Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Social media and the freedom of speech continued
After experiencing being cut off my from my online social group because someone apparently saw fit to mass report me, some questions came up.
What is mass reporting? How does it work?
How many people does it take to mass report someone? Who investigates those claims that people are indeed violating facebook rules?
What happens if it is found out that people have unjustly used the reporting feature in order to suit their cyberbullying agenda? Are those people banned? Are their accounts shut down?
A lot of questions, and where is that facebook security you can turn to if you feel someone is engaged unjustifiable mass reporting activities on your account?
Mass reporting is enough people reporting whatever comments, pictures of post you upload by using the report feature on the community standards page.
You are given options like this person is impersonating me/someone i know/a celebrity etcetera, and among the options are also 'this person is annoying me' and 'this person is harrassing or bullying me'. Interestingly, if the person is only 'annoying' that's that, but if the person is harrassing or bullying you are given an option to mail a copy to someone you trust on facebook - so I did in one instance, I forwarded my blocking of one person to a facebook friend and fellow volunteer who lives in Britain and hasn't been on that community page where I got reported (200 % by someone from the counterpart of that page which happens to use almost the same name but with a twist), I also sent her an e-mail explaining what happened and asking if she was okay with me turning to her for help. This feature was only recently installed by facebook.
But how many people does it take to mass report since that other page had only 177 'likes' at the time, and only between 8 and 20 people who were active on that page?
One of the first sites that seemed to provide some answers was this one:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2381750,00.asp
but after going over it, I didn't find much that was helpful in my situation, though knowing that it is taken seriously by authorities is reassuring.
Back to the safety centre it is.
https://www.facebook.com/help/safety
And there it is, the Facebook security page.
I am reading a host of comments by other posters, yet as I am blocked I am unable to ask for help. So I guess I will have to wait until the block is lifted...
what happens when people think they're omnipotent
The
internet is a fickle thing. It brings people together, makes miracles
happen. But it also brings out the worst in people. Deep down in the
crevisses of the internet, especially on social websites, trolls are
lurking. Beings who apparate like a badmouthed ghost, insulting,
generally annoying, sometimes harrassing and in rare occasions
bringing their targets to tears. In extreme cases, targets who were
already vulnerable succumbed to this virtual onslaught and took
extreme measures, leading to some taking their own lives.
It is very tempting to respond to their verbal onslaught. Sometimes their targets even feel a compelling urge to respond and put a wrong right. However understandable, this is the one thing you should never ever do. As who ever ventures to address a troll for being rude, hurting someone's feelings, or being generally vile in their language, will find the critter doing a 180 and turning into a 'victim', telling you off for being a bully, yes, a bully! How dare you! After all, the perogative of calling names and throwing insults is the troll's and his or hers alone, the mere concept of people standing up for themselves is alien to them.
This common denominator for said critter, an utter incapacity to grasp the principle that if you throw mud at someone you are at risk of receiving some sort of retaliation at some point, becomes even more poignant in its presence when the troll has developed a deep routed belief to be in sole possession of The Truth. How that Truth is defined depends on the troll or trollop in question, but one thing's for sure: for this particular type of troll that Truth is chiselled in stone and there is no straying from it. Anyone who dares question that Truth is by default labelled a troll (oh irony) or a sheeple, incapable of doing independent reasoning and thinking and thus by default a lower class human, and thus should take whatever the troll or trollop dishes out at them without questioning or - gods forbid!- giving counter-arguments. For that reason, the creature crowns him- or herself with the unofficial title of Enlightened One.
In the creature's ideal world, anyone encountering the Enlightened One's verbal vitriolic version of The Truth should be awstricken, and subsequently bow over and thank the creature for bringing enlightment into their lowlife mortal world. Fail to respond in this way and the Enlightened One will be enraged and then conclude that therefore your skull must be void. Typically, the creature surrounds itself with a group of Loyal Yaysayers who, not hindered by any knowledge of the target, will nod vehemently to everything and anything the Enlightened One says. Some of them will be in Enlightened One's inner circle,the Most Loyal Core, possible even one of the chosen few who are allowed to enter the Inner Sanctum and have a cuppa and some biscuits anointed by the Enlightened One. Some of the followers will use their own name, so deep routed is their conviction of the Righteousness of the Enlightened One, and as a result they feel like they don't have to deal with any consequences of their doings as some of the higher being's omnipotence has rubbed off on them.
Others may only vaguely know the Enlightened One, though not personal, and a lot of the yaysayers are just that - yaysayers. They may never have laid eye on the Enlightened One, they may not even know whether Enlightened One is a he a she or an it, heck, whether it's a human at all or even an alien! Because true to form, Enlightened One never shows its face. Only very rarely the Enlightened One shows any signs of ordinary everyday human life, but usually it is only in a context alluding to Enlightened One's self-alloted importance in society. Apart from those rare glimpses, the Enlightened One doesn't allow any part of his or her mere mortal (and, presumably, rather dull) everyday existence to come to surface. Even his or her online identity is a mystery, and remains so even though targets might try and find out who or what is lurking behind the blinding light of self-importance emitted by the Enlightened One. The loyal yaysayers help perpetuate this aura of omnipotence and reinforce the Enlightened One's idea of being beyond the grasp of mere mortals. Enlightened One hides behind multiple accounts and/or profiles, never ever unveiling anything of his or her real identity. Which is why the best advise to any targets is to totally ignore anything coming from the creature. Because unlike the traditional schoolyard bully, who might just shut up after a good telling off or the occasional slap in the face, Enlightened One has the solidity of a whisp of smoke, causing any attempt to strike back to feel like an utterly futile endeavour.
Because of this, Enligthened One thinks him/herself to be above everyone else, untouchable, unbeatable, unstoppable, and cranks all verbal assaults up a notch, taking the virtual assaults to ever lower levels. And that's when the Unthinkable happens. The Enligthened One slips up. The first slips may seem insignificant. A posting under the wrong account name, hastily covered up by a half-heartedly muttered excuse. Of course the core loyal yaysayers are quick to come to the rescue and fire at random at some target,deflecting from the Enlightened One's slip up. But more slip ups follow, and even more, and sooner or later the Most Feared Thing happens: one of the targets connects the right dots and lifts the veil clouding the Enlightened One's identity. What follows is the pitter-patter of little feet as the Enlightened One's lesser ranking yaysaysers scuttle away to the holes they crawled from. The Most Loyal Core will try and do some good ole damage repair, throwing all their toys out of the pram or firing at random at any hapless target who happens to cross their path. Eventually they either go into hiding, going over their adventures with a cuppa and a biscuit, or hide beneath their stone lurking for a new victim, brooding on new ways to be a nuisance. Thus, they feel forfilled, and sleep tight (probably after a good swig of cheap liquor) dreaming of the good ole days when they were still in the inner sanctum of an omnipotent one. Their former targets enjoy the silence, much like one enjoys the quiet of a Summer's day after you just swatted that nasty fly trying to sip from your margarita. Shaken, not stirred.
It is very tempting to respond to their verbal onslaught. Sometimes their targets even feel a compelling urge to respond and put a wrong right. However understandable, this is the one thing you should never ever do. As who ever ventures to address a troll for being rude, hurting someone's feelings, or being generally vile in their language, will find the critter doing a 180 and turning into a 'victim', telling you off for being a bully, yes, a bully! How dare you! After all, the perogative of calling names and throwing insults is the troll's and his or hers alone, the mere concept of people standing up for themselves is alien to them.
This common denominator for said critter, an utter incapacity to grasp the principle that if you throw mud at someone you are at risk of receiving some sort of retaliation at some point, becomes even more poignant in its presence when the troll has developed a deep routed belief to be in sole possession of The Truth. How that Truth is defined depends on the troll or trollop in question, but one thing's for sure: for this particular type of troll that Truth is chiselled in stone and there is no straying from it. Anyone who dares question that Truth is by default labelled a troll (oh irony) or a sheeple, incapable of doing independent reasoning and thinking and thus by default a lower class human, and thus should take whatever the troll or trollop dishes out at them without questioning or - gods forbid!- giving counter-arguments. For that reason, the creature crowns him- or herself with the unofficial title of Enlightened One.
In the creature's ideal world, anyone encountering the Enlightened One's verbal vitriolic version of The Truth should be awstricken, and subsequently bow over and thank the creature for bringing enlightment into their lowlife mortal world. Fail to respond in this way and the Enlightened One will be enraged and then conclude that therefore your skull must be void. Typically, the creature surrounds itself with a group of Loyal Yaysayers who, not hindered by any knowledge of the target, will nod vehemently to everything and anything the Enlightened One says. Some of them will be in Enlightened One's inner circle,the Most Loyal Core, possible even one of the chosen few who are allowed to enter the Inner Sanctum and have a cuppa and some biscuits anointed by the Enlightened One. Some of the followers will use their own name, so deep routed is their conviction of the Righteousness of the Enlightened One, and as a result they feel like they don't have to deal with any consequences of their doings as some of the higher being's omnipotence has rubbed off on them.
Others may only vaguely know the Enlightened One, though not personal, and a lot of the yaysayers are just that - yaysayers. They may never have laid eye on the Enlightened One, they may not even know whether Enlightened One is a he a she or an it, heck, whether it's a human at all or even an alien! Because true to form, Enlightened One never shows its face. Only very rarely the Enlightened One shows any signs of ordinary everyday human life, but usually it is only in a context alluding to Enlightened One's self-alloted importance in society. Apart from those rare glimpses, the Enlightened One doesn't allow any part of his or her mere mortal (and, presumably, rather dull) everyday existence to come to surface. Even his or her online identity is a mystery, and remains so even though targets might try and find out who or what is lurking behind the blinding light of self-importance emitted by the Enlightened One. The loyal yaysayers help perpetuate this aura of omnipotence and reinforce the Enlightened One's idea of being beyond the grasp of mere mortals. Enlightened One hides behind multiple accounts and/or profiles, never ever unveiling anything of his or her real identity. Which is why the best advise to any targets is to totally ignore anything coming from the creature. Because unlike the traditional schoolyard bully, who might just shut up after a good telling off or the occasional slap in the face, Enlightened One has the solidity of a whisp of smoke, causing any attempt to strike back to feel like an utterly futile endeavour.
Because of this, Enligthened One thinks him/herself to be above everyone else, untouchable, unbeatable, unstoppable, and cranks all verbal assaults up a notch, taking the virtual assaults to ever lower levels. And that's when the Unthinkable happens. The Enligthened One slips up. The first slips may seem insignificant. A posting under the wrong account name, hastily covered up by a half-heartedly muttered excuse. Of course the core loyal yaysayers are quick to come to the rescue and fire at random at some target,deflecting from the Enlightened One's slip up. But more slip ups follow, and even more, and sooner or later the Most Feared Thing happens: one of the targets connects the right dots and lifts the veil clouding the Enlightened One's identity. What follows is the pitter-patter of little feet as the Enlightened One's lesser ranking yaysaysers scuttle away to the holes they crawled from. The Most Loyal Core will try and do some good ole damage repair, throwing all their toys out of the pram or firing at random at any hapless target who happens to cross their path. Eventually they either go into hiding, going over their adventures with a cuppa and a biscuit, or hide beneath their stone lurking for a new victim, brooding on new ways to be a nuisance. Thus, they feel forfilled, and sleep tight (probably after a good swig of cheap liquor) dreaming of the good ole days when they were still in the inner sanctum of an omnipotent one. Their former targets enjoy the silence, much like one enjoys the quiet of a Summer's day after you just swatted that nasty fly trying to sip from your margarita. Shaken, not stirred.
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