10.27.11
Feeding the Mentally Ill
Summary: How to deal — bar censorship — with Internet trolls who by their own words (and record) have mental disorders
IT HAS been over a year since time was last wasted on trolls by making a blog post. This was done mostly in 2009 when trolling peaked and even included agents of Microsoft, who disclosed they were working for Microsoft after some pressure, whereupon we filed a complaint that was answered by the FTC.
I am not fond of the term “mentally ill” because it implies deformity of dysfunction in something which is anatomically very unique (neurons), but some past trolls who dedicated a considerable amount of their time to attacking yours truly and this Web site in fact suffered some psychological issues for which there is a formal record and a long history. We are not going to name names.
“We never practised censorship or deletionism in almost 5 years of running the site (this is one of our strengths), but just the right to speak does not warrant a privilege for response.”We never practised censorship or deletionism in almost 5 years of running the site (this is one of our strengths), but just the right to speak does not warrant a privilege for response. We banned one account of a mental case who was issuing nasty threats against readers and editors of the site. Intimidation is where one crosses the line and it’s no longer just trolling. We need to filter mentally, not technically. Or rather, freedom of speech is not the right to an audience. So we ask readers to please refrain from responding to trolls. It is a waste of everybody’s time and it gives the trolls exactly what they want and provoke for. It encourages more of the same.
Mental illness is not an illness per se, but it causes problems in society, which is why some of us are considered safer when psychopaths are locked up are looked after, unable to harass the society around them. They do not commit any crime, but stalking does have some special rules while some of the deranged people spread libel deliberately and then link to this libel to help ‘validate’ it. Such people are unfit to live with the civilisation surrounding them and this is why mental institutions exist.
People who have read this site for a few years will probably know who we are referring to here. There was an infamous ACCESS troll and others who are mentally ill, with documents, eager to dedicate their entire life to battling people, not massive corporations that break the law. Some of them launch entire Web sites just to attack one person (or 20 Web sites to attack just a handful of people and post pornographic photos of them). For such people to roam the Web is a licence to abuse, having gone in and out of the psychiatrists, then into this blog, IRC channels, etc. with the intent of poisoning it all. One of them, in his own words says that “based on my anxiety disorder I have seen a number of professionals.”
When running Techrights it is better to concentrate on the issues rather than spend time on mental cases and people who are compulsively obsessed with what the site says. Therefore it will be the last kind request that we should just ignore the trolls. They are not being responded to not because they are right but because they are trolls. And just the existence of this post will probably make them excited and well fed for a while. █
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