Russian-Paid Trolls, Fake News, and Meme Creators

No matter where your political affiliations lie with the 2016 American Presidential Election, the video below is a must see.

Leave it to a Canadian comedian Samantha Bee to discover that most of the pro-Donald Trump Internet traffic and negative Hillary Clinton traffic was created by Russian-paid cyber trolls.

Chances are the links and memes you've been sharing, the ones that support your point of view was created by a foreign government for the sole purpose of interfering with the results of the election.

So when you look at your Twitter and Facebook feeds, how's that working?

Не забывайте голосовать. (Don't forget to vote.)

Winter is Coming for 4chan

Slime attracts slime. 4chan could be out of business unless the world's most hated man gives it a financial boost.

In the meantime, no decent human being is about to lose any sleep over the fact that Hiroyuki Nishimura can no longer afford to keep the dark web site afloat. 

He's had trouble finding advertisers. Gee, no kidding. This is the man responsible for allowing those hacked iPhone naked photos of celebs to circulate. His basket of horrible people have not only bought and sold hacked material, but created bomb threats, tried to convince teenagers to kill themselves, and is the place to go when you're looking for a cheap hitman. 

When you travel the abyss, an anal fissure is going to gorge your hollow excuse of a life. Winter is coming, bitch.

So Nishimura's options are: charge a fee for better access, downsize the available cyberspace, accept ads from malware plants, or get Martin Shkreli to bail you out. You know, the guy who hiked up the life-saving AIDS medication 5000 percent.

Maybe he can accept the last two scenarios. Accept malware-laden ads and Shkreli's financial boost. Then the malware can infect the 4chan servers, Shkreli's and all the cybertroll members' devices and have them sort through the same Internet pain they've given everybody else times 1000.

We're Human Beings, Man

This is heartbreaking. You may remember Paris Jackson as the "leave Britney alone" girl when she posted a YouTube video about all the Internet comments Britney Spears was getting for some of her behavior.

She received so much abuse over her public fame that she tried to commit suicide. She was 14 years old. Fortunately, she did not succeed.

What Paris did do was take a hiatus from social media. Upon her return, the abuse resumed. For God's sake, people. She's only 18 now.

But it doesn't matter if she's 18, 38, or 78, nobody deserves the hate trolling that some think the Internet has given them license for. A pox on all of these assholes. 

The world needs more caring people like Paris Jackson, so leave Paris alone! 

Race, Body, and Slut Shaming -- Shame on You for Shaming

(Warning: I am not going to talk nice in this entry.)

Didn't your mother always tell you that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? Then why the hell do you think it's okay do talk shit on Twitter?

Behind every social media account is a real live, breathing human being. Yes, that includes celebrities, too. Even the trolls and bullies are real people behind their sometimes anonymous avatars. But for some reason, there are people representing the lowest denominator of society, because their lives suck, they have to make everyone else's suffer.

Now we're not talking the fun memes we see circulating. While they make fun of someone's very public error, they're not intended to seriously hurt someone. In fact, a really good meme can actually get a nodding approval from the target, such as the original Texts from Hillary. There are some very clever and humorous tweets that also play into a high profile train wreck, such as the Melania Trump speech at the 2016 Republican Convention. It's like a Saturday Night Live skit. Consider it an honor that so many people took such an invested effort to feature you. It compounds the mistake, but the furor is short-lived. There will be memes that keep their staying power, usually an image, but for the most part, there is no malice intended with these kind of posts.

When they get vile, nasty, and highly personal, that's when you have a problem. Here are some terrible examples, but they are tame compared to some:

No plagiarism here, folks. These are screenshots of real tweets, and some may even be real names. Because like we see in racism and bigotry, haters are proud of their opinions.

You don't always win if you try to engage a troll or cyberbully. In fact, it adds fuel to their toxic fire. They live for it. Crave it. You know why? It's the only time anyone will acknowledge their miserable existence. 

A lot of the targets are female and especially females who are non-white. But, when it comes to body shaming, and hell, even slut shaming, women can be the worst culprits. No surprise, really. As a female, if you've ever worked in an all-female office, there is a lot of "Ooh, she did this and that." "Did you see what she was wearing?" The Mean Girls cafeteria is a real thing.

Kudos to Jennifer Aniston for going on the offensive. It probably thrilled the trolls to start their engines, but hey, she was at least able to control her message. And she did not address anyone directly. That's the key. A shut down can work and spread like wildfire because it empowers the others who have been there. Usually, they are not directed at one troll, but sometimes they can be. When that happens and the shutdown spreads, it's a beautiful thing. The troll can't usually fight back because his toxic excrement gets lost in the positive energy.

So Dear Shamers: 

Race shamers: Our DNA roots us all from Africa. Get over yourself. Barak Obama is your very distant cousin.

Body shamers: I'll bet the last time you looked in the mirror, you didn't see Ryan Gosling or Jennifer Lawrence staring back at you.

Slut shamers: Just because you haven't been laid in decades (or see the answer to body shamers above) ... and you probably just gave your girlfriend or boyfriend gonorrhea.

How to Piss off Your Trolls

How dare you.

What were you thinking? You know when you post an opinion about anything, some troll is going to crap in your space. It might even be someone you like.

There are other Internet trolls whose mission from their perceived god is to make life as miserable and ugly as possible for others. Why? Because they have nothing better to do. They'd rather get all up in your space than find a life of their own. All you have to do is be breathing.

Some trolls are outright cyberbullies. They don't just post contrary and negative opinions or get personal and tell you you're ugly, fat, nobody loves you, or whatever. They've got to take it a step further and cross that line to cyber-crime and purposefully try to destroy your online reputation and business.

The universal response for all three types of trolls is ignore. Do not respond. They live for that. If you do, the conversation will escalate and you will have dug yourself an impossible trench. However, if the comment is really ugly, or if it is a cyberslur, delete it and block that person from being able to post in your space again.

But do you want to know what really pisses off a troll? Ignoring their existence, for one. Going about your business as if nothing ever happened, for another. What this does is two things. One: it allows you to take control of your own Internet, regardless of what others may say about you. Two: You absolutely can't let them win.

Any response or acknowledgement you provide to an ugly post means they win. So stop it. Don't do it. If you have to sit on your hands, scream at the ceiling, and chisel the block button -- never let them see they have got your goat. It isn't easy. It may hurt like hell, but your only hope of sanity is to piss them the hell off.

Internet Troll Clubs

The troll community isn't just your Twitter feed or YouTube comments. It's a real thing. The cyber world is full of online coffee shops where trolls hang out, trade notes, and offer praise. They learn from each other how to be better anarchists.

In these community and forums, anything is on the table. Disruption is the game. It's pretty hard to get banned from one of these feeds. Some of these discussion boards are on the regular web; others are on the dark web.

This is a place where one can brag about their trolling escapades. Here, trolls even troll other trolls.

You've got trolls who publish guides on how to be a better troll, such as A Beginner's Guide to Internet Trolling. In fact, one quick Google search and there are too many troll manuals.

The Allow Comments Button: Is It A Two-edged Sword?

We know that Twitter and Reddit can turn ugly over a single moment or hashtag and that Wordpress can turn into an onslaught of spam, that YouTube can be the King of Mean.

What is it about being able to comment on the Internet that turns people into assholes?

Comments on YouTube can be so bad, that Google tried to force its users to have to log into a Google + account, thinking that showing their identity might curb the nasty. Well, it worked so well that it was announced in July 2015, the alliance was over.

Mean-spirited comments even has the psychology community trying to assess some of the reasons. Anonymity may be one reason, but still. How many of us are inclined to set up fake profiles just for the sake of harassing someone?

While there are some mean comments that actually come out as humorous, but there are some that are so hateful that you have to flag the users as a cyberbully, block, and ban them from all of your media.

You don't have to look far to find a mean comment. There are many taking to video to read them aloud. Besides exposing these bullies for who they are (and why do they all write like they are illiterate?), the act of reading them diminishes their power.

Twitter can be an ugly place for women

We know that largely it is the bad guys who seem to get more press than those who are doing good. The people just going about their daily chores, minding their business, who have made some online connections, share a few photos and stories on social media, who are not on the public radar, are not immune to cyberbullies and trolls. But for anyone who has been in the #trending box or has had any sort of celebrity whatsoever -- these are the people who especially seem to attract the worst of the worst. Or you just have to be a female.

This story was recently shared by my media colleague +Alex Ruiz on Facebook:

Twitter can be an ugly place for women in sports media - The Cauldron - SI.com

It doesn't take much to elicit the ire of a troll. You only have to exist. And for some, if you're female, you are all that is wrong with the world. I guess these trolls must really hate their mothers.

You don't have to "feed the troll" to fight back. In fact, even a troll will admit that any response from his or her target will act as rocket fuel. Expect the abuse to lock into higher gear.

When the tweets get to the point that they are libelous or they egg on criminal behavior, what you can do is document every post with their Twitter handle beside it. Keep a detailed file and make two copies: one for you and one for your police report for when the abuse crosses the line from pure hatred to actual threats. Include any of their Twitter buddies who favored, replied, or shared their hateful tweets (with their Twitter handles), then go back and report and block all of their sorry little asses.

If there are too many, find someone to assist you or hire someone to take that task off your hand. The last thing you should do is close your Twitter account. I just want to scream when people do that. It means you let those bastards win. When one troll wins, they all win.

Although police departments are not necessarily equipped with the ability to fight Internet crime, or know what it is, still file a police report when it truly crosses the line to cyberbullying or you feel physically threatened. Having a police file number is a bit like a security blanket. Even if the police don't pursue the case, that piece of paper validates your experience, if nothing else, for yourself.

It's also good for you to know that some trolls are being jailed for their behavior. It doesn't mean they're sorry, but it does mean the laws are changing to your favor.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/isabella-sorley-john-nimmo-interview 

Hold your head high and spit in the trolls' direction. One of the best empowering tools comes from +Jimmy Kimmel Live with his Mean Tweets. There are others, but it is so important not to let a troll draw you into becoming like them.

5 Tips to Manage Your Trolls

1.

Here are five steps to manage your Internet trolls:

1. Post a policy on all of your social media sites that you will not tolerate bullying, spammers, and abusive trolls that hijack your feeds. Warn them that their comments will be deleted and they may be blocked.

2. Set up notifications for the comments on your feeds so that you can address an abusive or spam post once it hits your social media.

3. Assess if the post is hateful, spam, or just an adverse opinion and warrants being deleted or kept.

4. Delete the post if it doesn't serve a meaningful discussion.

5. If the user shows up again to hijack your feed in the same way, take them out of your media. If you suspect they are not a real person (a phisher) or if they've been abusive in any way, then don't hesitate to block and report them.