social conflicts Britain has to worry about?

ck2• 14 years ago

It's mental illness folks.

We don't accept it because it's abhorrent behavior but these people need mental health help. Getting them to seek help is a nearly impossible task though.

stfu2• 14 years ago

I would expect only 2/10 of these treatments to succeed.

lwhi3• 14 years ago

I agree; I'd imagine the act of violent/abusive trolling is a clear symptom of one of a number of personality disorders.

jrockway• 14 years ago

What's the difference between personality and personality disorder? Is there anyone who is not mentally ill?

Ultimately, everyone has their foibles. It's what makes humans human. Only when someone become Internet Famous, though, do we start diagnosing them with illnesses. Why is that? Why can't we say, "wow, this guy has chosen a pretty worthless hobby. too bad he can't use his time to build model trains or something"?

Karunamon• 14 years ago

Or, more likely, people don't believe that actions on the internet do/should have any consequences.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree, especially when it's something a simple as a website comment that can be permanently erased with a single click.

It's like the people who play games like League of Legends and then help the other team or team kill or generally just play to tick folks off. There was a Wired article about this some time ago that had one line which stuck out in my mind: "They're playing the same game you are.. they are just playing to a different objective".

Personally, while I agree that trolling an obituary page is in >>incredibly<< poor taste and someone should probably clout the guy on the back of the head , invoking the government to do it is a step down a road that nobody wants to go down.

Kill the comment, report the loser, and move on. That's how you deal with idiots on the internet. Any of the other solutions mentioned here are below optimal for a number of reasons.

mathattack• 14 years ago

Am I the obliging who dislikes giving this jackass notoriety? Ignore the trolls, don't feed them.

motters• 14 years ago

I have no experience in this area, other than having seen trolling on mailing lists, but my guess would be that a face-to-face confrontation with the troll would only give them further ammunition for subsequent enraged outbursts, or serve to make the situation even more dangerous/volatile.

Probably the solution is not to react to the troll, and for their outbursts to be met with silence. Don't read their content, and avoid forums or lists where trolling regularly occurs. When that's not possible report them to the list/forum admin, without engaging with the troll directly.

roguecoder3• 14 years ago

We've tried "Don't fee the trolls" for years: it has only lead to them becoming more vicious and egging each other on. It means the only thing they hear is how awesome they are from their friends.

It is time to engage: people with patience could engage them in good faith: instead of asking "how do you justify it?" ask "what is your life like that you feel the need to do this?" There are a number of violence-intervention programs that could be adapted. Alternatively, we can drive them to ever-greater heights of rage by armchair psychoanalyzing them and bombarding them with ridicule: laughing at fear can make it go away. We could shun them, alienate them, mock them and otherwise make trolling unpleasant to engage in. Right now the incentive to troll is there and there is no disincentive: we need to create one. In real life, the disincentive is that someone will take a fully-justified swing at the troll or they will be arrested for harassment, stalking and verbal assault. We need to enforce the internet-equivalent of getting punched in the face, since the government doesn't appear to enforce laws against harassment and assault online.

tosseraccount• 14 years ago

Difference between US and rest of world.

US has free speech.

Rest of world doesn't. (yeah yeah .. "we have free speech except for obectional material" ... right.

American develop an "idiot filter" and get good at using it: "dude's an idiot. whatever. move on".

Europeans don't and find the need for authorities "e.g. The BBC" to police their brains.

Big deal So what? Some clown is an offensive troll. I'd rather deal with that with big brother smashing anonymous complaints, no matter how off base.

Selvik• 14 years ago

The situation is analogous to the difference between the immune system of someone with limited exposure to all the normal diseases of western civ (f.ex. theo-facists, nazis, white supremacists) and someone brought up with sterilized everything and an instant antibiotics cure if he sniffs once.

EDIT: Not saying that murderous leftist radicals can't do damage, but the west's left has mellowed.

sien2• 14 years ago

It's ironic on a site called 'hacker news' where everyone knows what the older 'proper' definition of hacker people don't seem to care or even to point out what the older, 'proper' definition of troll is.

Fortunately wikipedia still has in their definition:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4] The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted".

So, a proper troll on HN might pop and point out that functional languages, while pretty and amusing, are largely unused because their performance is insufficient and make a comparison about, say, perl, provoking people to correct them and argue the point.

Look up adequacy.org to learn about proper trolling.

This guy is just a jerk.

panacea• 14 years ago

"a troll is someone who posts inflammatory ... messages in an online community ... with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response"

Isn't that exactly what he was doing?

sien2• 14 years ago

But with no style.

Proper trolling is like good teasing, it teaches people about their cognitive blind spots.

dredmorbius• 14 years ago

Well trolled, sir.

kbatten• 14 years ago

I fail to see the relevance of this.

In addition it somewhat upsets me that someone could get jail time for making an offensive comment. Depending on the jurisdiction or culture, I know I have said things that would be offensive to someone (specifically regarding religion.) To be faced with jail time over something like that does not sound like something I would expect from a western country.

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

>In addition it somewhat upsets me that someone could get jail time for making an offensive comment. Depending on the jurisdiction or culture, I know I have said things that would be offensive to someone (specifically regarding religion.)

But did you say them with the specific, primary intent to cause that person harassment, alarm or distress? I would wager not.

Note that I don't necessarily agree with the legislation, but it's an important distinction.

abalone• 14 years ago

Maybe it's my American 1st amendment ideals but I'm almost more disturbed by the tone of the report than the troll (who is obviously a huge douchecanoe).

First of all, how did they track this guy down? Sure, there are legal ways of doing it if the guy is sloppy. But how does a report on the ethics of the Internet perpetrate a huge invasion of privacy without so much as passing comment on it? Disturbing implications for what actions are justified when directed at people with the "wrong" ideas.

Second, notice the reporter's repeated emphasis on the illegality of racist speech. He's not just shaming this guy. He's beating the drum of state censorship. Again maybe it's just my ideals but this is just obviously disturbing, maybe even moreso than trolls themselves.

I am not able to watch the whole program but judging from the synopsis it doesn't sound like it entails any substantive discussion of the ethics of privacy and censorship on the Internet, e.g. interviews with civil libertarians, which is what any serious report on trolling should include. As it stands it reeks of sensationalism.

justncase80• 14 years ago

I love how they call him a troll right on the BBC. Talk about a slap in the face. Anonymity isn't always a good thing.

lightyrs• 14 years ago

The tone of this article is downright chilling. Sure, this guy is a complete nuisance but he should have every right to spread his hate speech wherever property owners condone. The current anti-bullying meme that is being propagated by mass-media and politicians is just another in a long line of ruses designed to limit the human rights of the electorate.

jakejake2• 14 years ago

It varies by country but assuming this troll is in the UK hate speech is not a protected form of free speech in his country. So in the UK he doesn't have the right to spread his hate speech. Now that his name is known perhaps somebody will take him to court, who knows. The US is one of the few countries where hate speech is technically protected but even still there are some exceptions including "fighting words" and harassment which could possibly be relevant.

This guy seems to be aware that his behavior would be likely to land him "9 weeks" in jail which he dismisses as an insignificant punishment.

delackner• 14 years ago

While it would be lovely if we could find a way to get rid of harassing trolls on the internet, suppose someone on Facebook posts a comment disparaging [the founder of a certain faith known to try to assassinate people for disparaging said founder], then members of that faith might make formal complaints to the service demanding his account be deleted. So yeah, probably best to just try to make options to permanently block specific users/ip addresses from EVER posting to your feed.

BBC confronts Facebook troll

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