[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).

Sucky non-News:

Apparently Milo was nominated as guest-rector or whatever the hell they call it at Glasgow University by some students who were obviously doing it "for the LULZ" but it got some minor (too much) news coverage here. I hesitated as to whether or not to mention it since it will NEVER happen but, I do so in order to frame my better, actual news

Awesome good-news:

I posted this in the "thing I love" thread but it's worth mentioning here...

Milo-Clone and every-day Daily Mail funded professional Troll Katie Hopkins has to pay damages and court costs now that Jack Munroe (a gender non-binary UK blogger/Guardian guest-columnist who's spoken up a lot for the underprivileged in the past and been vilified by people like Hopkins for it) won their slander suit against her, over Hopkins alleging that Munro had been responsible for some anti-tory grafitti on a war memorial (which also naturally resulted in Hopkin's own army of fan-trolls and brexit types piling on Jack after the fact, the way these assholes always do).

Right now that's around £24,000 directly to Jack, and then at least £106,000 in court fees, estimated to be anything upwards of £300,000 in total once everything's been worked out.

*OH! And the best part is, Munro gave Hopkins the opportunity to make a public apology and pay £5,000 to an immigrant charity and she'd forget the whole thing. Hopkins did not appear to take her up on that offer.

Mwuahaha!

This comment on an article about a popular YouTuber's racism is disturbing and heartbreaking:

I recently visited my girlfriend’s aunt, uncle and her nephews - the kids are the only ones who play video games in their whole family so I have a pretty good rapport with them. We’re sitting there chatting about stupid little kid stuff (they’re 9 and 11) and they start talking about bashing Jews and laughing about Hitler. I tell them no that’s obviously not something to joke about and do they know who Hitler was, and who did you hear this from, yadda yadda.

They’ve learned all this stupidity from these dumb f*cking youtube minecraft streamers and repeat it mindlessly. They (edit: meaning the kids) obviously have no idea how offensive they were being. We talked about it and I think (hope?) they have a better idea, but think about how many children are out here learning all this horrible sh*t like it’s normal.

[...]

The article isn't isn't exactly joyful either, as it turns out that a certain videogame streamer is afraid that whites will become a minority and descends into eugenic fantasies.

Hmm. I wasn't expecting YouTube to face any consequences for this, but apparently some brands object to appearing next to literal Nazis:

Verizon, AT&T pull ads from Google over extremist videos

U.S. wireless carriers Verizon Communications (VZ) and AT&T (T) are among the top brands suspending digital advertising on Google’s YouTube and other advertising platforms not related to search over concerns that their ads may have run next to extremist videos.
Gremlin wrote:

Hmm. I wasn't expecting YouTube to face any consequences for this, but apparently some brands object to appearing next to literal Nazis:

Verizon, AT&T pull ads from Google over extremist videos

U.S. wireless carriers Verizon Communications (VZ) and AT&T (T) are among the top brands suspending digital advertising on Google’s YouTube and other advertising platforms not related to search over concerns that their ads may have run next to extremist videos.

AT&T and Verizon probably figured they'd (a) get good PR for this while (b) Google has to do the tough thing and figure out what to do with ads on YouTube, etc., along with (c) rates coming down for ads, so that Verizon and AT&T will in the long term save money.

It's a win-win for AT&T and Verizon, really. As the article says, Google is between a rock and a hard place. Good luck placating all parties.

I'm not going to shed too many tears over failing to placate the Nazi party.

Yeah, I didn't mean them, obv. If YouTube's advertising revenue goes down, that affects all content producers.

Clearly, the extremist stuff isn't going to be getting anywhere near as much Google ad money now that some of the big boys are pulling out. Or, at least, that's the hope.

garion333 wrote:

Yeah, I didn't mean them, obv. If YouTube's advertising revenue goes down, that affects all content producers.

Particularly if their clumsy inclusion of innocuous LGBT videos in their restricted mode is indicative of the state of their filtering.

If I was in charge of YouTube I'd send out a team to manually target the linchpins of extremist hate to cut down on the problem while simultaneously building up a better filtering system. But no one put me in charge, and knowing Google they probably are going to try automation before they manually bring out the weed whacker.

Gremlin wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Yeah, I didn't mean them, obv. If YouTube's advertising revenue goes down, that affects all content producers.

Particularly if their clumsy inclusion of innocuous LGBT videos in their restricted mode is indicative of the state of their filtering.

If I was in charge of YouTube I'd send out a team to manually target the linchpins of extremist hate to cut down on the problem while simultaneously building up a better filtering system. But no one put me in charge, and knowing Google they probably are going to try automation before they manually bring out the weed whacker.

Didn't they try that already? I remember there being a big stink about any video with certain tags being demonetized regardless of their actual content.

Grenn wrote:

Didn't they try that already? I remember there being a big stink about any video with certain tags being demonetized regardless of their actual content.

That's the bit I was referring to, though really I think they've tried various automated filtering in the past. My impression is that, like Twitter, they never really got serious about rooting out the actual problem.

Gremlin wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Didn't they try that already? I remember there being a big stink about any video with certain tags being demonetized regardless of their actual content.

That's the bit I was referring to, though really I think they've tried various automated filtering in the past. My impression is that, like Twitter, they never really got serious about rooting out the actual problem.

Isn't the problem, fundamentally, that people are assholes? I mean, Google is good, but...

As it turns out, "Don't be evil" is qualitatively different from "Be good".

Should really function from the perspective that his move by AT&T and Verizon is about something else entirely (money) and that the Nazi/Extremists are convenient talking points.

Gremlin wrote:

As it turns out, "Don't be evil" is qualitatively different from "Be good".

"Don't be evil" is also fundamentally opposed to "fiduciary responsibility."

The three reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

This is an interesting take on the YouTube LetsPlayers.

I think it lets them off the hook a bit more than is warranted, since having a manager only goes so far in avoiding spouting off about your white supremacist views. And it certainly doesn't apply to those who are intentionally posting hate-videos. But still.

It also describes why I'm never going to do regular video blogging.

Not that I saw this, but it reminds me of the adage never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference (paraphrased).

Know your enemy and stop giving them ammunition.

“They don't understand new media,” Cernovich wrote Sunday evening. “Also they all think I'm a moron. It's perfect microcosm of the election and media's view on Trump.”

I asked him to elaborate.

“They don't understand me and didn't even try.”

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuup

I only have three letters for that guy: E, G, O

BadKen wrote:

I only have three letters for that guy: E, G, O

I'd have stopped with two.

F. O.

NathanialG wrote:

Enjoy this delicious schadenfreude :

The death of internet privacy is tearing Reddit’s The_Donald page apart

I've been wondering when they'd realize that the Republicans ran on a platform that explicitly declared pornography a "public health crisis" and that Trump explicitly called for shutting down parts of the internet.

NathanialG wrote:

Enjoy this delicious schadenfreude :

The death of internet privacy is tearing Reddit’s The_Donald page apart

The feeling of being woke, cherish it, The_Donald, nothing will ever be the same.

Yeah, progress.

"Sometimes the wheel turns slowly, but it turns."

Mic: 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' conspiracy theories show Gamergate is as big of a problem as ever

There was no shortage of outcry on the subreddit /r/KotakuInAction when Mass Effect: Andromeda first launched. The latest space opera RPG from BioWare quickly became a Venus flytrap for all sorts of misogynist right-wing conspiracies — mostly centering on the belief that the game was designed to force a liberal political agenda on players.

The subreddit's accusations of reverse racism and "agenda pushing" have little if any factual support — but that's not the point. Scapegoating Mass Effect and its developers is a convenient tactic trolls can use to openly harass minorities in gaming while claiming they're the ones being persecuted. What's more, it demonstrates that Gamergate, the three-year-old harassment campaign disguised as a plea for "ethics in journalism," is still going strong several years after it first emerged from the internet's darker corners.

I'd say that the gamergate problem has metastasized; it's not as visible, but the ideas they promigulate have filtered into the general gamer consciousness.

Sophie Labelle, the creator of Assigned Male, was doxxed, her work destroyed by /pol and neo-nazis for the horrible crime of being trans on the internet and making a webcomic.

Yeah, I saw that happening on facebook and decided the least I could do was support her patreon. (Which is here, fyi, in case anyone is interested)

pyxistyx wrote:

Yeah, I saw that happening on facebook and decided the least I could do was support her patreon. (Which is here, fyi, in case anyone is interested)

Yeah, saw it in action too and ended up doing the same.

As to the Andromeda piece.

IMAGE(https://images.mic.com/nqirstny7m7vepihjgaqpevquehqgrpxlchm64h5clsszanyrk8mtelrbwywzjyv.jpg)

So... you bought the game? Like... three years on and these morons STILL don't understand how this works.