The trolls have organized, industrialized, and multiplied like cockroaches. They have also changed from a few phbb forum assholes posting to stir shit and bait people to agenda-driven agents of propaganda. They no longer subsist on lols from making people mad, they get paid money or tribal power.
Also, F the victim blaming that, what…? People should sit back and let the trolls have it all? The fault isn’t with the individuals replying, it’s with the service provider that willingly accepts and pushes such activity for profit and engagement.
Really nobody in the thread is going to talk about Kremlin disinformation campaigns? That’s absolutely part of it.
Everyone acting like this is a problem with algorithms or whatever. Nah, algorithms have nothing to do with it. Humans are just this stupid and will follow their desire to be “right” even if it leads them off a cliff. I mean, Lemmy loves feeding trolls. No one on Lemmy seems to understand the concept of “block and move on” (not that I’m totally guilt-free, I love feeding trolls for the same reason I love feeding campfires).
No one on Lemmy will just ignore the trolls. Quite honestly, I’m wondering if the Internet should adopt a new strategy: mock the troll-feeders. If you catch someone engaging with a troll, you start making fun of them for feeding it. Make it clear that’s why you’re mocking them. Then maybe they’ll grow a brain and stop feeding them (except intentionally, because that’s honestly kinda fun sometimes).
I’m so happy I was introduced to the 'net in the 90’s - when the mantra was “don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
It’s too bad that fell out of vogue.
I feel like back in the day trolling was more of an art where you’d say something stupid to expose someone’s cognitive dissonance.
Now it just refers to people being dicks. Trolling itself has become enshittified.
the best trolls rarely spoke. one of the great troll artists of kongregate forums had only 50 comments yet left a lasting legacy
In my days trolling used to mean something
Except it’s not their fault. At least, not entirely. Every single fucking centralized social platform tweaks its content algorithm to drive engagement, and they found that the best way was to piss you off. They shove it in your face until you can’t help but say something to fight the unending flow of utter bullshit.
That’s true, though the simple solution is to not be on such platforms. You do not have to let them “shove it in your face until you can’t help it”.
Yet are we not on Lemmy, flooded with posts detailling every little thing that Musk and Trump do?
all hail keyword filter blockers! nowadays i only see trumpet/muskat in posts that don’t mention their names in the title, and tbf i don’t mind staying a little informed on their latest pro-dystopia moves, but now it’s not as much a firehose of bullshit to my face every day all day, but an occasional squirt gun hit
Block them or move to another platform. I block everyone on Facebook who feels the need to make negative comments, regardless of whether I expect to encounter them again. Really cleans up the place.
I have to keep my LinkedIn for business reasons but recently I noticed a big uptick in fascist-adjacent posting. At first it depressed me big time but then I started blocking and a couple weeks and dozen blocks later it was over. Turns out a small number of people can really give the impression of a crowd and fuck with the whole experience.
