Today Linda Skugge decided to quit blogging. She got tired of all the negative and offensive comments. I decided to write a reflection on trolls.
One of Sweden’s biggest blogger – Linda Skugge – has decided she is fed up with the trolls and all the negative, offensive and rude comments she has gotten from her “readersâ€, so she will stop blogging. I do think it is sad that people choose that option. I got me thinking of the issues with the web of today and the social patterns it nurtures and emphasizes. Yet too many people forget that the web only will enhance the social patterns and structures of the web. Trolls on the web are not a product of the web, instead they are a product of our society. However harshly put, the ease in which you can broadcast your message on the web will make bad things worse and good things better. I think it is ironic even though very logical.
The key to remember about the regular internet user is the feeling of anonymity. You are sitting at home reading someone else’s blog, site or profiles. You see more of the person than the person of you (or at least so you think). You can easily broadcast to a much bigger audience than in any other commonly available and “freely†accessible distribution channel and thus you reach a bigger fraction of your wanted audience but also a bigger fraction of your unwanted audience. You just cannot separate them as the broadcast method is very much blind to the audience. Surprisingly many people forget this when discussing trolls and how to deal with them. This is a problem with the structure of our society, but not really the medium or technology.
What happens in for instance the blogosphere is very simple. The trolls submit posts/comments to which the blog owner reacts and write back to them. The trolls respond. The blog owner responds. More people join the discussing and very quickly a feeling of us against them is created and an intense and very often infected discussion is created. This behavior is very much destructive and doesn’t solve much.
What about enabling various authentication methods before submitting comments or moderation? Well, we haven’t really solved the issue as we only create an obstacle for people to submit. The problem still exists. What about shutting down the commenting function? I prefer to call it the real ostrich tactic. If we don’t see the problem, it doesn’t exist. I have news for you. Just like in the real world it doesn’t. Trolls will just find other channels and ways to get the message through. It is evident that technology can help to solve the flow of rude and offensive comments, but not really solve the real problem.
Basically the only way to solve the problem is to… solve it. Yee wiz!
Let us start to behave with respect to one another always, and try to understand each other. Yes I know it is a very, very optimistic idea, but it is the only sustainable solution so we might as well start now. In the meanwhile, don’t let the trolls get the space they want to have. I know it is the hardest possible way and I never said the solution was easy. Naturally we will always have the right to feel down and hurt by mean comments, but are we really solving the problem by being too confrontational with the trolls? I still don’t think so, but again I completely understand those who so choose to. We can only take so much as individuals and sometimes we need to fight back. Yet for me we need to always remember that it is a social problem. The road to the solution is to acknowledge that and we will find the solution – on the web and outside. Unfortunately there is no easy and convenient truth/solution to trolls. What we need to do is to over time controlling the anger, harnessing the frustration and channel it towards the right goal that is to solve the problem not cure the symptoms.
The solution is still and always will be openness, regardless of how hard it is to deal with the openness.
… always get tougher when it is getting tough is the saying. I have thought about this recently and also saw “Remember the Titans” tonight. There are many great quotes in the film which I really think encapsulate leadership, team work and how to deal with “uphills”. The first one is very football oriented – “I don’t want them to gain another yard. You blitz all night!! If they cross the scrimmage… I’m gonna take every last one of you out! I want you to make sure… they remember… forever… the night the played the Titans?”. You stand your ground and never ever yield. So true, so true. You work as a team together always. One of the best reflections on leadership I’ve heard outside the forces is: “Attitude reflects leadership!”.
If anyone doubted that the media landscape is drastically changing and that we will see new outlets should definitely take a look at the article in todays Guardian – We all helped to speed the demise of professional photographers. I don’t fully agree with the title of the article as the future media scene will be a symbiosis between what we not call traditional media and specialized user contributed media sites.
Clearly Web 2.0 is not sufficient and we need to create more intelligence in the business logic of the future online media sites to take advantage of the power of the loose publishing model of social media and counteract the problems with it. Also the future media is facing issues both on the business model side as well as the legal side too. I prefer to start to explain by brushing up everyone on the true intention of the web and one of my favorite quotes from Tim Berner-Lee explaining his ideas behind the web:
“Suppose all the information stored on computers everywhere were linked… Suppose I could program my computer to create a space in which anything could be linked to anything…â€
I do believe that this idea is lost to many times in the current debate on the web and the future of the web. I have written about this issue before – In the Wake of the Birth of the Web and The Social Web also known as Web 2.0.
The underlying idea of the web directly implies that philosophically it should be perfectly fine linking to other sites, thereby directly or indirectly giving them the credit for the content. If you are not storing their content, I will have a very hard time understanding why that would mean infringement of copyright. If that is copyright infringement then isn’t just telling it to my friends about the content also be copyright infringement? I know I am totally over exaggerating and the examples are not really compatible as the nature of broadcasting in the two different cases is very different. However online it is sometimes very hard to tell the two cases apart. I do believe we instead should try to adapt to the situation and find new ways to deal with copyrighted material and in particular how to make sure that the creators get credit and money for it. I do believe by letting them be part of the creation they will help us find a solution which will satisfy all parties. I would like to emphasize that I do not in any way – directly or indirectly – encourage copyright infringement and you should always respect copyrighted material.
The previous and ongoing disputes with Google News will also shed some light on the problem with linking to sites and how you can do that. From the case in Belgium, it is clear so far that you are allowed to link to the sites and even store a small snippet, but not store the full article. If someone disputes even that, we might as well start to think about banning search engines as they then also would be illegal – they link to sites and store a short snippet for each link. It opens up for a very interesting discussion which basically means no one can do anything with any content of the web if you do not ask them. To me, the whole thought behind the web is then completely lost and I certainly don’t believe that is the right way to go.
As for the business model, I do believe the outcome of the case between YouTube and Viacom will give guidance to the IT industry on how to treat the copyright issues online in a monetized environment (especially how to judge when a video clip becomes a copyright infringement and when it is not). The future advertising is definitely moving towards online video or IPTV (pick your flavor) so the case is highly relevant and timely. (The outcome will probably also impact the other available distribution channels too though.) The industry is in definite need of some guidance to handle these issues when you have advertising as a business model and it is still very much an unknown territory. What does the law really mean as for which solution is the right one? No, it is not very clear today.
My intention with this blog is to emphasize that the media scene is changing and will continue to change if yet only faster. Unfortunately the business models as well as the legal models have not evolved to match the development. The entrants, who best understand how to take advantage of all the different available distribution channels – offline, online, broadcast – the evolution of the media as well as the flatness of the world, will become huge hits. I have a bet on which site will be that, but that is a later question.