The issue of trolling is a really complicated one that I struggle to decide where I even stand on. In my relatively short lifetime I believe that our country has become hypersensitive in a lot of ways. Saying just about anything can offend people and they will quickly send the lynch mob after you. I have said things in the past that have accidentally offended people or I just didn’t think out and have caused harm. It is not so much me being a bad person as some ignorance and some stupidity. Therefore I can understand the side which states that people should just toughen up and if you can’t handle a troll, don’t go on that area of the internet.
However, in other ways I can see how trolling is akin to bullying and should be stopped. The biggest challenge with trolling is where to draw the line. The gamergate articles shocked me and were very worrisome. That people would maliciously attack someone for pointing out what really is a flaw in gaming is both scary and sad. However, there is a difference from that and saying something that might not be the nicest to others, but is funny or shows a point. In general I view any trolling that is malicious and is intended to cause harm as unacceptable, but any that is done through ignorance and is not meant to hurt others in any way as okay.
Youtube comments are a scary place to be. The amount of swear words, insults, homophobic, sexist, and racist remarks are almost unbelievable. I think some of the worst parts of society are shown in Youtube comments. However, I don’t think that Youtube should have to spend money to monitor those comments. Unless a troll is directly attacking someone or a group of people, I think that the company doesn’t have to worry too much about it.
The trolls that really scare me are the ones that consistently choose to attack a single person or group and do so in ways that encourage self harm or violence. I think that having real names online will help to curb this sort of trolling as well as protect people.
I know that my stance is kind of in the middle and not hard for allowing people to say anything they want or for protecting people, but that is what I think is best. Some of the best advice I ever received from my mom was only write things on the internet that you wouldn’t mind your grandma seeing. I think if companies should at least try to make it difficult for trolls to target one individual and should protect privacy when they can as well as have users real names displayed if that will help to curb trolls. Similar to the privacy discussion my belief on anonymity is that I have nothing to hide and as long as I am somewhat protected, I don’t care who knows who I am and what I have said. I think this is an important stop-gap measure and while by no means perfect or flaw proof, I think it can help to protect people from bullies and trolls that want to do harm online.
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