[Discussion] The Inconceivable Power of Trolls in Social Media

This is a follow-on to the nearly two year old topic "Trouble at the Kool-Aid Point." The intention is to provide a place to discuss the unreasonable power social media trolls have over women and minorities, with a primary focus on video games (though other examples are certainly welcome).

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Let's all leave Facebook too.

Already done; election year made it pretty easy.

Never gave Zuckerberg money...

Palmer Luckey update: he dates a GGer, and hasn't been shy about boosting alt-right and pro-Trump tweets.

What Does Alt-Right Patron Palmer Luckey Believe?

[A] look at Luckey’s Twitter activity reveals that he’s been openly in support of the alt-right and the bigotry that defines it since March.

Luckey has “liked” many alt-right memes and WikiLeaks-sanctioned conspiracy theories on Twitter, many of them from his girlfriend Nikki Moxxi, a Trump supporter and GamerGater.

Liking an islamophobic tweet is not the same as being islamophobic. A retweet is not an endorsement. People do and say a lot of dumb things on Twitter and that does not necessarily reflect their character. But from the Twitter presence of Luckey, a well-moneyed public figure and key player in the VR industry who holds a certain power and influence, a pattern emerges.

More on Gizmodo too.

Certainly sounds like the type of douchebag who'd steal zenimax's VR code for his own benefit. I'll be very curious to see how that lawsuit pans out.

So glad I decided to stick with PS4 VR, if it turns out well (waiting on that).

What's the protocol here. Am I allowed to boycot Occulus?? Call Hedge Funds and pressure them to force Zucks to sh*t can Palmer? I would be willing to bet his contract has damage to brand clauses that will claw back ownership.

This is going to get messier before it gets clearer. Buckle up, the rollercoaster is starting:

So, Palmer Luckey made a Facebook post, in which he says he's a Gary Johnson-supporting Libertarian, who contributed to Nimble America but wasn't a founder or employee. This contradicts some of what he told the original reporter (that Luckey had made the posts but wasn't the one who first registered the Reddit account) and is consistent with other parts of it.

So, is Luckey a dupe of Milo et al.? Or is he trying to hide his involvement? He does say that he donated to them; $10K is a minor amount for a multi-millionaire, so it's plausible that he just didn't vet them well enough. (In which case, the lesson is don't donate to shady "non-profits" on Trump's subreddit.) On the other hand, there's circumstantial evidence pointing to his involvement being deeper. And did he really think that billboards were the way to reach young people?

Conclusion: it's a mess.

"Liking an islamophobic tweet is not the same as being islamophobic. A retweet is not an endorsement."

Oh? Is that because the internet isn't real? If you're a jerk on the internet, you're a jerk. Vice should know better.

BadKen wrote:

"Liking an islamophobic tweet is not the same as being islamophobic. A retweet is not an endorsement."

Oh? Is that because the internet isn't real? If you're a jerk on the internet, you're a jerk. Vice should know better.

Then WTF does Vice think the point of social media platforms is?

If I walk down the street and see a person holding anti-Muslim signage and simply repeat the wording of the sign to everyone I see (without context or the intent to refute) I am helping spread hate.

Eh. I think they're trying to say that one retweet doesn't mean that you agree with everything associated with it (some people, after all, retweet things to complain about them). Now that people have started digging into Luckey's internet posting history, though, he's not looking like a very nice person, in that oblivious way of a young person who grew up in a bubble.

Granted, if he'd just posted his opinions or donated to a political campaign I wouldn't care. I'd disagree with him, but whatever. Funding the trolls, though, takes this to a new low. Things were bad enough in internet comment threads without adding astroturfing.

I don't buy that apology for a second. That was him making those posts. He is a vile as your typical gator scumbag.

He is outta here and I hope FB gets back as much money as possible. I pray they have some good damage to brand clauses and that most of his buyout was stock not cash

Gremlin wrote:

Eh. I think they're trying to say that one retweet doesn't mean that you agree with everything associated with it (some people, after all, retweet things to complain about them). Now that people have started digging into Luckey's internet posting history, though, he's not looking like a very nice person, in that oblivious way of a young person who grew up in a bubble.

For likes, there is an undeniably implicit aspect of support. For retweets, the point is that you want more people to see it. That might be because you agree or you just want to alert people to the awfulness someone said. Let's not kid ourselves though. It's not hard to figure out which of a person's retweets are out of support and which aren't.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

For likes, there is an undeniably implicit aspect of support.

Not defending any of the behaviour or messages in this case but until this year twitter likes were stars and shared the star icon from IE favourites (i.e. bookmarks). Many people did and still do use likes as bookmarks. The messaging is a bit mixed now though that they use a heart icon.

Yeah, twitter needs a bookmark function, that's the only thing I use likes for.

4chan's new racist code for getting past Google 'censorship'

ake a moment to cherish your favorite candies and search engines — you never know when the alt-right is going to appropriate them.

Months after the anti-Semitic (((echoes))) symbol made headlines, the modern white supremacist movement is still alive and well on Twitter. Users who want to openly discuss racist conspiracies without being flagged by Twitter's online abuse team have developed slang to fly under the politically correct radar.

It's being called "Operation Google" — a campaign to spoil Google's new set of anti-harassment tools, called Conversation AI, which come from a subsidiary of Google called Jigsaw that works to tackle the problem of hate speech on the internet. In response, 4chan trolls are using "Google" as a slur for black people.

A full list of the slang and its targets was posted on 4chan on Sept. 21. It includes terms such as Skype, Yahoo and Skittle to mean Jew, Mexican and Muslim, respectively.

And this is exactly the type of abuse of privilege that gets more people coming out in favor of more censorship in the name of security than it helps to reduce it. At least if you're going to protest against censorship, find a cause that isn't actually stupid to support.

Retweet is not endorsement: Consider when I retweet someone who has said some transphobic BS in order to point out that person saying transphobic BS and to address it (whether it's a retweet followed by other tweets or a retweet quote).

Like is not endorsement: Some people use likes as bookmarks. I don't think this is a very good idea because of how "trending" and such work, but some people do this. (I think for most people who do it, they got into the habit back when it was "starring" rather than "liking", and had less semantic baggage from the name of the operation. A lot of people complained about the change from star to like (heart) for precisely that reason.)

These are stated for a very specific reason: because social justice folks, particularly people of color, frequently get racist asshats all over them pointing out "you retweeted X, Y, and Z, and you are horrible!" And indeed, they did retweet those things, and someone reading the criticism can easily verify that... but finding the surrounding critical context is much harder to find. (Which means that the untruthful criticism is believed.) You'll see a lot of active social justice folks who specifically say in their twitter bio "retweets are not endorsements" because of this.

And consider the remainder of the quote:

But from the Twitter presence of Luckey, a well-moneyed public figure and key player in the VR industry who holds a certain power and influence, a pattern emerges.

VICE is saying that even though retweeting or liking tweets is not sufficient proof that someone holds to the beliefs in those tweets, Luckey's tweets show an actual pattern of holding these odious beliefs.

So over-all, the message of those paragraphs together is "It's still true that retweet and like aren't automatically supportive, and we support the many social justice people who have made that point repeatedly for important reasons ... BUT NEVERTHELESS, this guy is a giant asshole."

Disney decided not to buy Twitter because of it's inability to stop harassment.

Today’s dose of tech industry schadenfreude comes courtesy of a Bloomberg report on the reason why Disney decided not to buy Twitter. According to insiders, Disney didn’t think acquiring Twitter would be a good fit for their family-friendly company image, given the social media site’s inability to curb harassment and hate speech on their platform. The Bloomberg report explains, “Twitter has only recently started exploring technological solutions to harassment on its service. Disney’s discomfort with abuse on the site indicates that it’s a larger problem for Twitter’s business prospects than its executives imagined.”

Ha. ha. ha. ha. ha. (sob)

Maybe they'll listen now when people tell them that it's a huge problem on their platform?

David French in the National Review, talking about the abuse he got (and is still getting) from the alt-right for opposing Trump.

Two weeks ago Nancy and I were enjoying lunch with friends after church. My son’s football coach asked if “things had calmed down” after the tumult of the summer. I grabbed my phone, said “let’s see,” and opened my Twitter mentions. I laughed at the first one, a standard profane rant calling me a traitor for opposing Trump, but when my wife looked, her face twisted up in shock. There they were, just below, more tweets from more men, aimed directly at her. She burst into tears.
Gremlin wrote:

David French in the National Review, talking about the abuse he got (and is still getting) from the alt-right for opposing Trump.

Two weeks ago Nancy and I were enjoying lunch with friends after church. My son’s football coach asked if “things had calmed down” after the tumult of the summer. I grabbed my phone, said “let’s see,” and opened my Twitter mentions. I laughed at the first one, a standard profane rant calling me a traitor for opposing Trump, but when my wife looked, her face twisted up in shock. There they were, just below, more tweets from more men, aimed directly at her. She burst into tears.

That's a horrifying story. I'm heartsick for our nation.

pyxistyx wrote:

Disney decided not to buy Twitter because of it's inability to stop harassment.

Today’s dose of tech industry schadenfreude comes courtesy of a Bloomberg report on the reason why Disney decided not to buy Twitter. According to insiders, Disney didn’t think acquiring Twitter would be a good fit for their family-friendly company image, given the social media site’s inability to curb harassment and hate speech on their platform. The Bloomberg report explains, “Twitter has only recently started exploring technological solutions to harassment on its service. Disney’s discomfort with abuse on the site indicates that it’s a larger problem for Twitter’s business prospects than its executives imagined.”

And now apparently Peter Thiel is sniffing around.

*shudder*

Maybe he'll get in a bidding war with Martin Shkreli.

Gremlin wrote:

David French in the National Review, talking about the abuse he got (and is still getting) from the alt-right for opposing Trump.

Two weeks ago Nancy and I were enjoying lunch with friends after church. My son’s football coach asked if “things had calmed down” after the tumult of the summer. I grabbed my phone, said “let’s see,” and opened my Twitter mentions. I laughed at the first one, a standard profane rant calling me a traitor for opposing Trump, but when my wife looked, her face twisted up in shock. There they were, just below, more tweets from more men, aimed directly at her. She burst into tears.

Worth noting:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/z4SENH0.png)

Just one part of it, but a significant part given that Twitter still won't take action:
Inside the secret meeting that changed the fate of Vine forever

In order to turn things around, the viners suggested several product changes that they thought would make the experience better for users at all levels.

One ask was for Vine to deal with harassment. Several viners said the community had taken a negative turn and their comments had turned into buckets of abuse.

Abuse is something that Vine's parent company, Twitter, has been heavily criticized for not addressing. Several viners said abuse played a part in their decision to leave.

"People on Vine would bash people for no reason," Piques said in a phone call. "We wanted comment filters so we could block words like the F-word from our comments. Vine eventually rolled out some types of filters, but the broad consensus was that it was too little too late."

Twitter just suspended a handful of white supremacists' (I refuse to refer to them as "alt-right" anymore. let's just call them what they are shall we) accounts (not ENOUGH , IMO but it's a start). Probably to coincide with their mute words feature.

pyxistyx wrote:

Twitter just suspended a handful of white supremacists' (I refuse to refer to them as "alt-right" anymore. let's just call them what they are shall we) accounts (not ENOUGH , IMO but it's a start). Probably to coincide with their mute words feature.

I saw this story this morning, but I hadn't heard about the Disney thing until just now. This story makes a lot more sense in context.

Turns out that ignoring harassment and abuse in your community actually does affect your brand enough to sink your plans to cash out. And the idea of your stock option billions evaporating might be an incentive to clean up. Which is not a great place for us to be (Facebook is too large for it to affect them, for one) but maybe Silicon Valley will start to learn, now that the message is in the only language they speak.