The troll as a sign of the times

[franceslievens]

Yesterday I got completely worked up because I fundamentally disagreed with one of my friends on Facebook. He had been arguing on some rightwing religious figure's Facebook page. The religious person got tired of the argument, deleted part of my friend's comments and banned him from his page.
My friend moved to his own Facebook page to tell the world of the great injustice that was done unto him. "Ah well, don't mind him, he's a nutter," his friends answered in unison: "Religious person is a coward for not taking this argument all the way to his own demise."

Apart from me then, when I retorted – without having read the argument, but knowing my friend all too well – that the religious person might have been right in deleting his comments and banning someone who probably had been trolling his page.
That was when things got ugly – at least from my point of view. I had dared to consider empathy for the party that had the wrong opinion and rebrand a perfectly good argument trolling. I guess I misunderstood my friend's intentions, but I believe a troll is someone whose drive it is to make others angry. He probably got this person angry, hence was seen as a troll. One can indeed be a troll, without having had the intention to be one. This is much better explained by Berit Bogaard than I ever can.
I got especially riled up because my argument was written from the eye of the beholder, whereas my friend and some random bloke who needed to come to the rescue, considered it void, because there was no trolling. And that's when I stopped reading.

The argument I described above is, I believe, example for a certain kind of online behaviour where people think anything can be said and there are no rules when the forum is open to all. They seem to forget that every Facebook page (previously wall, now timeline) has an owner who can moderate what is said. Open doesn't mean unmoderated.
Secondly I notice there's a community* that has formed around polemics and sourness. They take down what they don't like by demagogic tricks without trying to understand the meaning of the words they oppose. When you enter an argument you end up explaining, re-explaining and explaining once again the same point over and over without once hearing their point of view. Because their point of view is exactly the opposite of yours, whatever that may be.
I have the distinct feeling the argument is made for the sake of the argument, not as a step to an informed opinion.

* I'm putting this in a footnote, for I only have circumstantial evidence that this "community" (for lack of a better word) mainly consists of white men. Privileged as they are, they don't seem to be able to have any kind of empathy for another point of view.

Comments

[lijability.livejournal.com]

Strange post box....okay...

Seems to me any more that some forums are religions unto themselves. Try to pose a differing viewpoint and the forum dogma takes over to dispute it.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Hmm, never thought of it that way, but it sounds plausible. There is an unwillingness to look at something from a different viewpoint, so yeah, you could say their worldview has turned to dogma...

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I'm on your side.

Also, this whole game of 'winning' arguments is tedious. Sometimes discussions come to their natural end which is that everyone will stick to their original opinion and that's it. And if one of them just can't let it go, then yes, the online equivalent of saying "Discussion is over. New topic please." sometimes is deleting things and banning posters because online you can't just turn around and walk away. There is no speical internet right that you must engage in open-minded debate at any time especially with people who just do it to be contrary. Or who want to show how clever they are.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I knew I'd find some kindred spirits on here. ;-)

There is a segment of humanity with Internet access who has discovered Facebook and think they understand how the internet works. Ugh.

But yeah, I wrote this in the first place to be sure I was comprehensible and not spilling blatantly stupid words.

Some people. I had even anticipated this, but yeah, had to put my two cents in...

*sighs*