9 years ago
10
Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao: The trolls are winning the battle for the Internet
Sites like Reddit can’t rely on better rules to eliminate harassment.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com
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The word 'troll' has lost all meaning. What she went through is past trolling, and something else entirely.
Unfortunately what trolling seems to mean these days is "disagree with".
Yeah, there is an awful lot less patience around for dissenting opinions on the internet these days. Disagree with someone and you could end up in jail like this guy.
This is exactly it. Case in point: I made a post in another snap - title was a question about (what you dont like) or something along those lines. I made a post saying I don't like certain things and someone replies: YER TROLLING
It was the same on reddit: I don't like what yer saying you Troll
I remember a time where Troll meant someone who purposely went out there and tried to annoy and irritate. But now it's for anyone who posts something you don't agree with
What happened to Pao was harassment plain and simple - there was actually very little constructive critiscism
I feel like troll and sjw are just terms to label people that disagree.
Its tiring to read the constant stream of articles declaring that the Reddit trolls pushed her out. She has an AWFUL track record especially against other female coworkers- read her court case against her former employer, she lost the case hard. Now I had problems with her pushing the agenda she did on the site in such a heavy handed and entirely inconsistent way but it wasn't pushed by her as such, more pushed by the board of directors, and she was the fall guy. I wasn't onboard with the comparisons to Hitler though, I would haved liked if we could keep the comparing of a CEO of a tech company to a genocidal dictator to a minimum, but I wasn't her biggest fan either.
This is just another article trying to push the narrative that Reddit is full of neckbeards and trolls who hate women and want them out.
However that culture push has caused me to seek out alternative sites, such as this one and Voat.
Well that had to happen. It's a law.
I'm sorry but I don't really see it like that. From the article:
Also:
To be honest the title of the article is terrible, but I decided to leave it as is to stay true to the source. I was mostly indifferent with Ellen as CEO, but I am definitely against the monumental amount of hate that was thrown at her when shit hit the fan on reddit. You should read her resignation letter if you haven't already. The community jumped very quickly to blame her for changes they disliked without any context, eventually culminating in her resignation.
I don't see this as Ellen or the Washington Post blaming the community for her resignation, I see it as someone who has experienced the full extent of being hated by a large internet community speaking about that experience. To me the article raises some interesting concepts, most notable how can you provide freedom of expression while combating trolls? At what point does it cross the line into censorship? I see these ideas as being in line with the goals of Snapzu and I have seen many similar discussions crop up in different tribes here, which is why I decided to share it.
It took me quite a while to realize that most of the attention focused on trolls and sjws appears to come from a newer generation of internet users. I'm old enough to remember pre-internet days, bbs, and all that stuff that probably resembles the flintstones car to younger players. Just about everything that seems newsworthy now happened a thousand times over in complete anonymity before. Perhaps in slightly different mediums like irc, usenet, bbs, and a hundred different niche forums but it was all there. Many of those old bbs operated on a very simple principle of 'dont piss off the admin', which was fine because that person had all the keys and did the work to keep that playground open. Now you have the creation and maintenance of that playground in the hands of random people each one having some power while the users are left to figure it all for themselves.
The same general purpose rule still applies now as then,if you want to have users on your side. Pick a set of rules you can enforce and enforce them. Anything hinting of inequality in application and you've just cracked the dam holding the flood. In reddit there are more cracks than dam at this point. Clear lack of stated rules, enforced rules, constantly changing rules, interpretations of rules, revisionist history by the people at the top, hidden agendas, hotseat management, etc...
Sidenote: while I really didn't get into the Ellen Pao witchhunt, I did find the characterization as 'Chairman Pao' (complete with stylized art) damn funny.
Debatably, the problem starts at home. If people don't know how to conduct themselves in a physical setting, it's less likely they will know how to treat others online.