And the trolls shall inherit the Web
Thomas Hobbes once described pre-social life as "nasty, brutish, and short." He couldn't have described Web commentary more aptly.
Hence, while Nick Carr has pondered whether Google is making us stupid, I wonder instead if the question should be, "Is the Web making us rude?"
I took a position on Twitter's policy change related to @Replies on Wednesday (briefly summarized, "People seem far more interested in complaining about the changes than in paying for the service"), and have been roundly excoriated since. Some have questioned my IQ, while others were content to lob ad hominem attacks, and one summed up the ire of many others by calling my argument "pretty damn silly."
My own experience is mild in comparison to those of others like Kathy Sierra which gave rise to calls for a blogging code of conduct.
What is it about the Web that allows, or perhaps encourages, such strong reactions to such relatively unimportant issues? In the U.S. we have freedom of speech, but should we use this freedom so irresponsibly?
Part of the problem is anonymity. I've written before that "On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog...Or that you're a jerk." People say things under the guise of the Web's immediacy and anonymity that I'm convinced they'd think better of saying in person. I know I have.
But part of the problem is that the Web lowers the barrier to "fame," and apparently it's OK to abuse the famous. This past season in the English Premiership a debate has waxed and waned as to whether fans have the right to mercilessly boo the players well beyond the pale of good taste. "I pay for a ticket, therefore I have a right to be brutal to the players" goes the thinking.
I find this logic flawed, but I can at least understand it. It's a case of populism wanting to register its displeasure with overpaid and underperforming football (soccer) stars.
On the Web, however, what passes for "fame" usually isn't. Would you consider me famous? I certainly wouldn't. My kids still get excited when they see my picture on my own computer...in my iPhoto application...displaying pictures I took with my own camera. Me, famous? Not even close. Not even close to close.
Never has the bar to fame been so low.
Nor have the stakes been so paltry. Henry Kissinger is often credited with the statement: "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." The same is true of much of the debate that swirls around technology.
Let's be clear: no one's salvation is at stake in Twitter's business model, nor its @Replies policy. Open source offers a highly efficient way to produce and distribute software, but the world would hardly end if all software were proprietary. And while Google and Microsoft both seek to dominate the Web, our lives won't change dramatically if one of them succeeds for a few years, and a few years of dominance is about all the leeway a free market and disruptive technology allows. (Did Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop really affect your quality of life that much?)
It's technology, and a few of us like to write about it. But let's not become trolls over the relatively small stakes involved.
Yes, I know that technology does matter. My thesis adviser at Stanford Law School was Larry Lessig, after all, so I'm familiar with the importance of "West Coast Code."
But let's engage in the debate in polite fashion. This isn't a call for a group hug and subdued, milquetoast debate. It's instead a request for civil discourse. The Web should augment our ability to talk openly about a wide array of issues, but instead it too often encourages negative behavior that stifles quality discussion. We can do better.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
That's a poor example. I would argue that yes, having to work daily with a sub-standard product does affect one's quality of life. :-)
Is this a good thing or bad? I don't know, to be honest. When your name is on the header of the page, that gives you an automatic credibility that most trolls would be unable to attain. As you have the power to then edit / remove comments and replies, it casts some doubt towards objectivity. Are you really interested in the topic at hand, or are you just posting because more hits means more money? How many journalists do this as well? In the end, it is the goal of every news agency to generate views for their advertisers.
I suppose my only real point is that the only real difference between trolls and bloggers is that the bloggers get paid and have better grammar.
Oh, wait...
Consider this an example.
I'm getting a bit annoyed @ your personal attacks @ me! (especially considering its on this article)
My attacks - in fact since may 6th when I realized that it is pointless to argue with individuals on cnet - has been solely directed towards Apple! (which is no different from an Apple fan attacking Windows)
So your ridiculous anger toward me due to you not being able handle Apple getting attacked is frankly quite sad.
(furthermore, for the last time I'm mentioning this to you. I do not consider Windows to be the greatest thing under the sun, but as compared to apple I consider it to be better)
This becomes more prominent with Twitter because of the breakdown of distinctions between "talking to" and "talking about". So, for instance, if I'm Tweeting "about" you, I'll use @mjasay so that people know who I'm actually talking about. This is the same syntax I would use if I was Tweeting "to" you. But both messages come "to" you in the same form. If you were a traditional journalist, you can be 100% certain that there would be hundreds of people calling you an idiot everyday - you just wouldn't hear it.
its also the final form of comedy
Is that "final form" as in "last gasp prior to the death of. . . ?"
Facebook strives at having authentic profiles and most Facebook users do not consider their profiles to be disposable. Thus, there is very little spam at Facebook (the place is self-policed). When someone comments using their Facebook persona, it really is them answering. They are accountable for their words.
I believe there is overlap between web anonymity and online rudeness, but certainly there are people who prefer anonymity who aren't total jerks.
Online communities (especially ones with a large number of anonymous participants) scale poorly, and despite additional moderation effort, there's a point of no return when most bboards just degrade. The best contributors are the *first* to leave; in every online community I've ever participated in, the forum moderation team made basically no effort to retain their most prized citizens. None, nada, zippo.
Most of these forum moderators were volunteers and I can only imagine the drudgery of basically playing a cop or babysitter for no pay.
So like many, I tend to be an Internet nomad and wander from one online community to another.
However, I agree that some people go too far. Their first reaction is name calling, personal attacks and other things like questioning ones IQ. Lately it's been young people calling other people morons because their older.
Having grown up with computers and seeing this problem start way back in the days of BBSs with flame wars between users, it's hard to say if it's gotten worse or better. I can say that when I ran a BBS for about 6 years, I found the worst offenders were teenagers. I believe they O.D. on freedom, and without anyone around to rein them in they go for it all the way.
Now that these same people have access to comments for various news and blog sites on the internet, their behavior is just noticed more than it used to be. Also, this allows them to flame at more legitimate people writing actual articles, not just other users on a bulletin board.
People used to write an angry letter, let it sit for a day and then edit it when they're not angry anymore. Now, you have this fast and easy reply or comment feature. I believe many people say things they regret later. I know I've done this a couple of times, and I have actually come back onto the site and apologized for my comments once or twice.
If you are going to incist on a code of conduct for people responding to articles are you going to incist on a code of conduct for the people writting news articles weather they be on the web or on CNN etc.
If you would like to see examples of the emotional writting take a look at some of the CNN articles and the same news article written on the BBC site.
News should be dry and to the point however the US has gotten use to a Jerry Springer type of news cast that pulls on peoples emotions rather than the facts.
The web doesn't make them rude. It enables them to be rude. The culture and fear makes them rude. The West Coast Culture is a milder version of the New York culture where rudeness passes for savoir faire.
Larry believes stuff like that. For the legal culture, it makes him seem silly and in Silly Valley, and the Coast Culture, it means he fits fight in. Some people do believe in the architecture-as-law idea but most I believe are beyond that now, the shininess having worn off the increasingly trivial applications such as Twitter. Despite all written and said, the coming decade will see an increasing number of legal restrictions on those applications now that the very legal community Larry extols has gotten the range on the arguments and learned to profit by the legal actions meant to control those applications. Despite what he thinks, a Stop sign is a symbol of law, not the law and failing to return a link for a link is bad manners, not a felony.
As for rudeness, anyone playing the game the way the coast believes it is successful to play it have much more than rudeness to be worried about. There is an old unfailing rule of business that says 'anyone who is rude to the waitress should not be a business partner' and that rule never fails. Since we are what we practice, rudeness on the web spills over into rudeness elsewhere and those that practice it are self-eliminating. The most successful businessman in America, Warren Buffet, defined success as having those one wishes to care about oneself caring.
No one likes insincerity but they prefer it to undisciplined anxiety in the form of rudeness. Rudeness is a weak player's expression of desperation.
But, in the end, if we want greater civility, the only one we can possibly control is the one we see each morning in the mirror. Anything else is tilting at windmills.
I suppose it's common to think that our cultural situation is unique and that somehow we live in a era of degraded morals, ethics, and standards. I know Plato complained of it in Book 4 of The Republic. Truth is that we, as species, have pretty much always been like this we just have different vehicles for it now.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4b0a16ff71/casey-wilson-reads-internet-comments
"We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us."
- by pentest May 16, 2009 9:47 AM PDT
- How is it irresponsible to call you out for your frequent, pointless, and outright incorrect posts?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(31 Comments)If you don't like the criticism, improve your thought process.