Paper #3

Trolling and Cyber-Bullying

            Civility is a term that is coined to mean formal politeness or courtesy, and this can be applied in both behavior and speech.  Despite the fact that civility should be an inevitable manner that is taken on by everyone, it can be seen more and more that civility among people is becoming more and more of a rarity. The people of the world seem to have a fascination with the idea of calling each other out, whether it be morally correct or not. The fact of the matter is, the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place everyday. People make connections through social medias, Internet, and cell phones constantly. The Internet is a young technological invention, but is the most rapid growing and the most obsessive addiction of this generation. With the idea of blogging, posting, and sharing thoughts on the worldwide web, threats arise in the forms of trolling, cyber-bullying, and hate comments. These threats are arising due to incivility, rudeness and bad morals. Yet the “trollers” and “bullies” feel no remorse, because in the online world, it is so easy to fake an identity and hide behind a screen. Deception and manipulation push trolls and bullies to continue what they are doing, and hurting people just due to the fact that they know they cannot be caught. This causes an issue of concern for the public in regards to political incivility, and if nothing is done to debunk the problem it will continue to creep into the center of our discourse. In order to propose a solution to the question of how the trolling and cyber-bullying phenomenon can be lessened to a degree, or even stopped completely; several approaches have been brought to light.  In this paper, political incivility and anonymity in the world today will be analyzed through many different pieces of work including videos, news articles, and journals; and I will present my position as well as propose a solution to this overall problem of incivility in the online world.

            In efforts to solve the incivility crisis that is suddenly rising due to the Internet as well as all forms of social media, many solutions have been presented. These solutions can best be described as three potential resolutions; the “rules of discourse” position, the ban or restriction of anonymity, and the redefining of incivility. All of these presented solutions differ in their approaches to the problem, yet all of them have the central goal of creating a better online world for all. To look further into each one of these proposals different texts were analyzed to find the differing ideas that can be offered to the overall issue. To dive into the solution known as the  “rules of discourse”; Roberts-Miller’s paper was considered due to the fact that it describes and outlines the specific terms and guidelines that are civil discourse, and proper civil discourse for that matter. As for looking into the ban or restriction of anonymity in the online world, Andrew Stafford puts forth in his paper titled “Who are the haters that poison the well of our discourse?”, in which the recurring theme of his solution is to “heavily restrict” or “monitor” the things that occur within the Internet world. Lastly, to redefine what incivility is, analyzing the “GamerGate and Gendered Hate Speech”, a ted talk given by Anita Sarkeesian, we as readers can find ways to join the issue that has been blown so far out of proportion in recent years.

            As mentioned above, there are three alternate solutions that could possibly resolve the problem of incivility in the online world we know today. The first that will be discussed is Roberts Miller’s approach to the situation. Patricia Roberts Miller is a rhetoric-writing professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a very prestigious and a well-educated woman.  She wrote, "Democracy, Demagoguery, and Critical Rhetoric" a well-known article that puts demagoguery discourse and fallacies into different lights.  Roberts Miller focuses on the idea of Demagoguery throughout her article, and outlines individual elements regarding the “rules of discourse” in today’s society. Roberts Miller’s paper essentially sets the standards of what discourse should be recognized as. Although she never specifically presents a solution to the problem known as incivility, Roberts Miller sets the guidelines that should be followed in order to avoid this problem. She states what the rules are and then acknowledges that should everyone follow them appropriately, problems like incivility wouldn’t arise. This provides strength in the sense that it can guide people into the right direction of action. Of course, naturally with rules, there always tends to be the few that rebel against what is right and here lies the weakness of Roberts Miller’s assessment.

            The next solution to be discussed is the ban or restriction of anonymity in the online world, and across all forms of social media. Andrew Stafford presented this idea in his paper by the title of, “Who are the haters that poison the well of our discourse?”. Stafford is a Brisbane-based author and Age contributor, and blogger. He introduces this article with a story of a newspaper company by the name of The Kings Tribune. This particular newspaper, after receiving one hateful comment too many, decided to eliminate comments on their website all together. Stafford presents this to show readers that there is an easy way out as well as a more complicated way in the incivility crisis. According to Andrew Stafford The Kings Tribune definitely took the easy way out. Given that newspapers survive off of feedback from their readers, how could a radical decision such as this one suffice for a company that relies on critique? However, it is apparent that the Tribune does not stand alone, many other writers, and bloggers are venturing down this path as well. Yet Stafford continues to disagree with this method. In Stafford’s argument for what he believes should be done, he describes that he would “request genuine transparency of identity”. Through saying this Stafford is really asking; why can’t names and addresses be withheld on request? If comments are going to be constructive, it might help “elevate the tone of how we speak to each other, and provide at least some protection from an army of baiters, haters and spivs”.  Given that this action will take time Stafford still believes that it is a proper solution. It has the strengths of publishers continuing to receive feedback for their works, as well as being able to expand discussion and have it go up for debate. On the other side of Stafford’s solution, the weaknesses include the time, extra money and effort that would be put towards the notion. This solution correlates somewhat with Roberts Miller’s proposition as well.

The last solution that will be discussed will be from a ted talk given by Anita Sarkeesian. In her discussion, she notes that harsh comments are a reality in the today’s world, and she even shares her story of her own experience with harsh forms of incivility. She refers to the harassment she faced as an “Internet mob”. Not only did she receive inconsiderate and hateful comments from users, but a game was created out of hate as well. People had her face on a screen and with every click of a mouse; her face became more and more beat up. These low blows are childish, hurtful, and cowardly. Anita’s response and solution followed a similar line of what Andrew Stafford discussed in the opening of his paper. She turned her comments off and kept her head held high. Now this turned out to be a strength for her because overall she became very successful with her project, but realistically looking at the situation I would say this is a weakness. In a sense, turning off the comments showed a sign of weakness, but understandably the inability to trace these comments to real people was also an aspect as to why Anita turned her comments off in the end. So through her dark times with this so called “hate mob”, Anita emerged to tell the story which in her case, sparked people to move towards keeping others from feeling the way Anita did. A movement to rid the world of so much incivility through the awareness of what the problem can really hold.

In analyzing all three of these propositions towards a solution to the problem of incivility in today’s world, it can be found that there are strengths and weaknesses in every situation. The fact of the matter is, that the issue of incivility on the rise in recent years is definitely not an easy situation to tackle. In any case, it will require a lot of work, time and effort to filter through all of the possible threats to proper discourse. In my eyes, through researching these many articles I believe the solution lies in not just one of the proposals discussed above, but within all of the solutions discussed. Taking pieces from each different assessment, I would argue that the rules of discourse are to be followed and not violated as Roberts Miller discusses in great detail, yet also acknowledging that it is nearly impossible to enforce this 100% of the time due to reasons out of our own control. An action such asStafford’s suggestion for the reduction of anonymity allows those who are brave enough to voice their opinions/comments to do so while exposing there true self. There can be no more hiding, and if one is to not follow the proper rules for civil discourse, it is up to them to own their opinions. Additionally, this solution eliminates the threat of trollers altogether because they would no longer have anything to hide behind besides there true identity, and this piggybacks on the ideas of Anita Sarkeesian’s talk of how to create a safer online world. Although my solution to the problem does in fact include aspects from all of the proposals discussed throughout this paper, I do believe that Andrew Stafford presents the most convincing argument. The elements of persuasion he utilizes make for a solid paper and one that gets the point across quite clearly. In conclusion, although the overall issue of incivility is still at large, solutions are popping up all over the place; it is imperative that one puts these solutions into action to get the ball rolling towards a better future for all.