Online abuse

[1nvest]

Suppression of free-speech is never good. If you bow to what some find to be offensive then all-told they'll be little/no freedom remaining. Too much posturing for snowflakes

a term used to describe an overly sensitive person who thinks the world revolves around them

The Online Harms Bill isn't required. If individuals are too sensitive to criticism then THEY should simply refrain from using it - be considered of a child's mental age/sensitivity. From what I've seen of censorship its very subjective - specific to what those setting the filters opine to be acceptable or not.

[mc2fool]

But don't the social media companies already hold enough info to identify the average facebook poster who took no particular identity-avoiding action when signing up?

Uh? Not all social media companies are Facebook!

Yeah, sure, if you've signed up to whatever site using your real name (and it isn't John Smith), and you've posted the town where you live, where you went to university and put up photos of what you did on your 21st, etc, etc -- like a lot of people seem to do -- then it's easy. Are those the average trolls?

Now, as this is also a form of social media, what info does TLF have to identify Mike4?

My real ID is widely known by many posters on here.

So are you saying these offending posts being complained about in the BBC News are on trivial and peripheral sites like TLF?

No, not at all, but what other posters know about you is besides the point. I'm sure some of the FB/Instas/Twits/etc d*ckheads know some other FB/Instas/Twits/etc d*ckheads but that doesn't mean that FB/Instas/Twits/etc knows who they are.

It is trivially easy for amateur d*ckheads to sign up and use FB/Instas/Twits/etc in a real-world untraceable way, and that's what the credit/debit card check idea would counter, as it's a pretty huge step to go from just using a false online name and an anonymous IP proxy (both of which are legal) to instead having to obtain (£££) and use fake credit/debit card details, which would have to go with a fake home address, not to mention a burner phone for receiving 2FA message, all of which is illegal.

It won't stop the professional trolling houses of course, but I think the vast majority of the amateur d*ckheads would find that just too big a step too far...

[UncleEbenezer]

Racist abuse is pointless and stupid.

Weaponisation of racist abuse may be neither: it appears to serve an Agenda. Listening to soundbites from politicians on the news, there are enemies of free speech jumping on a nice convenient bandwagon.

It occurs to me there's a losing effect here. Contrast the serious incident of cheating, when someone attacked the Danish goalkeeper with a laser at a crucial moment. It briefly generated headlines, but they quickly faded. Apparently the English FA has been slapped on the wrist about that and other abuse by England fans - but surely if the FA was indeed complicit in that cheating, they should have been instantly disqualified! And if they were entirely innocent, the match should at the very least have been halted while security staff did their job, so that goal wouldn't have happened.

But that has been allowed to pass. No campaigners jumping on that bandwagon. Indeed, no bandwagon. How different it might have been if the incident and outcome were reversed! And indeed, how different the reaction was to Bad Things happening when England lost!

[88V8]

....that's what the credit/debit card check idea would counter...

That would seem an excellent and straightforward solution.

As to FB etc hiring more moderators, one would have to be pretty thick-skinned to be a mod. After all , it's not just the relatively trivial issues of 'hate speech' but child porn etc etc. Not so easy to find people of the right calibre who will stick at what must be a soul-destroying job.
And with human mods, the moderation inevitably becomes uneven.
The algorithms do, reportedly, throw up silly results but perhaps can ultimately achieve a greater level of consistency.

The bottom line for me... no one has to use Twitter, FB, Instagram. If one doesn't like the environment, just don't. I don't.

I caught part of a radio comment about all this yesterday, that many MPs are no longer bothering to join. And Mihir Bose this morning, complaining that many of the abusive posters don't even read the post they're supposedly replying to, they just want to spout off.
All transmit, no receive.

On the positive side, if there is one, anonymity provides a window on what elements really think, as distinct from what the Guardian or the Mail might want us all to think.

V8

[Lanark]

There is definitely an authoritarian angle to all this: "everyone should be identifiable online" they will even drag out the old Joseph Goebbels line "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"

I don't think politicians really care about abusive trolls on Twitter, but they positively salivate at the prospect of being able to suppress dissenting opinions across the internet.

My worry is not what regulations might come down the pipe affecting Facebook and Twitter (they have deep pockets) but what any new regulations might mean for smaller websites like this one.

[UncleEbenezer]

I caught part of a radio comment about all this yesterday, that many MPs are no longer bothering to join. And Mihir Bose this morning, complaining that many of the abusive posters don't even read the post they're supposedly replying to, they just want to spout off.
All transmit, no receive.
V8

Who says those are human at all? There are bots that will trigger on key words or phrases, perhaps also deeper analysis, and post. The most usual form is advertising: a post includes a link to the bot's master's site. But it may also be in support of a Cause, and indeed one Cause much seen is simply to generate noise that gets into the datasets used to train algorithms, thus degrading the performance of such algorithms.

Such posts are occasionally seen on Lemonfool. The mods usually remove them, but occasionally they're allowed to stand: e.g. here - where you can see it triggers real Fools into making the effort to parse it as something that might be meaningful and relevant.

Talking of which, I believe the vast majority of "followers" of my blog, and indeed of every social media account out there up to and including the likes of POTUS, are bots.

My website's contact form gets a few - maybe 100-a-day ballpark - that don't even make the effort to appear human. Just random text. For example (these are all entire messages):

so expensive material

only a few survived.

Of his works, he is especially famous

from lat. manus - "hand" and scribo - "I write") <>]

[XFool]

...?????

[servodude]

...?????

Guys I think this one's a bot

[XFool]

...Or is UncleEbeneezer the bot?

[UncleEbenezer]

...Or is UncleEbeneezer the bot?

What do the SF authors and other pundits tell us of the bot who is your intellectual superior?

[XFool]

...Or is UncleEbeneezer the bot?

What do the SF authors and other pundits tell us of the bot who is your intellectual superior?

Their posts might make sense?

[stevensfo]

"we are improving the algorithm to crack down on this"..

and the algorithm is rubbish. This year alone Ive had bans - mostly overturned - for the sue of the words for

* faggots wrt my dinner
* "hey ho" as in "it is what it is" etc
* trying sell alcohol becasue i posted a receipe with alcohol in it - on a group that only i am in (I use it as a sort of reference library)

there have beena couple of other times that made no sense whatsoever!

I think that I once posted how I'd received a warning from FB for some kind of hate crime over a comment about the UK, when it was just the inability of FB to recognise that I was from the UK and we have a dry sense of humour. Orwell's '1984' anyone?

Re. faggots, do they still exist? I used to get them as a kid and they were tasty. Then in c.1983, I had a student holiday job in a meat factory where faggots were on the list, and it put me off them for good. They were made with all the disgusting left-overs and a lot of flavouring.

Still quite yummy though. To be honest, probably healthier than those bleedin' pot noodle things!


Steve

[SteMiS]

Re. faggots, do they still exist? I used to get them as a kid and they were tasty. Then in c.1983, I had a student holiday job in a meat factory where faggots were on the list, and it put me off them for good. They were made with all the disgusting left-overs and a lot of flavouring.

My grandad was a butcher and he always advised against eating faggots

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/Pro ... ns-4s-439g

Made by Mr Brain !! They can't even be bothered to disguise it, lol

[XFool]

"we are improving the algorithm to crack down on this"..

and the algorithm is rubbish. This year alone Ive had bans - mostly overturned - for the sue of the words for

* faggots wrt my dinner
* "hey ho" as in "it is what it is" etc
* trying sell alcohol becasue i posted a receipe with alcohol in it - on a group that only i am in (I use it as a sort of reference library)

You, or rather Facebook, have completely lost me over "hey ho". Any idea?

[Clitheroekid]

You, or rather Facebook, have completely lost me over "hey ho". Any idea?

Presumably because ‘ho’ in certain circles is an abbreviation of ‘whore’ - you’ve evidently led a sheltered life!

[XFool]

You, or rather Facebook, have completely lost me over "hey ho". Any idea?

Presumably because ‘ho’ in certain circles is an abbreviation of ‘whore’ - you’ve evidently led a sheltered life!

Indeed. I thought it was something you did on an allotment...

[didds]

there have beena couple of other times that made no sense whatsoever!

ah yes... the alst one was for being "too fast".

That's news to everybody that has ever known me. i have absolutely no idea what that even means in the context of FB.

[didds]

Re. faggots, do they still exist? I used to get them as a kid and they were tasty. Then in c.1983, I had a student holiday job in a meat factory where faggots were on the list, and it put me off them for good. They were made with all the disgusting left-overs and a lot of flavouring.

Still quite yummy though. To be honest, probably healthier than those bleedin' pot noodle things!


Steve

most certainly. i only ever buy faggots from buitchers these days - no longer barins from the freezer section etc.

Thats not to say butchers faggots are not made form all the disgusting left overs of course

didds

[tjh290633]

Re. faggots, do they still exist? I used to get them as a kid and they were tasty. Then in c.1983, I had a student holiday job in a meat factory where faggots were on the list, and it put me off them for good. They were made with all the disgusting left-overs and a lot of flavouring.

Still quite yummy though. To be honest, probably healthier than those bleedin' pot noodle things!


Steve

Back in the 1990s I used to stay in the Brierley Hill area, and the Travelodge had no catering on site. Over the road was Banks's Blue Brick Tap House where one could obtain Mrs Baggot's Faggots, chips and Peas for about £2.95 as I recall. Very tasty and went well with a pint of Banks's for about £1.20. The alternative was somewhere in or around the Merry Hill Centre. For breakfast that meant Macdonald's and an egg McMuffin or the Big Breakfast.

TJH

[ursaminortaur]

...Or is UncleEbeneezer the bot?

What do the SF authors and other pundits tell us of the bot who is your intellectual superior?

Their posts might make sense?

Might be some sort of code. The internet version of messages on numbers stations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station

Are the comments on the contact form visible ? Or is it a secret communication to a colleague of yours who has access to them ? Maybe a Russian spy