Trolling is Wrong

Again, I am ambivalent about trolling; I will nonetheless argue CON to the best of my capacity. RebuttalPRO has five contentions, which I will label [C1-C5]. I will deconstruct these in order. [C1] - Trolls tend to target vulnerable users and sites. I will bluntly ask what makes this "wrong"? What ethical dilemma or issue of undesirability makes this point "impermissible"? PRO main contention here is the loss of trust as a consequence of trolling, but if these groups were truly vulnerable already, then more than likely that trust was never there to begin with. Thus, the troll is not "adding" an undesirable element. .. rather the troll is asserting the status quo upon the situation. To make the status quo "impermissible" is absurd. A proper trust-building exercise would be to move such forums OUT of the internet entirely, because face-to-face contact is one of the best ways to build trust among participants. That the forum is on the internet already creates structural deficiencies unconducive to building trust. . http://content.time.com...Once this face-to-face trust is established and the participants are known, then for ease of communication, further contact can be established on the internet. But, to conduct communication online as a first step is inviting trouble wholly irrelevant to trolling, especially if the group is considered vulnerable in some way or another. Trust in such a vulnerable group can easily be broken without the troll even being there. .. it would be like conducting open-heart surgery in your friend's garage. The problem here lies in deficiencies with how the gathering was organized in the first place, and not whether or not a troll "targets" such groups. [C2] - Trolling has negative psychological impacts, especially when it becomes a form of cyber abuse. PRO begins by stating that "Trolls "typically hide behind the mask of anonymity that the Internet provides by using fictitious screen names," but let's face it. .. nearly EVERYONE uses fictitious screen names on the internet. Such a fictitious "avatar" is appropriate because online interaction is NOT face-to-face; because outside of this one avatar, we are indeed for all intents and purposes anonymous on the internet. There is no "mask" here. .. this is a structural characteristic of all internet communication. PRO also mentions that "". .. text or photographs can be communicated to a large audience in a short time. "" IMHO this would be akin to someone going to complete strangers and flashing them their driver's license, SSN, and credit card numbers. Why would you do this? Sure, it leads to more intimacy, but shouldn't one be careful in choosing who one trusts? Why would you trust people who for all intents and purposes are virtually anonymous? The internet is not a venue that lends to the same level of interaction and "warming-up" to people compared to face-to-face communication. The user should be aware of this in order to avoid abuse. An example of this awareness would be if a female walks home from a bar inebriated. Does she walk through dark alleys with a history of zero police protection, or does she call a friend to come pick her up? I would say that the female would show prudence in choosing the latter; such prudence would avoid compromising situations, an online version of such a compromising situation being the unauthorized sharing of personal information, i. e. "text or photographs". I will also note that trolling is NOT the same as "cyber-abuse", which I would imagine is actual criminal conduct on the internet. Trolling as defined in round #1 is merely "deliberately uses harassing or insulting language or. .. inflammatory language with no other purpose but to sew derision and to upset people. .. " i. e. , it is neither criminal nor innately harmful. PRO has veered from the resolution by talking about abusive situations involving compromise of sensitive information. [C3] - Trolling can have impacts outside of online forums where it occurs. I do not have access to the article from which PRO has cited for this point unless I want to pay $37 for access, therefore I cannot ascertain the validity of the point. I do not know the nature of this "abusive remark", nor can I ascertain the circumstances that led to the expulsion of the student. I don't even know if the incident in question actually involved PRO's definition of trolling. Regardless, common advice is that the best way to deal with a troll is to ignore it. I ignore about 99% of badger's comments on this website, and I consider myself to be the better for it. I do my best to identify and ignore trolls the moment I get wind of the presence of one, and may even publicly notify others in the forum of the troll. By ignoring the troll, most if not all of the alleged negative side effects are neutralized before they even become a problem. Many times, a troll's insulting behavior becomes comical, and may actually create positive externalities, as long as one is aware of the troll. IMHO badger is an excellent case of such a troll (no offense intended). [C4] - There are real examples of disruptive trolling on the internet, including several on DDO. Exactly what constitutes a "disruption"? Could the disruption itself actually be constructive? The debates on this website are all about creative destruction, about two sides with diametrically opposing views demolishing the arguments on the other side until, after the smoke clears, we are left with (hopefully) a clear victor. Debates such as these are the definition of "disruption" as they fully aim to "disrupt" the opposing viewpoint in the goal of annihilating the validity of that viewpoint. This "disruption" is viewed as constructive and positive activity. If someone takes an antagonistic viewpoint for the point of disrupting the integrity of a commonly held notion (for example, disputing that "marriage is between a man and a woman"), should such a person be labeled a troll and hence "undesirable" or "impermissible"? I challenge PRO to give a satisfactory answer to such a situation. [C5] - Other harms of trolling. PRO: "A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. "I will simply ask, what good is the community if it cannot discern what advice is bad? Wouldn't the troll actually be doing such a community a service by repeatedly advocating a devil's advocate stance in the aim of "disruption"? If this "disruption" was successful, would it not point to a structural vulnerability in the arguments or what not of the community? Wouldn't this be the first step in problem-solving -- identifying the problem, which the troll has laid bare for the community? PRO: ". .. many honestly na"ve [sic] questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. .. "Honestly naive questions will be rejected anyway as, well, naive. This occurs all the time, with varying levels of hostility dependent upon the disposition of the respondent. This point is irrelevant to trolling. PRO: "". .. effects included the disruption of discussion and waste of bandwidth for a year. ""I have no idea to what PRO is referring to here. ConclusionThe matter at hand is whether or not trolling ought to be permissible. PRO confuses the matter at hand by injecting clearly impermissible situations that are irrelevant to trolling, and then hoping through guilt-by-association to incriminate trolls in the process. Given the round #1 definition of a troll, "a person who deliberately uses harassing or insulting language or who uses inflammatory language with no other purpose but to sew derision and to upset people," there is no relevant link between illegal, harmful, or abusive activity and trolling. I await PRO's response.