I HATE the word “trolls”. To me, a troll is something lurking under a bridge somewhere, possibly trying to catch a goat or exact a toll fee. They’re inherently mythic and, as such, non-threatening. In my mind, trolls are a concoction of the imagination. And like all imaginary things, the sort of things we fear only in a naive and irrational way. Trolls, you say? No such thing. No need to panic.
But trolls, as we’ve named them, have become quite the opposite. They do harm. So this folklorish whimsy jars whenever I hear any online abusers’ actions diluted by the term "troll". These are not trolls. They’re people. Badly behaved people. You might not get to look them square in the eye, but they’re there. Somewhere, not just in some dark corner of the internet – somewhere in a bedroom, an office or a toilet cubicle – there is a person on the other end of that tweet. A person who derives joy from making another person – often a stranger – suffer. This week that suffering has played out in violent clarity in the abuse of actress Leslie Jones.
Without delving too deep in the murky depths of the misogynistic backlash underpinning the entire Ghostbusters reboot (it’s easily googled if you’re interested/brave), Jones has spent this week at the mercy of the worst sorts of people. She briefly left the platform after being on the receiving end of a campaign of racist and sexist abuse. Abuse incited by right-wing social pest Milo Yiannopoulos – an editor at Breitbart News Network who used the handle @nero. Jones called out Twitter for not doing enough to stop the abuse – a criticism that is far from the first of its kind. Twitter has an abuse problem. A serious one. And no-one’s quite sure what to do.
In something of an unprecedented response, Twitter has permanently banned @nero, citing rule violations pertaining to “ participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals”.
Now Yiannopoulos has been booted for good, what has been hailed by plenty as a commonsense victory long overdue is being decried as a free speech violation by others. Yiannopoulos himself has been quick to denounce the platform, claiming it a, “space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives” and that those who care about upholding free speech are no longer welcome. It wasn’t long before #FreeMilo was trending, and theories about retribution for political reasons – rather than behavioural ones – were doing the rounds.
Does the claim of censorship hold any water? Has Twitter jumped the shark?
For that to be true, you’d have to assume social media exists and operates in the same way as any public forum. Except it doesn’t. It’s a platform. It’s a service, and when you signed up to that, you agreed to those terms of service. Twitter explicitly states what is acceptable behaviour and what won’t fly. Most of us likely didn’t bother to wade through the minutia, so here’s a tldr; for y’all – basically, don’t be nasty. It’s the number one unarticulated rule of all social interaction.
We’re raised with that in mind – it’s amazing how quickly people shelve that principle when we have a faceless egg or a meme to hide behind. As with all space, online and off, you can say what you like – but that doesn’t mean you should. Censorship is not the same as understanding societal limits and acting in the best interests of the community. We do that every day, in every situation. We consciously self-monitor and apply the unarticulated social filter demanded by that situation. With that in mind, do you really think someone using a platform to incite racial/identity hatred should be allowed to luxuriate in the wide latitudes of free expression, just because?
The internet cannot and will never be a neutral zone. It’s not ice cream and marshmallow land, where people in wizard hats ride around on the back of cat gifs upvoting and high-fiving one another. If you’re still grasping onto the idea that the internet is a place where people come together to share ideas and beliefs, and shape each other’s perspectives through reason on mutual understanding, then you’ve clearly not been online much. The internet is not a nice place. It’s full of anonymous idiots with a keyboard and a connection. People don’t play nice because they don’t have to. It’s more Lord of the Flies than Utopia
Leslie Jones is not an island. Innumerable people, sometimes famous and most often not, have found themselves targeted by online abusers. And this is where Twitter has fallen down. It did not have a robust reporting procedure until activist Carolina Criado-Perez suffered a campaign of rape and death threats for campaigning for women on banknotes. But even now, it's slow to respond to reports. In the case of Leslie Jones, Yiannopoulos's profile has given Twitter an opportunity – he’s become the sacrificial lamb, his profile nuked for the common good and to show that they’re serious about a sea-change in dealing with online harassment.
We might be talking about virtual spaces, but these have become a significant part of everyday life. We increasingly live our lives online, and this behaviour is inexcusable and non-permissible. Abuse, online or off, is a violation. It’s time we all become more demanding consumers. It’s time we demanded more of our digital services. It’s time we expected our services to act quickly when people abuse their platforms to the detriment of others. As we transition to spending more time in digital spaces we deserve those spaces be pleasant, healthy and well looked after for the benefit of all. This is not a war between free speech and censorship – it’s clawing back of civility in our new world. This is our opportunity to reroute the future – I dread to think where we’ll end up if we don’t take it.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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