Trolls Archives - Bob on Books

Bubbles by John Everett Millais

Henry Kissinger is reputed to have said “Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”

I’m impressed that this is true not only in the world of academia but within some of the church and ministry circles in which I work. One of the dubious results of getting onto Twitter is to learn of some of the kerfuffles that arise with nationally known figures and ministries. There is one that broke this week, for example in which one blogger accused another, who works at a fairly conservative institution, of taking a position contrary to one this person actually holds, because this person participated in a dialogue with those holding a different position. It actually became a trending topic on Twitter!

You will notice that I have not named names. I really do not want to fuel this silliness, nor engage in what I would consider gossip, which really is a sin. What I want to call attention to is the “bubble” people engaging in these kinds of kerfuffles operate in.

My son, who is a pretty thoughtful Christian and an active blogger helped me see this last night. I was mentioning some of this stuff and he gave me this frown, and basically said, “you know dad, most of us really aren’t interested in this stuff.” Thanks be to God for a son who keeps me grounded in reality!

It reminded me that most people are really concerned about making ends meet, caring for aging parents or sick children, and more concerned about what kind of country, and what kind of world their children will inherit than in the latest intramural Twitter and blog war, particularly if it is between supposedly religious people!

What is also disturbing is that the individual attacked is actually trying to do something desperately needed in today’s climate — to walk in the tension of living by conviction and engaging in civil discourse without compromise rather than culture wars, with those who differ.

I suspect that the attacker might fall in the category of what is known in the social media world as a “troll”. And it strikes me as sad that such people live in a bubble of incredibly small stakes, mostly those of getting lots of notice, of stirring up controversy and gaining views.

Might it make more sense to get out of this blog and Twitterverse bubble and take food to a family dealing with someone sick, take time to listen to a friend who has just lost her job, or join a local prison ministry or even a choir making beautiful music.

It’s really easy to make one’s home in one or another social media bubble. If, like the academics, we become vicious in those bubbles, it is real and not virtual people we hurt. And the One who bursts all bubbles will call us to account one day for every hurtful word.

In the last two days, I’ve observed three incidents of page administrators or blog owners who have needed to clarify what are appropriate comments or posts on their pages. It is interesting that two of them brought up the question of censorship. Apparently, this accusation was hurled at them by individuals whose posts were taken down. In one instance, the post was unrelated to the stated purpose of the blog and to the material in the particular post. This is an instance of “hi-jacking”, that is using someone’s site to promote an agenda other than the site owner’s or administrator’s. In another instance, it was because of the offensive language and personal attacks used by a person posting on the site.

The Real Miss Manners: “Judith Martin, Miami Bookfair International, 1989” by MDCarchives – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The truth is that this would fall under some usages of the word censorship. Broadcast media will “bleep” profanity. Magazines will simply refuse to print letters or other content submitted to them that falls outside their editorial purposes. One might argue that there is an appropriate form of censorship that says no particular media outlet must publish or broadcast whatever a person wants to say using their free speech rights. I would argue that this extends to “new media” like blogs, Facebook pages and other interactive social media. Part of the “freedom of the press” of these outlets is to determine what they will and won’t publish. And those whose ideas are not accepted on certain blogs or pages are free to establish their own pages where they can freely express their ideas, and in turn determine what things fall outside the purpose of those pages.

Invidious censorship is different. It is the effort of an outside body, whether a group of citizens or a government agency that seeks to prevent the publication or suppress the expression of ideas considered objectionable. The American Library Association (as quoted on this PBS site) puts it well:

What Is Censorship? Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons — individuals, groups or government officials — find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, “Don’t let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it!” Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.

For the ALA, technically censorship means the “The Removal of material from open access by government authority.” The ALA also distinguishes various levels of incidents in respect to materials in a library which may or may not lead to censorship: Inquiry, Expression of Concern, Complaint, Attack, and Censorship.

What the page admins and blog owners I mentioned above were dealing with is simply bad manners. It is bad manners to “hi-jack” conversations to promote one’s own agenda. It is bad manners to engage in personal attacks. It is bad manners to use profanity or coarse language in mixed company, which is what the internet is. Most of the time, this behavior is simply the result of individuals known around the ‘net as “trolls”. But one of their tactics is to hurl the accusation of “censorship” as a cover for their own bad manners and inappropriate behavior. Blog owners and page administrators should have no qualms about removing content like this. Sadly, I’ve seen some groups that run amuck because absentee administrators refuse to step in.

So far, I’ve personally experienced relatively few instances of this behavior. Here are my own (still evolving) guidelines for dealing with it:

1. I won’t tolerate profanity or ad hominem attacks, either upon myself or others. Let’s disagree without demonizing or using degrading language!

2. I also won’t tolerate posting comments unrelated to a post, particularly self-promoting or commercial material, but also anything that “hi-jacks” the conversation.

3. I try not to include spoilers in my review of fiction. If you include spoilers in your comments, I will take them down. I still like you, but I don’t want to spoil the end for others.

4. When in doubt, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and try to respond graciously. If you are a real person (and not a commercial entity or a “bot”) and have taken the time to read what I write, I appreciate that and hope we can have a thoughtful conversation.

On my “About” page, I write, “We live in an amazingly diverse mosaic of peoples and ideas which can either be the source of endless conflict or the opportunity for rich engagement with one another across our differences in pursuing together goodness, truth, and beauty in our world. My hope is that this blog will contribute to the latter.” I hope you will hold me accountable to that standard in all I write on this blog, even as I hold others to this standard in their comments.

If you blog, or administer any pages, how do you approach “off topic” or otherwise inappropriate comments?