Troll Feeding

It's an old motto of internet intercourse: 'Do not feed the troll'. By old, I mean net old, in other words cast your minds back to the era of dial-up and 'waiting for page to load' warnings; by troll I refer to that foul breed of human that lurks on message boards, discussion groups and comment areas. The idea behind not feeding or not responding was  that trolls are attention seeking, malcontents who post deliberately provocative and contrarian comments to incite arguments and enjoy disputing ad infinitum.

Don't engage, then the troll will go away and find some other harmless public discussion area to spoil. If we all followed that sensible advice, then many trolls might have reverted to other asocial activities, like exposing themselves in the park  or frotting which hopefully leads to prison and/or psychiatric care.

Unfortunately newspapers thought that a way to stay relevant and current was to open up their web pages to comments from their readers. Much like the cool teacher at school, this is an exercise is self-delusion. Those pupils did not respect you, they flicked the V when your back was turned and spat in your tea when you weren't looking. We never dared do that with the disciplinarians.

So these aging newspapers, with their dwindling circulations think that comment pages keep them fresh and relevant. Suddenly the troll whose mind garbage was dumped only a humble special interest message board which a readership of hundreds, could spew their drivel on a website viewed by millions. Those trendy teachers fed the trolls, they poured water on The Gremlins and look what monsters emerged.

Go now to the web version of the following newspapers: The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail or the current affairs magazines The Spectator, The News Statesman. You will find the comment sections underneath certain articles are infested with trolls; so badly that the columnists often complain about what is written underneath their copy, desperately trying to disassociate themselves from the misanthropic poison that lurks below.

Trollus Fuckwitticus

The political persuasion of the majority of the trolls is easy to deduce, as they cluster, like rotten fruit under particular headlines: Israel, banking, immigration, EU, crime etc. Spend even a short while in the lower reaches of these online mental wards and you'll find misogyny, homophobia, violent fantasies of retribution against criminals, all wrapped in a general dislike of anyone who isn't white, male and English speaking. To top it all, you'll find many trolls aren't even UK based as there are many posts from Steves of Gibraltar ranting on about why they left Britain, typically so they could avoid all those foreigners...

In the freaks gallery of trolls, the US breed stands out as being particularly vile, using Confederate flags or blood splatters as their avatars, with names such as Truthseeker, Patriot and other puerile bilge. Their speciality is Good Ole Boy invectives against 'libruls' and 'libtards'. See, bloody foreign racists coming over onto our comment is free sections, taking webspace from traditional English racists.

News sites should insist on is real names and genuine photos, like the troll hunter from the excellent Norwegian film, shine a light on these creatures and they will turn to stone. Free speech does not mean you have to give the oxygen of publicity to extremists and freaks who otherwise would be reduced to handing out badly photocopied leaflets in the streets.

Send them back to their troll caves.

Kony 2012

By the time I type this, 80 million people and counting will have watched the Kony 2012 video; its director Jason Russell has been arrested for public drunkeness and public masturbation on Pacific Beach San Diego. Sadly the only video of the incident is a fifteen second clip of a naked man (presumably Russell) assaulting a shrub. According to a spokesperson, Jason Russell was emotionally exhausted and dehydrated, hence the breakdown. So do make sure to drink plenty of water when stressed or you'll end up attacking ornamental plants and wanking on the seafront.

I started watching Kony 2012, then stopped after a few minutes because like all net junkies I have the attention span of an ADHD goldfish on crack. There was no way I could spend 30 precious minutes watching a worthy film when there were so many videos of cute baby sloths and Russian brides losing their dresses to view in the same time frame. Those last sentences contained several exaggerations and falsehoods, much like the film itself.

After only five minutes of Russell's film, I clicked off. It was pure propaganda, apparently to highlight a human tragedy, but propaganda nonetheless. Opposing Joseph Kony's child soldiers in Uganda is surely a given, like the UK group, Mothers Against Murder, you should assume we are on your side.  It's hard to think many mums would support a pro-homicide policy, unless it included people who play music through their mobiles on public transport.

Maybe you can change the world for the better by sharing a video, maybe solving the world's problems is possible through social media, maybe if we all send enough tweets then all the bad things in the world will end. Remember all those email petitions to save the rainforest, a much needed campaign with the one tiny flaw that no matter how many people signed up, whoever you send it to can always just hit delete.

Invisible Children, the organisation behind Kony 2012, could have good intentions, but as they say, that's how the road to hell is paved. I've become more skeptical about the ability of best intentions to produce positive results; Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind as ghastly examples of the mismatch of aims and outcomes. Turns out the West is good at blowing things up, drone strikes and shooting people; nation building is a lot harder, especially when the peoples and nations in question hate you, mostly because you keep blowing up their homes and killing their relatives.

If this episode proves anything, it's that our first responsibility is to get the facts straight, before sending on a video link. And in case this all seems very uncharitable, watch this piece by Charlie Brooker to put you straight.

A bit of background on that video