MARK FLEMING
  • Home
  • About me
  • BrainBomb
  • Blog
  • Interviews
  • Articles
  • Music Therapy
  • My bands
    • 4 Minute Warning
    • Desperation A.M.
    • Little Big Dig
    • Axidents
    • Noniconic
  • Contact

Web trolls - lurking just beyond your firewall

20/4/2012

1 Comment

 
Mock up of Hitler on facebook
Fraping
Have you ever been fraped? This means when someone accesses your facebook account and posts random comments which get attributed to you, or maybe tweaks your profile picture. Usually it's innocuous enough. If you left your account in logged-on mode, a flatmate or partner could just be having a laugh. There have been more serious incidents when hackers have violated facebook pages or set up bogus accounts purely to be malicous. This has become known as trolling.

Trolling
A web troll is not your mate having a laugh at your expense.  Trolls are about as funny as Year Zero was to the people of Cambodia. Reading magistrates recently jailed one of them, 25-year-old Sean Duffy, for 18 months. His despicable crimes included creating a joke YouTube video entitled 'Tasha the Tank Engine'. This was his twisted way of poking 'fun' at 15-year-old Natasha MacBryde, a bullying victim, who had been found dead on a Worcestershire railway line. Duffy posted pictures of a 16-year-old car crash victim, Hayley
Bates, on facebook. He also left sick messages on an online memorial about 14 year-old Lauren Drew, who died after an epileptic seizure.

There are many words in the English language to describe individuals of such cretinous depth.  Duffy is a social inadequate of cataclysmic proportions. A soulless cunt would be more succinct. The fact is these so-called trolls are yet another glimpse into the darker forces unleashed by the Pandora's Box of the world wide web. Thanks to the anonymity offered by Internet Service Providers, fuckwits, tossers and downright morons of every description are party to the same technology enjoyed by normal, functional human beings. When a warped imagination gains access to a browser, the potential for psychological damage can be huge.

Online race (and other) hate
Alas, Duffy's sidesplitting humour is but one extreme example of what gets published on message boards and forums right across the virtual world every day. Anytime MSN News features events in the Middle East, you can be sure the comments stream will soon be overflowing with rancid Islamophobia, couched in exactly the sort of vile, racist, dehumanising language that was once directed at Jews in 1930s Nazi propoganda.

BBC journalist Jeremy Vine was discussing the topic of internet trolls on his Radio 2 talk show. He spoke of a friend who blogs regularly but who has become so disgusted by the inane bile his articles regularly provoke he has stopped reading 'below the line'.

Living in the west we enjoy, in varying degrees, free speech. A crackdown on the internet is the first sympton of totalitarianism.  You can't blog about social issues in North Korea or Syria. At least trolls, like 
Neo-Nazis, in unleashing their fuckwitted diatribes, simply expose themselves to the utter ridicule of the vast majority of rational web surfers. But that's scant relief to the families of the aforementioned teenagers.
1 Comment
    Picture
    MARK FLEMING
    ​EDINBURGH | SCOTLAND


    ​Categories

    All
    9/11
    Alan Brazil
    Amanda Prowse
    Amy Winehouse
    Andrew Mitchell
    Apples: Short Story
    Ari Up
    Armistice
    Arts Festival
    Ashdown
    Balconing
    Bankers
    Barack Obama
    Berlin Wall
    Bill Clinton
    Blackshirts
    Bobby Smith
    Book Censorship
    BrainBomb: Word Cloud
    Britains Got Talent
    Caroline Flack
    Chav: Sneering At The Underclass
    Child Cage Fight
    Citizens Advice
    Crash
    David Walliams
    Denise Johnson RIP
    Depression Awareness
    Desperation A.M.
    Dick Smith
    Disability
    DOK Exhibitions
    Domestic Violence
    Edinburgh Festival
    Faisal Shahzad
    Falklands War
    Finances
    Fortitude
    Frankie Abbbott
    Gary Speed
    Gerry Anderson
    Gettysburg
    Goodwin
    Gore Vidal
    Graham Crowden
    Ground Zero
    Guatemalan Stds
    Hacking Scandal
    Helga Etsby
    Hillary Clinton
    Hillsborough Justice
    Hiroshima 75th
    Homelessness
    Horrorshow
    Ian Curtis: 40 Years On
    Ibiza
    Ibrox Disaster
    Iraq
    It's A Kind Of A Funny Story
    Ivor Tiefenbrun
    Jake Bugg
    Jeremy Clarkson
    Jeremy Clarkson On PQ17
    Joe Strummer
    John Cormack
    John Hume RIP
    John Peel
    John Terry
    Keira Knightley
    Kelvin MacKenzie: Wants Police Apology
    Kristallnacht
    Leither Magazine
    Lemmy
    Llyr George
    Lying About Mental Health
    Malvinas V Falklands
    Marie Antoinettes
    Mental Health And Fat-shaming
    Mental Health Awareness Week 2018
    Mental Health During COVID-19
    Mental Health Prejudice
    Michael Portillo: Death Of A School Friend
    Middle East Peace Process
    Mosley
    National Rifle Association
    Neo Fascism
    News International
    Newtown Killings
    Nicolas Winding Refn
    Noel Edmunds
    One Love
    Organ Donation
    Ozark: Bipolar Disorder
    Paddy
    Penumbra
    Pete Shelley
    Picture House
    Poly Styrene
    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
    Predator Drones
    Primal Scream
    Private Ellison
    Protestant Action 1930s
    Public Service Broadcasting: Lit Up
    Punishment Of Luxury
    Racism In Football
    Revenant
    Richard Ashcroft
    Rick Perry
    Robbie Hance
    Rupert Murdoch
    Samaritans
    Sarrazin
    Saughton Prison Visit
    Scars
    Scottish Tories
    Selfharm
    Sepp Blatter
    Sex And Violence
    Sex Pistols
    Shane Meadows
    Shaw Trust
    Silver Jubilee
    Simon Cowell
    Simon Weston
    Slaughter And The Dogs
    Smit
    Soldiers Suffering Breakdowns
    Stigma
    Stranglers Live Review
    Suicide
    Susan Boyle
    Syria - Crossing The Red Line
    Terry Jones
    The Clash
    The Damned
    The Slits
    The Sun - One-finger Salute To Lord Leveson
    The Wolf Warriors And Werewolves
    This Is England
    This Is England 86 Review
    Time To Change
    Tombstoning
    Tony Scott
    Tories
    Troy Davis
    Urban Noir Photo Exhibition
    U.S. Slavery Ends 1865
    Vic And Bob's Shooting Stars
    Wags
    Wayne Bridge
    Web Trolls
    World Alzheimer's Day
    World Suicide Prevention Day 2020
    X Factor
    X Ray Spex

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About me
  • BrainBomb
  • Blog
  • Interviews
  • Articles
  • Music Therapy
  • My bands
    • 4 Minute Warning
    • Desperation A.M.
    • Little Big Dig
    • Axidents
    • Noniconic
  • Contact