If you look at post comments here on Gear Diary you’ll see some that correct mistakes we made and others that outright disagree with us. You’ll see perspectives that differ, Judie teased for “just happening to carry a micro-sim adapter” with her at all times and, sometimes, a suggestion about something we missed. All of that is fair game and, in fact, we welcome it. What you will not see however, are rude, offensive, gratuitously nasty comments. The reason for that is simple, such comments immediately get yanked. You see, we have a zero tolerance for trolls on Gear Diary.
Who are the internet trolls, the people who use anonymity to hide their vile, repulsive, self-hating bigotry? Who are these people that even a mother would find difficult to love? The BBC tracked one down and… he is an idiot. See for yourself…
via Gizmodo
If nothing else it’s an interesting comparison to me between the concept of freedom of speech as part of the American experience versus the
British or European model. In the US, I would say the freedom of speech is more absolute, a solid, immutable thing whereas in the UK the concept seems more flexible and relative and capable of being restricted in certain ways. Someone might post something vulgar, inflammatory or unpopular in the US but they likely won’t wind up doing time for it—a sharp contrast to the apparent consequences of similar behavior in the UK.
Regardless, I think Voltaire said it best when he wrote a friend: “Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.”
And yet here our communication really isn’t as free in America as we think. For example, we go crazy if someone flashes a breast on TV. It’s amazing what we consider “problematic” and “actionable” here, especially the fact that, because of an active Christian right-wing, we are unhealthily sexually repressed. So it’s really a matter of the TYPE of cimmunication you are talking about. In some ways we are incredibly free, but in others we are terribly censored and there is little or NO freedom of speech.
In the end, however, these trolls contribute nothing useful to a conversation, no matter what the topic!
I watched this show as I live in the UK and my tivo recorded it as a suggestion. Trolling is wrong on so many levels and I belive it is not just the duty of government to fight this but all of us. ISP’s, site moderators, social network companies and us as general users to voice our disgust when necessary and if necessary vote our “feet” as we would in rest of our lives. We don’t have to lock people up for their opinions that’s too orwellian but name and shame them by removing their anonymity. What they say in not okay but may be they would keep their sick comments to themselves if they had to “own” them properly.