Meeting A Troll...

Fascinating.

In my blog of 12th August entitled 'Walking, Not Running' I talked about my time on Twitter and my basic reasons for leaving. I stand over a lot of what I said. The atmosphere there has changed and there have been negative stories in the media about trolling, etc, for months now. The brand has been damaged and Twitter needs to act fairly swiftly to repair it. At the time of writing that blog, for reasons that will become obvious, I was very sketchy about my own personal experience. More at Traynor's Eye.

Comments

[Graham]

A disturbing reminder of the darker side of the Internet. What a great guy though. Not many people would have been as gracious and forgiving as him.

[Gavin]

People say anything over email or social media. BUT they wouldn't dare say it to your face!

I once got a horrid email once, totally out of order. I ignored it and thought to myself, try and say that to my face ; a year later that person was at the same event as me. I kid you not, they were shaking in fear as I approached. That person was quick to apologise.

Email and social media can cause this. No consideration as to how the tone or text might be read or the consequences. Twitter bullying or Facebook bullying also exists. Not good.

[Neil]

Email and social media can cause this

It would be interesting to understand whether this was prevalent too in simple letter writing — or is this a relatively modern phenomenon?

Similarly, is it the technology which is causing it, or a feeling of invulnerability which comes from being remote from the person with whom one is communicating? Is it that someone is "just an avatar," without a real-world persona, and so not a real person, deserving of decency and respect? Or are we also seeing a decline in respect in the offline world too, where people would now say something they might otherwise have thought but kept to themselves?