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#McCann Trolls

Information Analyst said:
Right, so the argument is not that they are being directly abused, but that they would be if they engaged through social media?
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It's easy to be glib, provided you are removed from the situation. These people are being publicly attacked day in and day out by a cult of obsessed hatemongers who foster a climate of fear and might well incite some deranged individual to commit physical violence. It affects them greatly, even if they don't read it all or respond to any of it.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Claire Hardaker of the Guardian weighs in. Concluding paragraph: "Ultimately, individuals who troll or become obsessed with conspiracy theories can be driven by many factors – boredom, loneliness, a need for validation – and we cannot discount the possibility of mental health problems. At times, their behaviour may border on loathsome, but a news team with a high-profile journalist at the helm is not the way to bring about justice."
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The news reporter wasn't trying to bring about justice, he was doing a story. I think what he did is in bounds. There shouldn't be a hands off approached to cyberbullies because it might upset them.

"And at the same time, she ensconced herself within a small network of other Twitter users who supported her, agreed with her, and perhaps gave her a sense of identity and importance as a figurehead campaigning for what she believed was justice for Madeleine."

There is not even a WORD yet developed to explain what is going on here. What is not yet explained is the group aspect to this. Fellow cyberbullies become each others social group and friends. They post day and night as a hate community. @sweepyface is just one online bully and the report pointed out she wasn't the worst one. As a group they are basically an online hate cult.
 
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Draca said:
"I'm entitled to do that"

What @sweepyface did went beyond voicing her own opinion. She was cyberbullying and cyberharassing the McCann family. She was sending them direct messages of hate and wishes of suffering. She did this in conjunction with a group of others doing the same thing. An online cybermob posting continually for years.

Who should decide what crosses the line? In this case I would say twitter should have.
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Considering the McCanns aren't on Twitter she wasn't harassing them. Just like 9/11 fruitcakes and SandyHook crazies ,aren't they entitled to their opinion? Free speech and all that?

Working in the media what SKyNews did is wrong,they were given her details from pro McCann groups,the police hadn't been informed and as no charges had been filed they were ones harassing,broadcasting her identity and address.
The media have said things just as bad as the trolls in early stages of the investigation. Double standards when it suits.
 
Information Analyst said:
Right, so the argument is not that they are being directly abused, but that they would be if they engaged through social media?
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I wouldn't call it direct abuse (except maybe for those who were tweeting threats or inciting others to engage in direct abuse--no idea if @sweepyface did either of these things) unless the McCanns were on twitter and were being @mentioned/DMed. But I'd still call it harmful and abusive. There is a difference between writing hateful things publically about people and saying hateful things about them in private discussions.

(disclaimer: not attempting to say anything about law or legal distinctions in this post)
 
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Azrael 5 said:
Considering the McCanns aren't on Twitter she wasn't harassing them. Just like 9/11 fruitcakes and SandyHook crazies ,aren't they entitled to their opinion? Free speech and all that?

Working in the media what SKyNews did is wrong,they were given her details from pro McCann groups,the police hadn't been informed and as no charges had been filed they were ones harassing,broadcasting her identity and address.
The media have said things just as bad as the trolls in early stages of the investigation. Double standards when it suits.
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Much as I am disgusted by the "McCann trolls" I think there is some merit to this post. This is not a topic with easy answers and I will have to think about it some more.
 
ddt said:
Charlie Wilkes said:
I think you're on the right track. For years, I have largely accepted the arguments for protecting anonymity in online discourse, but I am beginning to change my view on this, because I see so much rampant abuse. I think it might be reasonable for services like Twitter to require people to use their real-life identities, or at least make those identities known to the public.
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I'm not so sure. It could also stifle legitimate political discourse, and anonymity is another safeguard against tyrants and oppressors, to borrow Jefferson's words. In the end, the identity of a twitterer is known: Twitter knows the IP address from which the tweet was made, and the ISP knows the real identity of the person. It's just one indirection. The solution lies, IMHO, more in that services like Twitter and Facebook assume more responsibility for what is published through them, and maybe expedited legal procedures for getting to the identity, than in flat-out requiring wholesale abolition of anonymity.

For my part, discuss your favourite case on whatever forum you like, within the bounds that forum (and the law) sets. If you have convincing evidence, bring it to the police and the prosecution; they're appointed by us all to prosecute criminals and get them convicted. But don't bully directly aimed at the people you think are guilty of crime.

ETA: Maybe this suicide is a wake-up call to other bullies. I fear not.
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I don't want to see the ability to post anonymously disappear either and I agree that without it political discourse and free speech could suffer.

Why is posting repeated insults protected language though? It smacks of harassment and a form of stalking. There is no value in saying daily you hope someone will suffer and die. There needs to be a way to end the huge amount vitriol without taking away someone's right to discuss the case.
 
Azrael 5 said:
Considering the McCanns aren't on Twitter she wasn't harassing them. Just like 9/11 fruitcakes and SandyHook crazies ,aren't they entitled to their opinion? Free speech and all that?

Working in the media what SKyNews did is wrong,they were given her details from pro McCann groups,the police hadn't been informed and as no charges had been filed they were ones harassing,broadcasting her identity and address.
The media have said things just as bad as the trolls in early stages of the investigation. Double standards when it suits.
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You're conflating free speech with a right to anonymity. She was free to say what she did and took advantage of that. I don't think she did anything illegal and I don't think the police were planning to arrest her.
There is no right to stay anonymous on Twitter in the UK. I don't see why Sky did anything wrong. If anything they should do it more often.
 
Draca said:
I don't want to see the ability to post anonymously disappear either and I agree that without it political discourse and free speech could suffer.

Why is posting repeated insults protected language though? It smacks of harassment and a form of stalking. There is no value in saying daily you hope someone will suffer and die. There needs to be a way to end the huge amount vitriol without taking away someone's right to discuss the case.
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How could it effect political discourse. You're almost never anonymous from the government. They could find out who you are if they wanted to.
 
Information Analyst said:
It was claimed earlier that the McCanns don't do Twitter. How, then, is abuse of them on Twitter "cyberbullying and cyberharassing the McCann family"?
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Azrael 5 said:
Considering the McCanns aren't on Twitter she wasn't harassing them. Just like 9/11 fruitcakes and SandyHook crazies ,aren't they entitled to their opinion? Free speech and all that?
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Lets take a hypothetical situation. Say a group decides Azrael is racist, misogynist pig. Someone forms a Facebook group dedicated to 'Azrael the Pig'. People join slowly but over time there is a ferocious dedicated group who use hating on Azrael as their form of social recognition. All day long they post Azrael sucks, they are a pig, I hate them, I hope they suffer, I hope karma comes and gets that piece of ---- Azrael. It gets taken to twitter where the hate group continues with @AzraelPig @Azraelsucks @AgainstAzrael. Non-stop the group posts hate on Azrael. Taken even further, the group contacts Azrael's employer, family, friends.....

Azrael stays away from Facebook, Twitter and any place the cyberbullies can get to them. So it doesn't effect Azrael?

NO WAY, it certainly will effect them to the utmost. Their feeling of safety will be gone from their lives. Who knows where these people are and what they will do?

The McCann's, Amanda Knox and others are actually attacked just like the hypothetical Azrael. They have high profile public cases, so there is protection in freedom of speech, but how much is really freedom of speech vs an excuse to hate on someone who is defenseless against it? Even better a controversial case where they can feel superior while spewing their hate.
 
Primus said:
How could it effect political discourse. You're almost never anonymous from the government. They could find out who you are if they wanted to.
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Not everyone wants their employer, co-workers, etc to know their political views. They still have the right to free speech but anonymity makes it more likely to express thoughts openly.

Unfortunately, it also makes it more likely people will express their inner anger and hate also.
 
Draca said:
Lets take a hypothetical situation. Say a group decides Azrael is racist, misogynist pig. Someone forms a Facebook group dedicated to 'Azrael the Pig'. People join slowly but over time there is a ferocious dedicated group who use hating on Azrael as their form of social recognition. All day long they post Azrael sucks, they are a pig, I hate them, I hope they suffer, I hope karma comes and gets that piece of ---- Azrael. It gets taken to twitter where the hate group continues with @AzraelPig @Azraelsucks @AgainstAzrael. Non-stop the group posts hate on Azrael. Taken even further, the group contacts Azrael's employer, family, friends.....

Azrael stays away from Facebook, Twitter and any place the cyberbullies can get to them. So it doesn't effect Azrael?

NO WAY, it certainly will effect them to the utmost. Their feeling of safety will be gone from their lives. Who knows where these people are and what they will do?

The McCann's, Amanda Knox and others are actually attacked just like the hypothetical Azrael. They have high profile public cases, so there is protection in freedom of speech, but how much is really freedom of speech vs an excuse to hate on someone who is defenseless against it? Even better a controversial case where they can feel superior while spewing their hate.
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What is the solution though? Hateful as it is there is no crime generally. IF Mcanns were on Twitter they'd probably be spending their entire life suing trolls..oh wait they reserve that just for newspapers. ;)
 
Azrael 5 said:
What is the solution though? Hateful as it is there is no crime generally. IF Mcanns were on Twitter they'd probably be spending their entire life suing trolls..oh wait they reserve that just for newspapers. ;)
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Publicly out them
 
Agatha said:
I don't get why people feel the need to insert themselves into someone else's tragedy to the extent that some online keyboard warriors have. It's clear from these tweets and the websites such as the '3 arguidos' that this group of people they feel they know more about the events than anyone who was there, the police of two countries or the social services who investigated the family
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Perhaps it lets them feel righteous and feel smarter than everyone else. Sort of like the 9/11 Truthers.
 
anglolawyer said:
Yes. Anonymity will be permitted unless and until abused. Then the right ends for that person for good.
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Seems harsh. Even for serious crimes, criminals pay their debt to society and then are given another chance. Same as here, where just one yellow card (except for well-defined violations of the MA) does not end in banning. If I remember correctly, one mod posted that an active member had 67 yellow cards.

Unless you think trolls absolutely can never reform, there ought to be a chance for a second shot.
 
SezMe said:
Seems harsh. Even for serious crimes, criminals pay their debt to society and then are given another chance. Same as here, where just one yellow card (except for well-defined violations of the MA) does not end in banning. If I remember correctly, one mod posted that an active member had 67 yellow cards.

Unless you think trolls absolutely can never reform, there ought to be a chance for a second shot.
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If I understand Anglo's proposal, it is to remove anonymity rather than to silence or ban. More and more I'm inclined to think that's a good idea. Brenda Leyland committed suicide when she was publicly exposed. That implies she might not have posted the things she did if she had not enjoyed a veil of anonymity, or if she had realized at the outset that she might be exposed.

The goal (IMO) should not be to punish, but to intervene, to discourage mobs of troubled people from behaving in a way that is destructive to themselves and each other as well as the people they target.
 
SezMe said:
Seems harsh. Even for serious crimes, criminals pay their debt to society and then are given another chance. Same as here, where just one yellow card (except for well-defined violations of the MA) does not end in banning. If I remember correctly, one mod posted that an active member had 67 yellow cards.

Unless you think trolls absolutely can never reform, there ought to be a chance for a second shot.
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Fair point. The suggested punishment fits the crime IMO, and it is a mild and proportionate one, not intended, by the way, as a cure-all but only as one way of tamping down the urge to vent one's inner malice without social restraint. It's like the England soccer fans who have to surrender their passports when England play overseas because their past behaviour has proved them unworthy of the right to freedom of movement.

ETA as Charlie says, I am not proposing the end of free speech, just the anonymity part and only for transgressors.
 
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Charlie Wilkes said:
If I understand Anglo's proposal, it is to remove anonymity rather than to silence or ban. More and more I'm inclined to think that's a good idea. Brenda Leyland committed suicide when she was publicly exposed. That implies she might not have posted the things she did if she had not enjoyed a veil of anonymity, or if she had realized at the outset that she might be exposed.

The goal (IMO) should not be to punish, but to intervene, to discourage mobs of troubled people from behaving in a way that is destructive to themselves and each other as well as the people they target.
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Charlie and Anglo, it is certainly so that her death and her falsely imagining anonymity are tragically linked.
I can only imagine the lives and families that have been destroyed by child porn, and knocks on the door when never expected.
 
Trolls are stalkers, obsessives, cruel, bullies who have gone too far and abused the right to free speech and anonymity. Just like shouting fire in a cinema to cause a panic, people have to know there are bad consequences when they go too far.

The McCanns should be able to contact Twitter, make a complaint and Twitter could then say to the specific trolls who have gone to far that they are facing sanctions, from exposure to banning to warning to suspension.

This forum and the vast majority of forums do exactly that. There are codes of conduct. Why should the likes of Twitter not have standards?
 
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