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posted by janrinok on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the troll-on-trolling dept.

Paraphrasing an article by Time Magazine's Joel Stein:

The Internet's personality has changed -- once it was like a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now the web is a sociopath with Asperger's. [ Submitter's note: the "Sociopath with Asperger's" comment is not my addition, but a verbatim phrase in the source article ]

The people who relish their online freedom to act under influence of the online disinhibition effect are called "trolls." Trolling is, overtly, a political fight; but it has become the main tool of the alt-right, an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men's rights and against immigration. They derisively call their adversaries "social justice warriors" and believe that liberal interest groups purposely exploit their weaknesses to gain pity, which allows them to control the leverage of political power.

When sites are overrun by trolls, they drown out the voices of women, ethic and religious minorities, gays -- anyone who might feel vulnerable. The alt-right argues that if you can't handle opprobrium, you should just turn off your computer. But that's arguing against self-expression, something antithetical to the original values of the Internet.

The article closes with a description of an exchange between Stein and a detractor. In meeting the detractor in real-life, he was surprised by her lack of bravado, to which she responds, "The Internet is the realm of the coward. These are people who are all sound and no fury."

Stein ruminates in response, "Maybe. But maybe, in the information age, sound is as destructive as fury."


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:41PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:41PM (#390554) Journal

    Oh. My. God.

    You do realize that the term was in usage way before /pol/ ever existed? I'll admit, my post was an inebriated meandering anecdote. The only origin I will accept that involves /pol/ is its use as a political buzzword. I am not going to go all the way to the library just to get you a proper etymology out of the OED, so you're going to have to settle for Wiktionary [wiktionary.org]:

    From Middle English cokolde, cokewold, cockewold, kukwald, kukeweld, from Old French cucuault; a compound of cucu ‎(“cuckoo”) (some varieties of the cuckoo bird lay their eggs in another’s nest) and Old French -auld. Cucu is either a directly derived onomatopoeic derivative of the cuckoo's call, or from Latin cuculus. Latin cuculus is a compound of onomatopoeic cucu (compare Late Latin cucus) and the diminutive suffix -ulus. -auld is from Frankish *-wald (similar suffixes are used in some personal names within other Germanic languages as well; confer English Harold, for instance), a suffixal note of Frankish *wald ‎(“power, mastery, dominion”), from Proto-Germanic *waldą ‎(“might, power, authority”), from *waldaną ‎(“to rule”), from Proto-Indo-European *wal- ‎(“to be strong”). Appears in Middle English in noun form circa 1250 as cokewald. First known use of the verb form is 1589.

    cuckold ‎(plural cuckolds)

    1. A man married to an unfaithful wife, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.
    2. A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus.
    3. The cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.

    Boom. Done. You're welcome. It has always, since back in the 13th century day, had a reproductive denotation and a sexual connotation with overtones of sexual domination through trickery. Is that not what's meant? My fucking apologies if people who are using it have no fucking clue what it actually fucking means. I mean, fuck.

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