When Did It Become Normal To Be Harassed Online? Why Do We Tolerate Trolls?

Yes, we shouldn't feed the trolls. But why are they here?

When you think about going online, you probably want to find something, buy something, or connect with someone. Chances are good that you're not looking to be sexually or emotionally harassed.

But we are. Half of us have been harassed online. One in five of us has received death threats. stalking, or continual sexual harassment. It's just normal.

Is it really normal? 

Sure, you might think. It's just like the public street. Crazy people can come up to you and harass you. That's life.

The internet is not a public street. It's a business. If you go to a website, someone created that website. Someone else hosts that website. There's a big company that provides security for that website. Why do all these people, who have a vested interest in you staying online, ignore the harassment?

You pay someone to provide you with that website access. 

So do you want to keep paying for people to harass you? No. You likely don't. Maybe it's time to have general do not harass lists the same way we have do not call lists. Yes, I know these are largely ineffective (as my phone has many unnecessary calls). But I can, if I wait through a robocall message, usually press a key that gets me off the list. Yes, we can block people online, we can mute them. We should be able to voluntarily opt out of any online interaction. They can speak, but we don't have to listen. Should that be the solution?

But the internet isn't a phone line, it's a community.

The goal of any website is to provide a community of buyers or friends, people who share a common interest. It's like club, a church, a garden party. You share your photos, meet with old friends, and catch up on one another's lives. Of course reviews of good restaurants and the best price on groceries are part of that exchange, but the sense is that you're among people who should be following a certain level of social conduct.

Imagine if you drove to a bank or grocery store. You go in and someone starts harassing you. It's in the business' best interest to not have you harassed. Nobody in the grocery store is going to start freaking out about that man's First Amendment rights to harass you. He's on private property, and he needs to leave. We all recognize that his (and we are talking about men here, folks, overwhelmingly) rights to speak are secondary to your right to not be intimidated, insulted and put in fear for your life.

The only thing that needs to happen online is what would happen outside the grocery store. That harassing individual would be identified and told to make himself scarce. He'd no longer be welcome in the store. Even if he tried to sneak back in, he'd be recognized. We need to get rid of online anonymity. 

Won't get rid of anonymity stifle free expression? 

Not at all. People can be crazy. You just get to see them coming. 

Take it from some of my old skeptic pals. P.Z. Meyers and Steve Novella manage to do a great job of spreading their particular brand of insane hatred while fully identifying themselves. P.Z. runs a lunatic fringe group of anonymous people who claim to be scientists but who seem to only know four letter words. Steve just parrots him and then claims he's not just an incredibly bored human being who is one step short of poking himself in the eye for entertainment. The Amazing Randi used his very public statements of derision as a smokescreen to hide his own illegal lover from prying eyes.  Their local Maine leader (the one who got them to gang up on me a decade ago) is a convicted pedophile. Yep, that's the kind of people we're talking about. Real sweethearts. Free expression is still free if you have the courage to identify yourself. These trolls are loud, proud, and openly busy hating on people every day. 

But compare them to Kirrill Fafengut, the Russian mobster who has hijacked my old maloneymedical.com site. (Godaddy post here). He is successful only because he is anonymous. If he openly hawked his scams, nobody would come. The whole purpose of his online presence is to hide who he is and what he's doing. He's the worst possible community member, a pickpocket con artist who just wants to steal your credit card numbers. I don't see any reason to allow him to continue to function using Amazon, Google, Godaddy, and Wordpress. These businesses host him, provide him with all his tools, and all claim to have no ability to stop him.

Removing anonymity would take Kirrill out of the internet community. He cannot exist in a world where the men he steals from can track down who he is and where he lives. (I have his address and phone number on the other post, but he's in Nowhere, Russia. So unless he pisses off Putin, law enforcement can't get to him until he leaves the country.)

No, we won't get a police state online. 

Now, I know the First Amendment folk will hate this line of reasoning. Let me say this before you send me your anonymous hate mail. If you can't be identified, then you're a coward. Sending someone your identifying information is the definition of someone who will moderate his speech. If you know you can be "seen" then you won't say the filthy things that only live in your unconscious mind. And honestly, a little self-control, a few less swear words, and a little more thought wouldn't hurt your point.

Bystanders Count

If we remember back to the idea of going into a business and seeing someone being harassed, chances are that it would be another customer who helped stop it. So be that customer. Call companies on lax enforcement. Shop at places that have management that care about us. 

No, we don't want to live in a world where we can be harassed anywhere, anytime, and pay for the privilege. We need to find our own way back to civility. The one thing I'm proud of during my own past harassment was that I almost never (there was one exchange I regret) resorted to profanity with any of my attackers. Even people who sent me death threats. We're adults, and someone needs to start acting like the adult in the great big internet world.