Twitter needs to do some busting of its own

Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristin Wiig 
and Leslie Jones played the Ghostbusters in its 2016 rebo

As everyone who has a social media account probably knows by now, and this is probably ancient news by now, Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones was cyberbullied on Twitter.

The cyberbullying, which is really just another name for harassing and intimidating people on social media, consisted of messages to Jones that were racist and sexist in nature. It was pretty nasty and much of it will leave a person wondering why and how people say such horrible things and at the same time feel justified in doing so.

Jones decided to make some of these posts public, sharing them to her Twitter feed. Her intent was meant to shed light on the sort of harassment that she, women of color and women in general often face when it comes to social media.

In some ways she was successful. A dialogue started and one of the people accused of instigating and encouraging the whole thing, alt-right blogger Milo Yiannopoulos, got a lifetime ban from Twitter.

But, of course, sharing those posts publicly also brought even more harassment. For many Internet trolls, getting a response from a celebrity is the pinnacle of trolling. Having the celebrity share the post publicly is like an actor or director winning an Oscar.

Sure, when I brought up that Jones responding to and sharing these posts started a piranha-like feeding frenzy, I was criticized by angry supporters. Since nuance is not a thing on the Internet, I was not saying that she should ignore them. I wasn't even saying she shouldn't share the sort of harassment sh was getting. What I didn't agree with was the fact that she actually chose to interact with them, directly responding to them on her Twitter feed. 

By choosing to respond to them, either with her own insults or castigations, Jones essentially dived into a swimming pool full of glue. By doing that, she only made things stickier the further she waded in and allowed the people harassing her to redefine it as a “free speech” issue. Now, the hashtag #freemilo has become a thing, turning a guy that most people never heard of into an Internet celebrity and the face of the “fight politically-correct censorship” movement.

Part of the reason trolls do what they do is because they are anonymous. They can say anything they want, short of threats to the President or terrorist attacks, without repercussions. From this veil of anonymity, they can indulge their frustrations and prejudices, unleashing them in an onslaught of bile without fear of having to own up to them. Twitter is exceptionally bad for this, while Facebook is less so since it requires people to use actual names … not that there's ways around that too.

I'm usually pretty entertained by insults directed toward me. As a columnist, it makes me feel like I've made an impression. But at the same time, I'm white and male, which means I'm not the usual target demographic for trolls. As we learned with the whole Gamergate fiasco, women get the worst of it from trolls. It goes both ways, since Yiannopoulos supporter Kassy Dillon appears to be getting online harassment as well, as she has shared ones saying she should be killed or kill herself.

Gamergate was the name for an online war that started in 2014. As many people outside the gaming and Internet world were left scratching their heads about why it was a big deal, an online campaign was launched that targeted several women in the video game industry. 

The ignition point was a blog post by a former boyfriend of game developer Zoe Quinn accusing her of entering a relationship with a journalist in exchange for positive coverage.  Those who supported the ex-boyfriend organized themselves under the Twitter hashtag #Gamergate and began harassment campaigns not only against Quinn, but also prominent women developers and bloggers. The attacks were coordinated through forums and included doxing (researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an person). threats of rape and death threats.

Gamergate highlighted why often times, trolling is not something that can be ignored. It was a situation that not only saw women targeted with online harassment, but also threats that impacted their real lives. Many of the women involved had their physical addresses released as well as their phone numbers. It essentially crossed the line into stalking and for many of them, it was even worse because there was no way to tell if someone was actually out there, waiting to harm them or not. They couldn't be sure if the ghosts were figments of their imagination or if they were actually out there, hiding in the shadows, waiting to harm them.

So, that's why it's wrong to dismiss online harassment as something that can “just be ignored.” Particularly when it comes to women, who are disproportionately the targets.

The question is “what can be done about it?” That is what really seems to elude people right now.

The thing is, if nothing is done, Twitter will pay the price. It's still the go-to as far live feed for mainstream and online media, the coverage of the Democratic and Republican convention is an example of that. But how much longer before an alternative steps up and offers something Twitter doesn't: a willingness to crackdown on trolls. They say people vote with their feet and the principle holds true on the Internet, except that people vote with their clicks.

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How about a side of clickbait?

By Joseph Price • May 19, 2016

Originally published in the Batesville Daily Guard

So would someone tell me when posts by a bunch of nobodies on the Twitter or Facebook accounts of well-known individuals became newsworthy?

I’m not talking about the posts by the actual public figure, but the posts made in response to them. Somehow, those posts are being passed off as “news.”

It’s a trend that I’ve noticed lately. It really jumped out last week when a former colleague of mine, who now works in Oregon, shared an article called “Bernie Sanders Fanatics At

tack Anne Rice and George Takei.”

Unable to resist something that would annoy me at that moment, I pressed my screen and was directed to an “article” on a site called Modern Liberal which basically said “people who like Bernie Sanders said mean things to the Vampire Lady and Sulu” and proceeded to have a long list of copy and paste Facebook posts and Tweets of people saying they were unhappy with those people’s support of Hillary. Aside from some inarticulate and self-righteous posting, none of it seemed too offensive.

Most recently, I saw another friend post something similar from the Huffington Post about how Old Navy smacked down racists on its Twitter feed. It’s great that Old Navy did that, but a bunch of racist nobodies posting on social media is nothing new. That sort of thing goes back to the beginnings of the Internet boom and it wasn’t news back then.

All that I got out of those two “stories” is that I was looking at really lazy journalism, if you could call it journalism at all.

I mean, seriously, I could go on any famous person’s or business’ Facebook or Twitter account and cherry pick comments and make a quick “story” out of it as well. Anyone could do it actually. It’s not even journalism, it’s just copy and pasting.

Now, I’m not the sort of person who longs for the good-old-days that never existed. If you look at them with a critical eye, the “good old days” weren’t really that good. But something like this that passes for journalism now makes me long for the days that news was informative and clickbait didn’t exist.

“What is clickbait?” those not in on the lingo of the Internet might ask.

Well, clickbait is content that’s main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page. It’s pretty much become the dominant form of “news” delievery on social media and is largely full of irrelevant topics that are usually recycled and lack any worthwhile substance.

I mean, why should I really care if John Smith left a mean Facebook post for Chuck Norris because he supported Mike Huckabee? Is Jane Smith telling Bernie Sanders that Hillary has better hair newsworthy? Will people even bother to remember those people after they closed the page? Are we particularly informed by any of this?

One particular Facebook post I remember that made national news, at least on the Internet, was a post that originated on the KARK page in 2015. It was right on the heels of the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. A man was upset about the decision and accused the NBC affiliate of having rainbow colors on its peacock logo. It was pointed out to the man that the colors had always been that way. Funny, but not really earth-shaking. But within a couple of days, the man’s post was plastered across the Internet, with once-reputable sites like Raw Story and Buzzfeed taking not and doing stories of their own. It got a lot of clicks and Mr. Don Stair apparently got a lot of feedback for it, closing his account, according to Raw Story.

That’s just one example. Now it seems that anyone can get 0.15 seconds of fame if they respond angry or mean enough to someone or something on Facebook or Twitter.

To me, it’s like splashing “Red Butte High Student calls Kirk Douglas Old” across the front page. Sure, some may find it offensive, but who cares what some anonymous kid says? Is anyone going to care or even remember five minutes later?

But apparently they do, because when someone shares one of these “stories” online, they get responses on their own feed in return. It’s like a piranha finding a meal and then other piranhas show up to eat that piranha and even more piranhas show up to eat those piranhas and so on.

Am I supposed to change my mind about a particular politician because some of their supporters make inarticulate, stupid or outright crazy posts on Facebook? Is that really supposed to make me rethink the issues?

If the answer is supposed to be “yes” then I guess I’m missing something. But then, maybe it’s just the mess that’s the Internet where that sort of thing may be considered news. I just don’t see it.

Thus is the world of clickbait.

I don’t like it, but I guess I’m stuck with it. And sometimes, I’m going to bite.