Do Not Feed The Trolls: Crazies on the interwebz

Since the beginning of the internet, there have been crazy people who have misused it.  They've since earned the title, 'trolls.'  I'll admit I used to shadow a forum just to watch the trolls pop up only to be shut down.  IBTZ! (In Before The Zot!).  As the use of the internet has increased, (it's available to more people and there are more pages to view), so have the amount of trolls.

Trolls can be identified by their puerile nature and the burning intent to get under everyone's skin and push all the buttons they can.  You can find them most places where users interact with each other.  Obviously there are degrees of trolling, some users are much more 'troll' than just user, but it always surprises me how crazy people can be on the internet.

Take for example, Family Talk's facebook page in the past week.  Recentlly, they aired a program on vaccines and immunization.  They of course presented their view on the subject:  vaccines recommended.  Much to the disappointment of some of their audience, they did not address the non-vaccination view the way they wanted.  True, while they did not mean to dismiss that part of their audience, they don't usually bring the 'anti-view' on the broadcast.  In order to help the audience feel heard as well as address some of the questions that came up, Ryan Dobson interviewed Dr. Larimore on his show Grounded addressing the questions and comments that accumulated on the facebook page.

However,  this did nothing to pacify the posters.  There are still very vocal non-vaccination audience members posting everyday on the facebook page. Though a discussion tab has been created and a request made for the comments to move in that direction instead of the main wall, the posts continue.  A few of the upset members have even revoked support for the ministry over this one view.  While no one disagrees that it is an important subject and it should be talked out, there is no respect for the requests made by Family Talk to move past this on the main page.  You could almost qualify the continued posts as spamming.

After the request to move the discussion elsewhere was ignored, Family Talk made the decision to block the most active, vocal, and relentless posters.  This raised a whole other set of craziness.  Posters are now crying, 'censorship! censorship!' While I must admit, if my posts were removed from a board or I was blocked, I wouldn't be terribly happy.  In reality, however, if I had been disregarding the requests of the forum, I could expect nothing less.  It is the right of the blog, message board, facebook owner to moderate as they see fit.  You don't follow the rules, you get the boot.  That's the way it works.  Another cry came up that Family Talk is afraid to address them or to get down and dirty in the truth.  I don't believe this to be the case:  respectful posts were kept (ones that are calm headed, still passionate, but not brutal or disregarding the requests made to move on) as well as a discussion thread made in the discussion tab in order for the debate to take place.  This appears a very level-headed and calm decision, not that of a panicked organization trying to avoid 'truth.'

Really, the amount of 'crazies' on any sort of message board or facebook discussion is a low percentage but the ones that are really crazy are the noisiest.  It surprised me the amount of people upset about the immunizations broadcast from Family talk.  I was even more surprised by the adults who couldn't or wouldn't hold a respectful discussion about it.  What's more frustrating is that no sense can be talked in to any of the vehement posters.  No calmness.  No reason.  Not asking them to change their view, just how they present it.  Really, Family Talk took the action they could.  Sometimes, the best way to make them stop is to 'not feed the trolls.'

The crazies on the interwebz.  What are you gonna do?