There has been another wave of online discussion about ‘trolling’ on social media platforms like Twitter. The latest round of debate began after Caroline Criado-Perez wrote about the hideous abuse she received during the course of her campaign to keep a woman on the £10 note.
I have contributed a few comments in the past on this issue, and do not have anything new to say on the current controversy, save to say that at some point (it may be now, it may be later) the politicians will seek to impose legislation on this kind of speech. I mentioned this conundrum during my #ORGcon panel discussion with David Allen Green et al in June.
In the meantime, a few quick links:
- Look at how quickly trolls retract when they realise the real-world implications of what they have written. And I have linked before to a fascinating article by Leo Traynor on what happened when he tracked down a troll… (or rather, someone who was posting racist death threats).
- An article by Mic Wright at the Daily Telegraph and this post by Flashboy are both keepers on the impracticalities of censoring or policing a social network like Twitter.
- The Twitter feeds of Laurie Penny and David Allen Green (New Statesman columnists, the pair) tend to say pertinent things about online discourse in general, and the issue of trolling in particular.
