Trolling of Watts’ family exposes the other dark web
Frank Rzucek lost his beautiful daughter Shanann Watts, two granddaughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, and unborn grandson, Niko, when his son-in-law murdered them nearly a year ago. Now he and his family have to contend with cyberbullying, conspiracy-mongering and other online harassment.
“We have been subject to false accusations, fake Facebook accounts, hate speeches and a constant stream of ugly, evil insults and attacks,” Rzucek said at the news conference Monday where he pleaded for an end to the cruel behavior.
Unfortunately, people monstrous enough to troll a grieving family are unlikely to repent after such a plea. If anything, the trolls may find gratification in a father’s visible anguish. Stopping online harassment is no easy task for a variety of reasons.
Social media provides new opportunities for sadistic people
to victimize people. A pair of studies found that internet trolls share four common traits; they are sadistic, manipulative, psychopathic and narcissistic. “Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling. … Thus cybertrolling appears to be an internet manifestation of everyday sadism,” the studies conclude.
Social media also amplifies the cruelty of sadists whose malevolence in simpler times would have been limited to a more immediate circle of victims.
Online platforms also trigger disinhibition causing people to act with greater intensity and frequency online than in person. The anonymity, invisibility and diminished presence of authority bring out the bully in some people who would otherwise act decently. Like the nice guy who becomes a mean drunk, the social media loosens what should remain restrained.
Sadly, trolling behavior can have a snowball effect. A recent study found that if an ordinary person is in a bad mood and is exposed to nasty posts, he may join in the fray. Social media can be like the island in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Take away law, order and shame; add fear, the desire for power and tribal solidarity, and even choir boys will descend into savagery.
Stopping this descent continues to bedevil media companies. In a perfect world, people who troll victims of violence and their families would experience dental work sans anesthesia. In an imperfect world, social media giants are trying to create a platform for free expression without empowering trolls, Russian propaganda and conspiracy-theory mongering. The results have been mixed.
Part of this can be attributed to the sheer amount of internet content posted to major social media. There are over 2.4 billion monthly active users on Facebook. In the United States, 68 percent of Americans use Facebook. Only YouTube boasts a larger percentage (73 percent). Facebook has some 35,000 employees. In the first quarter of 2018, they removed 3.5 million pieces of violent content, 2.5 million pieces of hate speech, and 21 million pieces of adult nudity and sexual activity. Given the large volume of content processed daily, it’s not surprising that Facebook algorithms fail to flag offensive content or flag and remove harmless content. In the past year, Facebook dismissed my complaint against a nasty post on my public Facebook page but deleted my weather-related posts about Colorado’s bomb cyclone.
People are beginning to question whether methods to patrol social media may be biased. Last year Facebook had to apologize for removing video content by mainstream conservative Dennis Prager. The Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal also received an apology from Facebook. The media giant had deleted a video of a doctor warning about the dangers of giving children puberty blockers. Facebook restored the video after public outcry. Recently Pinterest banned an influential pro-life organization, Live Action. And, Reddit changed their algorithms to restrict a Donald Trump fan online community. Were these isolated incidents or a growing trend, mistakes or calculated actions?
Given their market dominance, could efforts to control social media result in silenced voices and the quashing of debate? How can social media better draw a line between truly offensive posts and information about controversial subjects that some people find offensive? Should they draw a line at all?
If more people deleted nasty posts and muted, unfriended, and blocked trolls, we could marginalize a vicious minority while keeping this valuable marketplace of ideas free.