If you are online every day for as many hours as I am you know there is a ton of controversy being posted in the social spaces. Actually, controversy is the nature of the internet. Social spaces are a platform for voicing an opinion so disputes over issues or matters should be expected.
However, there seems to be this growing culture of people who just seem to take an aggressive stance on issues for no reason other than for their personal pleasure. A friend recently remarked on how many more negative Troll like people there are online compared to less than a year ago. Seems the Troll image people develop by viciously commenting on someone’s thread has become another issue running people off of the social space..if not off the internet.
Non-Social is Killing the Internet
In effort to find out more about how Troll behavior is impacting social networking I started looking round for a few of these troll incidences to track. It did not take me long to find one on Facebook and if you are not seeing Trolls on Facebook you probably are not posting anything stating am opinion. Or, maybe you are just one of the few who have not gotten tangled up with the dark-side of social networking…yet.
I caught hold of a gentleman…at least the name given in the profile indicated it was a male..who just went totally left on a lady who was talking about her like of Mexican Food..yes..Mexican Food.
You would think this issue would be cut and dry. You either like Mexican Food or don’t like Mexican Food…bada bing..that is it. But no..this guy went off on all kinds of things that were hardly related to anything said about Mexican Food other than to spew uncalled-for references to the person’s ethnic group.
We have seen this all before, so what is the big deal? Some people probably skipped over it and moved on. Well, ignoring these degrading comments is not how most people who come to the social space to socialize are reacting. The volume of these types of uncalled for remarks are becoming more and more present in the conversations being held in the social spaces. As a result more people are seeing this increase in the volume of unneeded commentary as a good reason to disconnect from the social space.
What is the reason in this increasing volume of waste?
This Trolldom attitude just struck me as an interesting issue since I am seeing more and more of this type of behavior online everywhere. I am seeing it in the Blogsphere, in the business groups like LinkedIn and of course on Twitter.
In a discussion I had on this issue a few months ago I gain input from a few people who did not see trolls who pop into a conversation to voice threatening contradictions as being a real concern. They either saw it as being Funny or as something people need to learn to live with if they are going to be in the social space. Naturally this illogical point of view alarmed me to there really is a problem growing in the social space if belittlement is an accepted part of socializing online.
Social Space Finally Being Cleaned
I am encouraged to hear the social networks are finally seeing Trolls and Spam as an issue they need to deal with. Before it was obvious these very visible online social communities had no interest in dealing with Trolls or Spam since the action they would have to take would result in deleting thousands of accounts which would diminish the value of the database they were building to sell.
Recently I witnessed a Troll being deactivated from Google+. Right before my eyes, as I was looking at the comment made by a person-place-or thing, a very threatening comment disappeared in a thread of conversation someone in my circle was having. Then section by section of the Troll’s profile was disappearing. Later I found it was one of the G+ CM’s doing their job by deactivating the account of someone who demonstrates inappropriate or threatening behavior. That to me showed at least Google has served notice to Trolls that they are being watched..like all of are being watched, in these social spaces.
Control is Good!
I realize to many their conversations being watched by the social platform is a feeling that Big Brother is watching, but it shouldn’t bother anyone if they are not doing anything harmful to others. Control of the social spaces has to be obtained or these social networks will find that the only users of the site are Trolls and Spammers.
The pressure on the social networks to control the threatening and near criminal activity present on their site need to be maintained. In order for anyone to benefit from social media or social networking the social space has to be a place the users can trust to be safe to socialize. The managers of the social networks need to make themselves more visible and get involved with what is is going on with the users of their site.
The more people who stand up for a more quality experience online the more these sties will see the need to change. Hopefully, with the social networks now seeing the value of ‘Social’ they will have a few more public hangings of Trolls to show the disgruntled of society that they are being watched. One can only hope the managing of social networks will increase.
Let me know how I can help.
