> If there were places IRL where the average person is subjected to a constant barrage of callousness it wouldn't continue to exist, would it?

Are you suggesting that there are populated places that you can visit in real life where loudly shouting an arbitrary statement could not attract abuse?

If I went to a model train convention, carrying a giant sign explaining how childish and stupid I think model train enthusiasts are, do you think I would be subjected to a "constant barrage of callousness" until I left?

In the UK, "trolling" has been entirely defined (by a media and political class full of blue checks) as any angry response of the public against the wise observations of blue checks. It's entirely class-based. You don't have to threaten, you don't have to swear, you don't have to be ethnically, religiously, or sexually bigoted. You just have to strongly disagree. In fact, the more biting and incisive the comment, the bigger the perceived offense.

Entirely about nobodies embarrassing somebodies in public.

edit: this is a special meaning within the UK media and political classes. Generally, "trolls" are people who like to cause arguments online, and who can be judged by the ratio of the number of characters they type to the number of characters they cause to be typed. "Trolls" are not people who have an honest belief in what they are saying. It's only in the UK (AFAIK) where "troll" is defined by disagreement and exacerbated by tone.

>Are you suggesting that there are populated places that you can visit in real life where loudly shouting an arbitrary statement could not attract abuse?

I'm suggesting that if I were in a public place and had a person shouting obscenities at me everywhere I went... it's illegal harassment, and the person can be identified and prosecuted.

I've experienced both IRL and online harassment, and managed to stop IRL harassment through the legal system. I was only able to stop online harassment by hiding.

> I'm suggesting that if I were in a public place and had a person shouting obscenities at me everywhere I went... it's illegal harassment, and the person can be identified and prosecuted.

What does "hiding" mean here? Not posting on twitter?

Is this a law that will regulate bad words and not content? People would have far fewer objections to a blacklist of words you can't use in public.

Is the problem with somebody following you around IRL shouting obscenities at you the content? Is somebody following you around all day shouting positive affirmations not objectionable?

It means essentially removing myself from the internet. No public social media and hiring a company to get myself (i.e., address and phone number) removed from public data brokers (you can do it yourself, but it means hundreds of unique forms to fill out).

You seem to be hung up on "obscenities" but yes you are correct, it's not just obscenities... there are a lot of varieties of harassment. Following someone around and shouting anything at them is likely harassment IRL, but it seems less clear online when you can't conclusively determine if anonymous accounts are the same person.

> If there were places IRL where the average person is subjected to a constant barrage of callousness it wouldn't continue to exist, would it?

Did you not go to school with other children? Name-calling, exclusion, and what adults would call assault and physical abuse are par for the course among small children. Human beings have an instinctive ability to empathize with other people, but consistently applying that to all other people, even when it conflicts with other desires, is not part of our genetic programming, which is why it is a backbone teaching of all major religions. We start as tiny children who reflexively, instinctively hit and call names to express their desires, and we don't grow out of these tendencies so much as reduce them (on the one hand) and refine them.

Habitual bullies discover that they enjoy it when their bullying earns positive attention from other people, and they adjust their targets and tactics accordingly. In a setting where people like seeing sexual minorities persecuted, that's who they will target. In a setting where people like seeing racial minorities persecuted, that's who they will target. If you harbor any aggressive itch you are too timid or too "civilized" to scratch, you can bet the bullies in your social milieu will seek your approval by scratching it for you, and if we're against bullying, that's who it matters to call out, the people who are working for our approval.

> Isn't this indicative of a serious problem though? If there were places IRL where the average person is subjected to a constant barrage of callousness it wouldn't continue to exist, would it?

Haha, "if"? You must live in a very different world than I do. Junior high school, the old guys running the local hardware store, almost every cubicle farm in the financial services industry, the city of New York... I could give endless of examples where indifference, callousness, or even plain old mean-spiritedness is the prevalent culture.

A person who has not experienced some form of this is not ready for the real world. Humans are wonderful, but also complete bastards and that's something that will never change.

When they cross certain lines they become illegal harassment, and there are ways to handle them.

I've worked with people who have been fired for "cubicle farm in the financial services industry" type of behavior, and it's becoming less and less acceptable as time goes on.

In high school a group of boys was expelled for writing homophobic slurs on another student's locker.

I lived in NYC for a period of time, and it's a cake walk compared to spending time on social media. I did feel in danger at one point on the subway, but I was also helped out of that situation by a bystander... and the police were able to ID the individual with security footage (who had a history of causing problems and who I later provided testimony against in court).

With the anonymity of the internet, levers like this are often non-existent. Local police often don't even have the capability to understand it, let alone investigate it. I attempted to report death threats (which contained my home address) at one point and was referred to the FBI (which as far as I know, did nothing).

The mechanisms we have for handling problems like this IRL certainly aren't perfect, many people fall through the cracks, and mechanisms like the police can be very problematic in their own right... but the only time I've felt entirely helpless was when dealing with anonymous online harassment. It became very clear early on that no one was going to do anything about it, and the only way out was to attempt to "not exist" online.

Are death threats not already illegal?

They are certainly illegal, but I've had very different experiences reporting IRL death threats versus online death threats.

Anecdotally it seems like law enforcement doesn't take online death threats seriously, and are incapable of determining legitimacy and origin. The lack of accountability seems to make it much more likely for death threats to happen online...

I've reported online threats containing my home and work addresses and they're basically shrugged off. If someone approached me in person and said the same thing the outcomes are very different.

> Isn't this indicative of a serious problem though?

Mostly, saying mean things doesn't rise to the level of legal interventions. There are plenty of IRL venues where people will say mean things (sports, comedy clubs, reproductive health clinics), and many venues where saying mean things will get you asked to stop or forced to leave.

If you say mean things on HN, you'll likely be asked to stop or forced to leave; but some sites don't make that part of their platform. Personally, I'm not going to participate in places where there's a lot of meanness, but that means I don't participate in a lot of popular sites.

>If you say mean things on HN, you'll likely be asked to stop or forced to leave; but some sites don't make that part of their platform. Personally, I'm not going to participate in places where there's a lot of meanness, but that means I don't participate in a lot of popular sites.

This is a good point. I don't think a lot of what's commonly said on twitter (or online in general) would fly if said in a physical business... and this disparity seems to embolden a lot of people online to just constantly say shitty things.

The principle of free speech does explicitly exclude repercussions. You can of course draw you conclusions and you are not forced to associate with anybody.

But the nature of the internet that potentially connects anyone to everyone else will have such cases, even just by cultural differences.

To believe you can have the same basis in every interpersonal interchange is naive. If that is hard for you, you can trivially easily withdraw from any discussion.

> In the past accountability seemed like a major factor.

The past status quo isn't desirable. You do not have to expose yourself to anything if you do not want to. But many people do not want to get back to that.

I do not like to associate with people that seems to be fond of prosecuting others for trifles. Yet I will make sure they are able to state their opinions.

> If there were places IRL where the average person is subjected to a constant barrage of callousness it wouldn't continue to exist, would it?

Is this not why the real issue is related to social media itself, rather than generalised "trolling"? This isn't as much of an issue in niche forums or niche-dedicated social sites.

We are free to make our accounts private, block/sign out/delete/not partake in social media, yet many feel like they are __unable__ to make use of these features. IRL, you can't always easily escape bullying. Online, you can choose not to engage; yet people continue to place themselves in the line of fire. I think this speaks to a much deeper issue (as you point out) and I'm not sure jailing trolls is the answer.

Oh sure, I don't think jailing is the answer for most things... but there's a subset of people who think that free speech should be entirely unrestricted, and I also don't think that's the answer. I don't think anyone's really cracked this issue yet.

I was subject to a harassment campaign at one point, and blocks seemed to just stoke the flame. It eventually subsided when I disengaged from social media entirely for a while, but it felt like I was surrendering to the harassers. They're the ones restricting my speech at that point.

So I get why people refuse to "disengage" – it feels like someone responding to IRL harassment by telling you not to leave your house, it just doesn't seem fair.

The accountability is you have the option to block trolls, leave the site, or just ignore them. Pretty awesome because you surely couldn't so easily be rid of someone in physical life.

There's no requirement for you to subject yourself to a troll.