• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Waugh Zone

The website of Louisa Waugh

  • Home
  • Waugh Stories
  • Books
    • Meet Me in Gaza
    • Hearing Birds Fly
    • Selling Olga
  • Ideas
  • Waugh on Peace
  • About
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

You, me & the dopamine gangs: how to (start) wackamoling internet trolls

In his latest incarnation, as Justifier-in-Chief for Facebook,  Nick Clegg recently described personalization as “At the heart of the internet’s revolution”. His essay, “you and the algorithm: it takes two to tango” is a long-winded glorification of recent Facebook reforms.

Clegg gleefully talks up its content-ranking (where internet searches are based on your tracked preferences, groups you join, posts you like etc), the diverse “Oversight board” who can’t be overruled by Mark Zuckerberg, and the “rich feedback loop in which our preferences and behaviour shape the service that is provided to us.” He even suggests political polarization in the US has apparently increased amongst those least likely to use the Internet. The whole shebang reads like a review written by a labrador. 

What’s most interesting is the stuff that Nick Clegg doesn’t address. Platforms deliberately cultivating social media obsessions, documented links between internet addictions and mental illness, promotion of fake news, online revenge porn, trolling, misogyny and racist abuse. I am not claiming FB is responsible for any or all of these. But they’ve been slow to respond: which is one reason footballers and athletes last week staged a four-day social media boycott.

Clegg’s blithe assurances on “how to train your algorithm” are a busted flush. He ducks the harder questions, about confronting and controlling online hatred and violence. And tax dodging. 

The new frontline

The boundaries between on and off-line violence against women are blurring. Internet abuses against female journalists are increasingly spilling offline with potentially deadly consequences. A 2020 study by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) describes online violence as the “new frontline for women journalists.” The study documented three converging threat types for women: misogynistic threats, orchestrated disinformation and security threats that increase physical risks of violence, including rape and murder.

These threats can and do rear up into physical attacks. Daphne Galizia received numerous threats before she was assassinated by a car bomb in Malta in October 2017. More recently, UN human rights experts called on the Indian government to protect investigative journalists Rana Ayyub. She has received numerous online threats of being gang raped and murdered. Rana is still courageously working despite these risks. 

This year, four women journalists have been murdered. This already represents the total number who were killed last year. Generally, though less female than male journalists are killed (partly because there are more men on conflict frontlines), women experience far more sustained and vicious online harassment. 

Humane Technology 

What is online anger all about? Is it rage against our political impotence? Do trolls troll because they can get away with it? Do people just hate each other? Take a read of this insightful study of teenagers from Denmark, Greece, Germany and the UK. It shares some interesting thoughts on individuals who launch hate attacks, and those bystanders who follow them. 

For a more in-depth exposé, have you watched “the social dilemma?” Did you secretly fancy Tristan Harris, ex-Google design ethicist (yes, who knew they had these) and his earnest dismembering of tech giants addiction models? Tristan (for some reasons I can’t call him Harris) lays out the barren online landscape of dopamine drip-feed designed  to be highly addictive.

Tristan is a co-founder of the US Center for Humane Technology. It doesn’t have all the answers, and does ask some searching questions. The center offers tool kits for managing yourself online, such as this Ledger of harms. It lists the human costs that aren’t showing up on the balance sheets of tech giants’ such as Facebook. 

Here are a some other online resources, for support and to help each of us combat online hatred, our own rages, and to take back some control. I’ve turned off all my phone notifications, and feel better for it. And I deleted Facebook. 

Photo credit: Mostafa Meraji: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 3, 2021 Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Waugh Stories Tagged With: Facebook, gender, journalists, online, technology, trolls

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Keep in touch

Sign up to receive the occasional update about my latest adventures! I won't sell your email or send you spam, promise.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

More Waugh Stories

Why comfort zones only really exist for us to trek out of them

I am on the trip of a lifetime, and miserable as all hell. My feet are soaking wet and cold, my …

Continue Reading about Why comfort zones only really exist for us to trek out of them

waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
29 Jan

It's pretty screechy here on Twitter....rebels who jump off bandwagons & think for themselves most welcome ... 'specially feminists (even though its the 🪲)
https://bit.ly/3RnMvcL

Reply on Twitter 1619805127413739521 Retweet on Twitter 1619805127413739521 Like on Twitter 1619805127413739521 Twitter 1619805127413739521
waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
29 Jan

It strikes me as horribly ironic when campaigns for trans rights become macho-misogynst -I don't agree that trans activism is a monster (as stated by Joan Smith) But I refuse to back down over public abuse of women. Because I am a woman
https://unherd.com/thepost/politicians-are-mysteriously-blind-to-trans-activists-misogyny/

Reply on Twitter 1619800283613368320 Retweet on Twitter 1619800283613368320 Like on Twitter 1619800283613368320 Twitter 1619800283613368320
waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
29 Jan

Thought about joining the Labour party, finally. And then this. Don't we have enough sexism and misogyny to fight already??

J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling

The Labour Party has a woman problem 
✍️@RosieDuffield1 @UnHerd
https://unherd.com/2023/01/the-labour-party-has-a-woman-problem/?=frlh

Reply on Twitter 1619796682224574465 Retweet on Twitter 1619796682224574465 Like on Twitter 1619796682224574465 Twitter 1619796682224574465
Load More...

Discover more

Support Samos Volunteers


samos volunteers logo

We all know this long-term crisis demands a long-term political strategy, instead of EU member states abandoning refugees, and Greek communities, to fend for themselves. In the meantime, self-organised groups like SV are on the ground seven days a week, working alongside refugees on Samos, to make life in the camp more bearable.

HELP NOW

Footer

Copyright © 2023 Louisa Waugh · Design by Form & Function built on WordPress · Log in