Anonymous trolls give free speech a bad name
Does slapping on a pseudonym and bashing people on the internet qualify as free speech?
A few months ago, I got involved with an online forum. I published an essay which was not, to put it mildly, universally well-loved, and readers took to said forum to tell me why. Although eclectic in genre, style and composition, the comments – all four hundred of them - were remarkably consistent in their message: you suck. I was called a “pompous ass”, a “vindictive fragile snob”, an “authoress” and a “young lady”. I was told to “listen to what the gentleman says” and asked if, like all beautiful women, I wrote in order to be “flattered for my intellect.” “You can take a girl out of Eastern bloc, but you cannot take Eastern bloc out of a girl,” someone piped up, randomly. Things started to get out of hand, but, just in time, a wise old man stepped in to mediate. “Don’t judge her so harshly,” he pleaded, “she is a woman, after all. And it doesn’t mean that women are stupid...” Snubs shot through my screen in a frenetic salvo, and it soon became clear that any hope of winning my readers’ esteem was futile. So when the call for my cancellation inevitably arrived - “This author deserves to be cancelled… for something. I don’t know what” - I accepted it with quiet resignation.
I stayed on this rather minor forum for over a month, and I got to know its curious inhabitants. Some were apparently retired, some about to be, some claimed to be in the type of jobs of which there are so many, but the purpose of which I never quite understood. A few scientists on science’s fringes, a few academics of an obscure kind. A handful of students. Why would a student go on a message board? With the endless opportunities for exchange of ideas that campus life provides? One student posted a photo. It reminded me of a character in The Brothers Karamazov: “He looked as if he desperately wanted to hit you, but, also, as if he was desperately afraid that you would hit him back.”
They seemed tight, this group, with their rules and hierarchies, their friendships and rivalries, their fights and reconciliations, their dressings down and pats on the back. “You’re abusive, nasty, vituperative, and hiding behind the mantle of a victim!” the mod bellowed at some hapless woman. So intense was his passion, so profound his pain... I half-expected him to break into verse.
Sounds like a regular club, you might say. Except it was not. With a few exceptions, all members were anonymous. They posted under pseudonyms. They did not know who the person at the other screen was - just as they did not know how much of what he told them was true. And so all those spirited exchanges, all those “relationships”, all that comédie humaine, was played out anonym to anonym, avatar to avatar, mask to mask.
One fellow claimed he had a physics PhD, a cloudless marriage, a large and happy family. His life was perfect, he wanted everyone to know. And yet he spent hours a day, every day, posting on a website. On this forum, his closest mate said he was a farm supplier. He wrote in highfalutin, fumbled for words and struggled with compound sentences. But, to be fair, so did the physics PhD. Was he really a PhD? Did he really have a family? Was he even a he? They will never know. This avatar could leave the forum tomorrow, and all the others will be left with are the stories it had spieled.
You would think that a thread of four hundred posts would generate some valuable insights. Regrettably, not many came - except that the author is stupid, the academic discipline she studied (philology) is stupid, she lied on her CV and, also, she looks sweaty in her Twitter photo. For the uninformed, this is called free speech - and this forum was a bastion of its self-professed defenders. All these good men and women claimed to be doing was “politely disagreeing” with my article and subjecting it to the criticism that it deserved.
And this, of course, is commendable: bad writing needs to be challenged, poor arguments corrected. My commenters were advancing intellectual discourse. I would even go as far as saying that they performed a public service. But then, forgive me, why the pen names? Why not say what you have to say loud and clear? People who stand by their views are proud to show their face.
Nah, this was not free speech - this was yapping. A toy poodle growling at passers-by from the safety of the windowsill. As soon as it is kicked outside, it will crouch and cower: a feeble, skittish little creature whimpering between its master’s legs. Same with anonymous trolls. “I checked your Twitter feed, and you are rubbish,” a smug voice posits. Well, be a good sport and show me yours. That way we can talk man to man. No? Well, isn’t that a bit too easy? “When I come to this forum, I expect to get insulted. Why are some authors so sensitive?” another wonders. My laid-back friend, it does not take a genius to see the difference. When they insult you, they insult an egg-shaped symbol with a picture of Scooby-Doo. When they insult me, their insinuations will forever sit on the internet next to my good name.
My arguments apply to anonymous trolls - not to reader comments in general on well-moderated sites. This is an important distinction. The platform that hosted my essay had thousands of visitors, but the vitriolic racket was created by only a few dozen louts. I imagine the other readers did what readers normally do: read my piece, posted a comment or two, and moved on. Some of the comments were also very good. Not surprisingly, most of them came from readers who posted under their real name.
Although internet trolls seem ubiquitous, in reality, they are not that many. This is the good news. The bad news is that, where they lack in numbers, they make up in garrulity – and, for this reason, they can do a lot of damage. Most significantly, internet trolls are capable of undermining free speech.
For over a month, as comments to my essay rolled in, I watched the things that matter most – my home country, the academic discipline that I revere, my professional integrity – ridiculed for sport by a bunch of punks, with no other reason but to wind me up. And wind me up they managed, because I started to respond. In the end, the thought of this forum made me want to vomit, and I resolved never to subject myself to such experience again. From now on, I would only write for the readers who shared my views. If this meant preaching to the converted, perpetuating the bubble, indulging in insularity, preventing ideas from being scrutinised and complexity of the issues addressed – so be it.
But then something happened. The forum threatened to shut down. Horrified by the prospect of living their lives without each other, the trolls’ collective spirit took a high flight and resulted in a feverish thread blazing with anger, grief and denial. And sometimes poetry: “This isn’t goodbye. I don’t want to believe it! We are NOT done. This is NOT goodbye.” These words reminded me of my high school graduation, when, after ten glorious years of walking through life hand in hand, my classmates and I were parting ways for good.
But the forum people... they have never even met. They come online in camouflage and, whatever “friendships” they imagine they form, are based on concealment and, I’m sure, a fair amount of fibs. They do not even know each others’ names. Yet on learning the news of the closure of the direct messaging facility, they plunge into violent rage. Forgive me, but this is not normal. In fact, it is quite deranged. Can these people be taken seriously?
As I was writing this article, I checked out some other forums. They all reminded me of the one time, many years ago, when I visited a strip club: same bravado on the outside, same desperation underneath. This does not apply to everyone, of course. There are people who join message boards or social media sites with the genuine intention of discussing ideas and exploring topics of common interest. But then there are people who don’t. Empty of matter, prodigious of output, and with unlimited supply of spare time, they come to obsess and bully. As a result, other members leave - and so do the authors. I am all for free speech, I truly am, but when a thread descends into a discussion of my breasts, this is where I draw the line.
But then again, does slapping on a pseudonym and bashing people on the internet qualify as free speech? I guess it does – but it is free speech of the most primitive variety. It does not take a lot of guts. What does take guts, however, is fighting for your values fairly, facing your opponents honourably and - most important of all - having the courage of your convictions to look the world in the eye and take the consequences.
“A rebellion of castrates”, as Nietzsche may have dubbed my message board adventure. “A rabblement of the lonely and the unfulfilled”, as I will call it, more charitably. Wretched souls they are, these internet louts: hopping from message board to message board, social media platform to social media platform, copying here, pasting there, using a multitude of names. When one forum kicks them out, they come straight back under a different moniker. Some people know they will never be much. But trolling on a website makes them at least something.
If the forum makes good on its promise and shuts down, I wonder what these orphaned avatars will do. Will they turn their energies to more meaningful pursuits? I doubt it. More likely, they will try to exhume the remains of this forum and continue their perverse camaraderie on another blog. Because who else would have them, apart from other avatars?
As I say, not to be taken seriously. Or, better still, to be ignored.
