Using the positive power of networks is the only functional way to deal with trolls…

I take a slightly different view of the activities of the many folk on Twitter who think it is their job to harry and raid folks on behalf of their own political parties who have the impertinence to question or criticise them.

It’s a form of cyberactivism as old as the Internet. Their job is create anger and dysfunction in our social cognition systems so that we cannot do anything but fall exhausted back into their unloving arms.  I’ve called them the thugeratti.

Richard Garland has a piece in the News Letter today outlining some of their familiar characteristics and he quite rightly identifies the fact this is mostly a pro-Sinn Féin phenomenon.

He acknowledges of course that whilst what he sees is mostly anti-Unionist attacks, unionists are not always the target. The worst piece of thugeratti action I think I’ve ever witnessed was a sustained attack on Alasdair McDonnell in the 2015 general election.

It even involved a blog, multiple anonymous Twitter accounts, and even a leaflet campaign in church car parks. It was poisonous, and because it was also based on lies we gave it absolutely no house-room here on Slugger.

Ignoring works up to a point, but as I’ve said what works better (which I learned from a prominent Thugeratti victim) to deny them access to your Twitter following by blocking them.

The mute button may give your head some peace but it also allows them to continue ‘broadcasting’ whatever garbage they’re selling that day into your friends and contacts. It’s usually some form of outgroup anger and hatred.

Partly it is the personal choice of those participating, and partly systemic. The various ‘nets’ have been producing these behaviours since they first brought anonymous others got together. Our play the ball culture disincentivises it here on Slugger.

Defence mechanisms only take you so far. The play the ball rule is also an aspirational ethic. It puts in play an opportunity for those who play well (regardless of affiliation or background) to generate a good reputation and the respect of their peers.

Moreover, it’s a generative (additive approach) to political discourse that views the world as a series of problems that need a diverse set of opinions, skills and cultural backgrounds to find robust (or better still, antifragile) solutions.

In my top favourite book at the moment, Angrynomics, Eric Lonergan explains that Aristotle held that the opposite of anger was play. To which I would add humour, irony, and a willingness to see, understand, and work with paradox.

These are qualities that the dour, humourless Thugeratti of ‘the nets’ cannot endure and moreover find it impossible to puncture and disrupt. At base, Slugger is not a community but a network. And as my best Swedish mate ever, John Kellden likes to say…

 In a network, the best place to store information is in other people…

I suspect we are only at the beginning of understanding the positive power of networks, or the generative qualities it can unleash through the power of the previously unregarded story, hidden contexts and actionable insights of the greater unknowns.

It is easy to overfocus on the activities of the trolls, but the real antidote is to, as John puts it, helps to “divest from whatever behavior that keeps us from win^n”. Or, as Frankl said, this is why the idealists are the real realists:

YouTube video

Or as my old Maths teacher (Frank Kelly if you are asking) said to me the day I left school.. Illegitimi non carborundum 

 

Seattle Nov 2014 Fremont Troll” by Mobilus In Mobili is licensed under CC BY

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