Is this a new way to deal with online hate? Or just making it worse?

March 2, 2020 11:39 AM

Greta Thunberg derangement syndrome is all too familiar. It's so common it's even a source of humour. Last week, Greta Thunberg addressed a large crowd in Bristol, UK. And for some people this was all too much, and prompted some hateful, violence-inciting comments on social media. So far, so depressingly normal.

But this time, local newspaper The Bristol Post took a selection of these vile comments and made a story from them.

It's both horrible to see this selection of hate compiled into one spot, and refreshing to see people called out for their words by a high-profile local newspaper. Twitter seems to be mostly on the side of the paper (although that's a bubble, since it's only what I've seen).

Of course, talk radio already has opinions and the comments under that video suggest people aren't yet really engaging with the topic.

Is "put the trolls on the front page of their local paper" the new "don't feed the trolls"? And will it be any more effective?

posted by YoungStencil (47 comments total)

As a local Bristol resident this is very interesting to see these people getting called out by a paper that refuses to call out people commenting on its own news stories.
posted by my-username at 11:44 AM on March 2, 2020 [11 favorites]

I recall a twitch streamer doing something similar with young gamergate bros who were harassing her. She'd reach out to their mothers on social media and advise them of how their kids were behaving. It worked and she received several apologies.

I don't think it will work for EVERYONE but shame is a powerful deterrent. These trolls need to realize that their actions have consequences and if that means being publicly shamed and/or losing their job. I'm not upset about that. We shouldn't dox these trolls, but they should be shamed into the dark holes from which they've crawled out of.
posted by Fizz at 11:50 AM on March 2, 2020 [61 favorites]

We shouldn't dox these trolls

Why not? You want to be a nazi...consequences.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:51 AM on March 2, 2020 [62 favorites]

Maybe, just maybe, if people were actually publicly called to task for their violent rhetoric, public comments might improve.

Or, we'd get more shirts like this one (Obama called me Clinger, Hillary called me Deplorable, Terrorists call me Infidel, Trump calls me American).

One bloke has a "Be Kind" overlay on his profile pic.

And that article is rather soft on who is the angriest, even in their sampled set. "Many other articles in other media have examined why a slight, tiny 17-year-old schoolgirl from Sweden triggers such anger and hatred from, mainly older people ..."

... mainly from older, white men. Not all the profile pics appear to be white people, but they definitely all appear to be male.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:16 PM on March 2, 2020 [14 favorites]

I love how they publish the less-than-flattering profile pics at like 5× their regular size.
posted by signal at 12:21 PM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

Also, it seems like a lot of people are stuck in the first two stages of grief (Wikipedia): Denial and Anger. Denial that their lifestyle of driving and flying around the world is impacting the world for the worse, and anger that someone is calling them on it. But who "love(s) a good coal fire"? Nothing like huffing those emissions!

Lastly, I wonder how many people would say that they're pro-fascist, when they use "antifa" as a smear.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:23 PM on March 2, 2020 [11 favorites]

'We will do better': Alberta company apologizes for explicit Greta decal.
posted by No Robots at 12:24 PM on March 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

There was an extremely gross incident in Alberta recently where some company used a greta-like female figure on a sticker and one. of their initial defences was the same thing some of these shits say - "she's 17." Beyond gross. Like suggestions of sexual violence are somehow acceptable if the woman is old enough.
posted by GuyZero at 12:25 PM on March 2, 2020 [34 favorites]

I don't think you can discount the incredibly sexualized tinge to this rage - it keeps coming up in weirder and or morbid variations.
posted by The Whelk at 12:39 PM on March 2, 2020 [60 favorites]

yeah there’s a shit ton of creepers who primarily think of teenage girls as objects to be acted upon rather than as subjects who act in the world, and they are furious when people who they’ve classified as things start speaking in public and having a impact on the world.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:50 PM on March 2, 2020 [115 favorites]

I think we know by now that any woman's attempt to speak out that gains any sort of momentum is traditionally met with threats of sexual and physical violence. It was only a matter of time.

Still, I never thought an actual business would release anything promoting sexual violence much less of a minor. To paraphrase a recent Tweet, "Are Republicans OK?"
posted by Young Kullervo at 12:50 PM on March 2, 2020 [15 favorites]

Another Mefi from Bristol UK here and who was at the Climate March on Friday.
The article is by Tristan Cork who is a professional reporter and fairly active online in Bristol, he has a lot of good posts from the last few days about this on his twitter (mostly 28th/29th Feb): https://twitter.com/TristanCorkPost

If you want to see the follow-up discussion by Bristolians, this is the article link on Bristol Post's Facebook page, the comments under this are much more in the Bristol Friendly Spirit, he was writing for his local audience, based on this, I'd say he's hit the target: https://www.facebook.com/bristol.live/posts/2812681852130313
posted by Dr Ew at 1:13 PM on March 2, 2020 [11 favorites]

This is effective journalism.
posted by PMdixon at 1:20 PM on March 2, 2020

One bloke has a "Be Kind" overlay on his profile pic.

So he's... virtue signaling?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:28 PM on March 2, 2020 [11 favorites]

When I was 17, the creepers couldn't gather together and gang up on me in one place. Now, they can come from around the world and make it look like there's a lot more of them. This is a professional industry. Wasn't there a thread yesterday on the newspaper chain of websites in the US shutting down its comment section. Fuck moderation induced PTSD. Who pays for FB moderator therapy?
posted by Mrs Potato at 1:42 PM on March 2, 2020 [17 favorites]

We shouldn't dox these trolls, but they should be shamed into the dark holes from which they've crawled out of.

These men are posting under their own names. No doxxing is required.

And like, even if they were anonymous, I think you can make a very good argument that anonymity shouldn't be an inviolable right. Instead, like many other rights or considerations we give people, we can put limits on it. You can't use your anonymity to harass, threaten, or incite violence against a teenaged girl and expect it to be respected.

Kind of like how believing in privacy doesn't mean you also believe there should never be public consequences for something you do in private.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:59 PM on March 2, 2020 [89 favorites]

I think this is brilliant.

"Stevie Ralph-Taylor called for Greta Thunberg to be burnt at the stake". With his picture.

His friends, his family, his coworkers all know what he said, and the spirit in which he said it.

Having watched the effects of social pressure over the years (the shaming of drunk drivers has been particularly effective, and everyone I once knew who smoked cigarettes has long since quit) I find this a completely appropriate instance of accountability. I hope it happens more often.
posted by jokeefe at 2:54 PM on March 2, 2020 [40 favorites]

it is not nice to publicly shame people for expressing their desire to do violence to greta thunberg.

it is not good to refrain from publicly shaming people for expressing their desire to do violence to greta thunberg.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:57 PM on March 2, 2020 [28 favorites]

Kutsuwamushi, that was extremely well put.
posted by biogeo at 3:22 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Perhaps I should get off my proverbial back side, and on my literal back side, and put together a Greta thread, since we're going to have one, and this isn't the right note to start it on.
posted by ocschwar at 3:31 PM on March 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

For those interested in more about Greta, a fantastic series of vids of her crossing the ocean with some Aussies...

Sailing GRETA THUNBERG Across the North Atlantic Ocean!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZI857axRs

Dodging STORMS with Greta Thunberg // 60 knot winds & 7m waves on the Horizon!! Ep.2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUte8inU_DA

Surviving a LIGHTNING STORM and serious Boat Repairs WEEKS from land! Ep.3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVS6EfrSA3I

Sailing Greta Thunberg // a tropical STORM is headed our WAY! 😱 Ep.4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sidMmaTmqUU

Sailing Greta Thunberg // HALF WAY DAY & Interview with Greta! Ep. 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b6_3BL8jNA

WE DID IT! After 19 Days at Sea, Sailing Greta Thunberg into Lisbon! Ep.6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72ZRtiwppo
posted by greenhornet at 5:41 PM on March 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

Wow, that decal thing. I'm kind of impressed that the media felt they had to pixelate something, but there's nothing really explicit (it's gross, but it doesn't directly show any genitals or anything), so they pixelated... the lower back, a pair of hands grabbing the pigtails, and the text "Greta", while leaving the upper back and the rest of the pigtails unobscured. Yeah, that'll help.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:27 PM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

They did that because there's a debate to be had about whether that image meets the Canadian legal definition of child pornography, and if it does, the news sites would be as liable as the creator for disseminating it. And anyone linking to it.

Now, if the rig pig who made it had to sit in court while lawyers argued the point back and forth, it would be an eloquent example of "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.
posted by ocschwar at 6:32 PM on March 2, 2020 [11 favorites]

What kind of shitty company and managers at that company would give the OK for this? Just, mind boggling. But, oilfield workers, so, they know their audience. Appalling...
posted by Windopaene at 8:06 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

There’s something refreshing about seeing these assholes being publicly shamed by means of little other than their own exact words being broadcast for all to see. I agree with Kutsuwamushi: this is not doxxing, because each of these men—and yes, they’re all men, mostly white men—wrote these exact words and posted them publicly under their own names. No one had to shame them; they shamed themselves.

And the paper didn’t just print comments of anyone who had said something negative or even hateful about Greta Thunberg or the climate change activists. They focused on people who called for children to be physically assaulted.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:49 PM on March 2, 2020 [18 favorites]

In my space utopian communist dreams, the FBI has significant resources devoted to trolling woman haters into hatching death threats and then throws the fucking book at them.

But instead we live in the reality where Melania is in charge of cyberbullying.
posted by benzenedream at 12:13 AM on March 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

I've seen Greta pedaling around town a couple of times, just accompanied by her dad and with no sort of security. The hatred expressed for her online makes me super nervous for her. Stockholm doesn't exactly have a great track record for taking care of its most outspoken leaders.
posted by St. Oops at 12:21 AM on March 3, 2020 [8 favorites]

In my space utopian communist dreams, the FBI has significant resources devoted to trolling woman haters into hatching death threats and then throws the fucking book at them.

In this world, the FBI has been doing that for terrorists. The actual outcome has been a lot of simple-minded fantasists coached into play-acting terrorists, entrapped and jailed for very long terms. Can we be sure that none of the jailed “woman-haters” would be similarly undeserving of harsh punishment?
posted by acb at 12:32 AM on March 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

But, oilfield workers, so, they know their audience. Appalling...

I found the Albertan context in which that sticker thing happened to be poignant: a community that (like others in political/social thrall to one business, viz. Parkersburg WV/DuPont in the recent Dark Waters) falls victim to a version of Stockholm Syndrome which, once the 2014 oil-price crash umasked the corrupting paradigm to be untenable, reaches levels of social toxicity that are unimaginable elsewhere. Interestingly, it was a staunch supporter of local oil&gas who called the sticker out: a rare instance of residual human values/civility tracing a line not to be crossed.
posted by progosk at 12:35 AM on March 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

The Bristol Post is interesting. On the one hand, its online comments are a cesspool and 90% of its "journalism" is algorithmic churn, but on the other hand they print things like this, and have been facing up to some of the sins of the past.
posted by Luddite at 1:40 AM on March 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's amazing how effective this is, seeing their comments called out for exactly what they are, next to their names and faces. There's a real cold-light-of-day sharpness to it, contrasting their grinning portraits with their vicious words. And that gallery across the top makes it clear that by and large there's a real type behind these comments.
posted by penguin pie at 2:26 AM on March 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

In a similar spirit I briefly considered having T-shirts printed of the stupid and hateful Facebook memes reposted by my Trumper relatives, as presents to give them at the annual Christmas party, so they’d all have to open them, smile awkwardly, pose for snapshots.

Instead I skipped the party. Again.
posted by jon1270 at 3:26 AM on March 3, 2020 [12 favorites]

I've seen Greta pedaling around town a couple of times, just accompanied by her dad and with no sort of security. The hatred expressed for her online makes me super nervous for her.

On the one hand, I'm almost inclined to egg the trolls on. Every time they take a swing, GT comes out looking good, they trip up on her Greta-jitsu, and the arc of history bends ever so slightly in a better direction.

But on the other hand, you have to wonder if she is utterly without a spider-sense, for reasons that are literally pathological.
posted by ocschwar at 5:10 AM on March 3, 2020

I looked over the statement from that oil company. In no place did they say there would be any action. No one fired, demoted, removed from a supervisory position, etc. They're going to do some useless sensitivity training on not getting caught and hope it blows over. Just remember that the president of X Site thinks it's not child porn if she's 17.
posted by Hactar at 5:46 AM on March 3, 2020 [5 favorites]

The clips of the Facebook posts mostly show them surrounded by cheering sections, with a couple of exceptions. Good to name and shame them, but I don't think the shame will come from the people who already surround them, already know them, have already been hearing their hate for years and haven't unfriended them yet.
posted by clawsoon at 6:47 AM on March 3, 2020

FWIW, if you're looking for something to do to quell the burning-hot ball of rage building inside of you because of, well, *gestures at everything*, this is exactly what to do when you're not knocking on doors or calling your congresspeople. Pull up a story on any local news outlet on Facebook, or any news site that uses Quora or a real-name-commenting system. Pick a story that has to do with, say, the senseless killing of a person of color in a large city. You will be FLABBERGASTED at the number of people making comments that would make your racist uncle at the Thanksgiving table cringe. Racist, sexist, pro-Nazi, pro-pedophilia--there is no limit to the horrific crap people will cheerfully post under their real names. They do this because they have never faced consequences for their actions, and believe themselves to be invincible based on a lifetime of lived white privilege.

Anyway, once you get into the groove of it, the average time it takes to look up someone based on publicly-listed name + location, track down their wife/mother/boss/board of trustees/whatever, and email them a screenshot and a deep link to the offending comment, is about fifteen minutes. I've done half a dozen in an hour, though that's an unusual pace. Use a throwaway email address, and kill them with kindness: you want to express your deep concern that their business/family/etc. will be unfairly associated with this horrible content, and surely that's not the face they want to put forward? Most of your inquiries will be swallowed into the oubliette, but every now and then you'll get a response that will warm the depths of your cold heart. I've half a mind to print and frame the terse response I got from the owner of a small transportation company in the midwest, who upon hearing that one of his contractors was being a racist shitheel while listing this company as his employer, replied simply with "I will deal with [x] appropriately."
posted by Mayor West at 6:52 AM on March 3, 2020 [38 favorites]

thank you for your service
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:53 AM on March 3, 2020 [8 favorites]

One bloke has a "Be Kind" overlay on his profile pic.

So he's... virtue signaling?

It seems that these dudes are all triggered. What a bunch of snowflakes. (Yes, these are terms that are typically used by people on the right to attack the left, but those terms are also fitting in reverse.)


The clips of the Facebook posts mostly show them surrounded by cheering sections, with a couple of exceptions. Good to name and shame them, but I don't think the shame will come from the people who already surround them, already know them, have already been hearing their hate for years and haven't unfriended them yet.

These are likely comments on public posts from news outlets, so it's not friends and family chiming in, it's the distributed masses. Like Mrs Potato wrote: before Facebook, "the creepers couldn't gather together and gang up ... Now, they can come from around the world and make it look like there's a lot more of them."

Very much a virtual mob. And very likely that their actual friends and family see their shitty Facebook posts and either unfollow them or ignore their comments, because confronting angry men can be dangerous.

Which is why such public shaming is potentially powerful, because instead of being surrounded by like-minded assholes cheering them on, their profile pics are blown up and their terrible comments are highlighted as terrible.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on March 3, 2020 [9 favorites]

By Canadian standards (and specifically Alberta, home of tar sands and therefore some of the least ethical oil on the planet), those Bristol fuckbois showed restraint.
posted by Yowser at 9:45 AM on March 3, 2020

I love this and am thinking of a project in my town--"People who were shitty in Spokane today."

I just do not have time for another project.
posted by LarryC at 9:52 AM on March 3, 2020

By Canadian standards (and specifically Alberta, home of tar sands and therefore some of the least ethical oil on the planet), those Bristol fuckbois showed restraint.

Alberta had a media outlet that was All Greta All The Time for the last four months, and it's worth remembering that there are special interests who want this awfulness to escalate and are trying to make it escalate.
posted by ocschwar at 10:02 AM on March 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

Nordic/Scandinavian security works differently. Note how Northern European heads of state and political leaders blithely cycle around town without attendant men in black on bicycles (my new sockpuppet and brand name, shoo!). But op is right, on preview, about what happened in Stockholm.
posted by Mrs Potato at 10:14 AM on March 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

In Sweden, the concept of “politically exposed persons” is built into a lot of infrastructure; for example, if you open a bank account, you have to specify whether you are one, which presumably triggers an extra layer of security. If this applies in a broader sense, Greta Thunberg may by now be registered as one, which may mean that the police and/or security services are notified of her whereabouts and keep one eye out for potential threats.

OTOH, Swedish society also has a high assumption built in that people are trustworthy and follow the rules, in some ways not unlike the old pre-September internet. For example, everybody resident in Sweden has a personnummer (personal number), the first six digits of which are their unobfuscated birth date; it's easy to get someone's personnummer, and once you have it, you can get a lot of information about them, from addresses to tax records. Some say that this is why, in the recent spate of gang-related bombings, the ringleaders have been unconvictable because nobody in their right mind would testify against them.

Also, occasionally things fail spectacularly, as in the case of Olof Palme. They still don't know who assassinated the Prime Minister as he left a cinema one evening, though there are apparently new theories.
posted by acb at 1:01 PM on March 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

OTOH, Swedish society also has a high assumption built in that people are trustworthy and follow the rules, in some ways not unlike the old pre-September internet. For example, everybody resident in Sweden has a personnummer (personal number), the first six digits of which are their unobfuscated birth date; it's easy to get someone's personnummer, and once you have it, you can get a lot of information about them, from addresses to tax records.

This is still a thing in 2020? Wow. Just, wow. I take it abused wives are advised to just emigrate, then, like in Belgium.
posted by ocschwar at 4:35 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

I take it abused wives are advised to just emigrate, then
Specifically abused wives can change their identity numbers. A few protected categories of people can change their number (which until recently were also gender-based), but this is not common knowledge. I myself needed to change my identity number due to a clerical error when I moved here, and it was a colossal hassle.
posted by St. Oops at 12:41 PM on March 4, 2020

I love this and am thinking of a project in my town--"People who were shitty in Spokane today."

Say hi to my uncle when you see him online, still posting Obama birth certificate memes in 2020.
posted by sugar and confetti at 5:48 AM on March 9, 2020

Violence against women in Alberta is at a crisis point. According to ACWS, the province has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country. Last year, nearly two-thirds of the women seeking help at the province’s shelters were facing a severe or extreme risk of being murdered by their partner, the highest risk level the ACWS has seen in the past eight years.

- The Horrible Greta Thunberg Sticker Highlights Alberta's Toxic Oil Culture, Sarah Smellie on Vice News
posted by ODiV at 8:18 AM on March 10, 2020