Thoughts and Prayers: A short story

January 26, 2019 12:50 PM

A new short story looks at how much worse trolling could get. Each month, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives—publishes a story on a theme. The theme for January–March 2019: Identity.

A chilling but possibly accurate look into the future of trolling and grief, by Ken Liu.
Here's the response article, by a researcher of digital culture and harassment, Adrienne Massanari.

Previously in Future Tense Fiction.

posted by Homo neanderthalensis (9 comments total)

Is the author this Ken Liu, who wrote The Paper Managerie and translated Three Body Problem into English? I really enjoy his work
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:07 PM on January 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Wow, great story, and the response article was fascinating, too. Thanks for posting this!
posted by solotoro at 2:42 PM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Welp, that's depressing as fuck.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:03 PM on January 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Who studies it?
posted by Baeria at 10:22 PM on January 26, 2019

Lots of people study trolling!
posted by k8t at 11:47 PM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's not very science-fictiony though. Apart from a bit of technological window dressing, it's pretty much what's happening today.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:43 AM on January 27, 2019

Apart from a bit of technological window dressing, it's pretty much what's happening today.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." --William Gibson
posted by chavenet at 8:22 AM on January 27, 2019 [6 favorites]

The core of the problem is that the story shows what happens when the idea of moderation is conceded to free speech absolutists. As it gets pointed out, the platforms ceded any pretense of setting limits on discourse, and as a result, there became no limits on what people were allowed to do to others. The only solution becomes shielding oneself, but that doesn't fix the fact that the toxic elements are still out there.

That's why we need to push social media to actually take a stand.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:30 AM on January 28, 2019

Also, I think that Innuendo Studio's (previously) most recent video is a good counterpoint to the arguments made in the story about trolling, as it points out the underlying inconsistency of the arguments made.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:48 PM on January 28, 2019