Matthew Parris: Amateur Trolls

Hard to know whether it’s worth bothering to assess a policy that obviously isn’t seriously happening, or likely to. But on the basis that we even give a second glance to the idiotic initiatives that ministers keep spraying out to seize the “news initiative”, consider the latest, from the justice secretary. Chris Grayling says he’ll quadruple penalties for those who subject others online to “sexually offensive, verbally abusive or threatening material”.

I get (and ignore) this kind of online abuse all the time. Here’s a selection of what I’ve read about myself recently on the Guido Fawkes website . . .

“Forget Parris. Sodomites aren’t that big a f***ing deal anyway.”

“I’d sooner be a working class pleb than one of Matthew Parris’ bent brigade. Shut that door! Then f*** off!”

“Parris is clearly demonstrating the affect of dissolute living and the long-term adverse symptomatology of limp-wristed empathising.”

By contrast, “Bromley Polecat” on Conservative Home is positively genteel, attributing my opinions on Ukip to the bitterness of a homosexual affronted by Tory members’ rejection of gay marriage.

These people — “trolls” as they are known — are paper tigers. I wouldn’t in a million years think their nonsense worth reporting to the police. I enjoy invective. What are we coming to if we think this kind of flotsam should be dragged expensively through our justice system?

Telegraph.

Matthew quotes Mao!

Fagburn: Professional Troll

Describing itself as a ‘a blog about gay men and the media, politics and your actual gay culture’, the writer’s ostensible aim is to single-handedly shear away the stereotyping fluff that surrounds the reporting of gay men in various outlets, with targets ranging from The Sun to The Guardian. Some of it is incisively brilliant – certain gay publications themselves often come under repeated fire for sometimes appearing to cover nothing more than Dan Osborne’s abs –, but a lot of it reads like a bitter queen sitting in an armchair in Brighton, spitting cocoa apoplectically at their antiquated laptop’s screen and spraying the venom of chocolate hobnob crumbs over their keyboard as they furiously jab out their entries one-fingered. All of it purports to give the reader ‘truth’, and this is when it gets dangerous: for of course, all that Fagburn really gives his readers is his own swivel-eyed opinion of the world. Fagburn is, ultimately, a professional troll...

Fagburn: When The Trolls Come To Town, Patrick Cash, QX magazine. 

LOL!

It's funny cause it's true - except it's usually me spitting tea and ginger nuts, tbh.

This is from last month, but I've only just seen it.

Unlike some other bitter queens I could mention, I don't obsessively Google myself.

Fagburn apologises unreservedly for questioning something you published about gay men and drugs.
He promises not to do it again, and will now concentrate on trying to be 'incisively brilliant'.

K?

x

A gay troll, pictured recently.

For the record, I've often said I think QX does a lot of excellent and important stuff. I'll go further, if you compare it to certain other free gay mags, it's stunningly good. But I'll carry on contesting its lapses into nebulous fact-free drugs hysteria. x

Trolling: Some People Push Back

Probably the most hypocritical aspect of the “concern” some in the mainstream express about online abuse is their willingness to turn a blind eye to their own shortcomings. They not only assert their own right to unfettered free speech, but actively encourage from some of their most highly paid employees the sort of abusive behaviour they condemn in others.

As a result, some idiot calling people names in a comment thread is defined as a “troll”, but a high-profile columnist who provokes anti-gay sentiment in a major newspaper is a “hard-hitting journalist”...

The fact is, the mainstream media understands better than most how effective abuse can be in generating story interest. To quote [Susan] Herbst again, “Journalists and editors ... know that incivility is just more interesting, and therefore profitable, than civility.”

Online abuse doesn’t arise in a vacuum. It is part and parcel of the sort of aggressive, adversarial approach to public debate encouraged by some of our major institutions, from the courts to the parliament to the media itself. We are right to be appalled by some of its worst manifestations, but we also have to be smart enough to realise that campaigns against trolling, or bans on anonymity, are less to do with concerns about civility than they are about exercising control over public debate.

There are plenty people in positions of power and authority who simply don’t want ordinary people to have a voice in the public sphere and we shouldn’t let them set the rules of engagement.

A great piece on The Guardian online by Tim Dunlop.