Trolling is a threat which isn't taken seriously

It is a form of psychopathy.IMO.
Indicates a dysfunction open to and susceptible to treatment. Is anyone looking? Does anyone care?
It is a form of psychopathy.IMO.
Indicates a dysfunction open to and susceptible to treatment. Is anyone looking? Does anyone care? There are many who see this and care deeply. But "Freedom of Speech" is a double edged sword. And it would be unjust to impose censorship. The problem lies in an "uninformed" public. And lucky for us, that's why we have fora like CFI, to call the deceivers out and expose their lies. What really worries me is that the CDC is no longer allowed to use the terms: "Science based" and "Evidence based" in their official government literature. That's really scary, because it makes the general public even more uninformed.
It is a form of psychopathy.IMO.
Indicates a dysfunction open to and susceptible to treatment. Is anyone looking? Does anyone care? There are many who see this and care deeply. But "Freedom of Speech" is a double edged sword. And it would be unjust to impose censorship. The problem lies in an "uninformed" public. And lucky for us, that's why we have fora like CFI, to call the deceivers out and expose their lies. Well okay than. Let's take a walk over to the climate science forum. ;-P Just kidding. ;-) Have a very Merry Christmas Day W4U !
There are many who see this and care deeply.
Oh and I do appreciate there are many others who share my concerns, it's a shame we don't do a better job of networking with each other and community building. I dare conjecture, most of us feel lost in an apathetic crowd - imagine what we could do if we nurtured and encouraged each other.

I very much wish the same to you… :slight_smile:
But I am afraid that I would have little to contribute to what you already post here… :sick:
I just try to minimize my own impact on the environment

I can’t imagine anyone with at least half a brain who reads more that the first four or five comments. The further you read the more stupid and inane they get.
Doesn't the divine mystery hold any interest ? Intelligent people can recognize the phoniness right off - but most the people in America, that would be in our families, communities, eat that shit as though it made some rational sense and was nutritious for the mind. And no one dares correct or confront that foolish conceit. Intellectual liberal types tut tut the stupidity with their smugness and contempt at the childishness and late night comedy to help them sleep. Feeling too superior to test out the pig's wallow or to engage the deliberate lies. And no body learns and the idiots have their day - and keep propagating like rabbits on fertility pills. and our nation and world, in fact the actual physical underpinning of our life support system, keeps getting beat to shit, while the future gets reduced to nothing but a promise of an increasing hell hole with no possibility of escape save the peace death brings. And the masses remain stupid as bricks in a wall, looking for enemies rather than reasons. So Lois, that's the way of the world, is it? No wonder I feel like such a stranger in a strange land. Yes, we ARE strangers in a strange land. Lois
It is a form of psychopathy.IMO.
Indicates a dysfunction open to and susceptible to treatment. Is anyone looking? Does anyone care? There are many who see this and care deeply. But "Freedom of Speech" is a double edged sword. And it would be unjust to impose censorship. The problem lies in an "uninformed" public. And lucky for us, that's why we have fora like CFI, to call the deceivers out and expose their lies. What really worries me is that the CDC is no longer allowed to use the terms: "Science based" and "Evidence based" in their official government literature. That's really scary, because it makes the general public even more uninformed. That’s the point. They don’t want anyone gling around saying there is human-caused global warming, that humans evolved, or that homeopathic medicines don’t work. Lois
I don't know why I do it to myself, but I spend an unnecessary amount of time on thehill.com's comment section. The comments section there is absolutely overrun with trolls. The effect of these trolls is devastating: They drown out rational comments which their endless spamming on nonsensical claims. The spew constant "alternative facts" as if they are proven fact. They resort to petty insults to derail debate. They poloraise otherwise rational people into taking hard positions on something that would otherwise be more rational about. What is worse, it is quite obvious that a lot of them are indeed full-time, paid trolls. Which is what concerns me is that they are winning. They are destroying rational debate and polorising people into adopting a them-vs-us attitude. TheHill is just one example, but it is rife everywhere. They hide behind their 'right to freedom of speech' and there are others who will even defend that. But what most people fail to acknowledge is that by drowning out rational debate, they are denying others their right to freedom of speech. Trolling is the biggest threat to rational debate, and someone is paying money to ensure it happens. I understand that Evangelical Christians do it, and probably Russian too. The question is why is nothing getting done about this very serious threat?
The truly disgusting thing is a lot of these idiots aren't even American, they're Russians working for the Putin government rat fucking America and anywhere else that Putin feels like. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-paranoia-inducing-purpose-of-russian-hacks
For six months, starting in the fall of 2014, I investigated a shadowy online Russian propaganda operation called the Internet Research Agency. The agency has been widely reported in Russian media to be the brainchild of Evgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin. At the time, it employed hundreds of Russians in a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, where they produced blog posts, comments, infographics, and viral videos that pushed the Kremlin’s narrative on both the Russian and English Internet. The agency is what is known in Russia as a “troll farm," a nickname given to outfits that operate armies of sock-puppet social-media accounts, in order to create the illusion of a rabid grass-roots movement. Trolling has become a key tool in a comprehensive effort by Russian authorities to rein in a previously freewheeling Internet culture, after huge anti-Putin protests in 2011 were organized largely over social media. It is used by Kremlin apparatchiks at every level of government in Russia; wherever politics are discussed online, one can expect a flood of comments from paid trolls.
We've got them here as well, and they are a major pain in the ass...
A good start is avoiding disqus comments. As far as the bigger picture, what should be done? Trolling is against the rules basically everywhere but mods can't be there every moment of the day. That doesn't leave many realistic options besides growing thicker skin and ignoring it.
Hardly realistic since Disqus is everywhere now. You can't ignore it if it's on every thread. I'd like to see you ignore it and grow thicker skin when they invade a forum like this one. See my post above, check his posts, beltane got his start here rudely attacking anyone critical of Putin and trump, he's likely exactly what I was talking about. This isn't just going on in American online forums, this is worldwide everywhere that the Putin government feels it has an interest. It is basically psychological warfare and considering that Putin did a great deal to get his man elected to the Oval Office it is having a huge success for the Russian government.

This is what I was referring to with Beltane, he started this thread as a way to discredit comments made in another he called delusional linking trump and Putin.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/19323/
He’s also told LoisL to “fuck off” for being critical of trump…
None of this has a place in rational discussion, it is however part and parcel of an attempt to crush any discussion anywhere that is critical of Vladimir Putin and those who work for him. Which now almost certainly includes the 45th “president” of the US. Which makes all US politics a Kremlin battleground now.
And these freaks do not take prisoners…

The whole point of what the Russians are doing is to create as much discord as possible, divide people into discrete groups then eliminate the ones they don’t want.
Look at what beltane and webplodder did early on, on the issue of LGBT in the west. It’s always a hot button issue for some and they came on and declared that it was destroying western culture then defied us to “disprove” them.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/19320/
They create chaos that divides, they isolate those who they know will never follow along with them slavishly then neutralize them to the greatest degree possible. Like with beltane attacking LoisL who is one of the most independent thinkers here.
The whole point is to create a climate hostile to anyone challenging authority and in the case of Russia that is a murderously vicious totalitarian government that murders its opponents at home and abroad and discredits and intimidates them into silence when that isn’t possible. It also uses formats like Facebook to carry out widespread psych ops that helped elect someone almost certainly hostile to US interests but friendly to Russian interests Donald Trump.
So Putin spends $150,000 to run “ads” on Facebook, has his trolls at work constantly on online forums and his pet hackers break into the DNC to get material that was used to largely fracture the Democrats in the last election. And we get trump in return.

Facebook accounts with apparent Russian ties purchased about $150,000 in political ads aimed at American voters during key periods of the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new analysis released Wednesday by the social networking company. The internal Facebook findings – which it said in a blog post it had already turned over to U.S. authorities – comes as the Silicon Valley giant faces intense scrutiny from special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees concerned about how both real internet trolls and fake news bots preyed on U.S. voters during last year’s election.
The Russians are also doing this to break down the EU, one of their big recent successes was the UK Brexit vote. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/15/intelligence-watchdog-urged-to-look-at-russian-influence-on-brexit-vote
Britain’s intelligence watchdog is facing demands to examine whether Russian “troll factories" interfered in UK politics, amid mounting evidence that thousands of fake accounts may have been used to influence the Brexit vote. An investigation by parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee would represent a significant escalation in the UK’s response after encouragement from senior Labour and Conservative MPs. Labour’s Mary Creagh asked Theresa May at prime minister’s questions if the committee would urgently evaluate “the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine our democracy". In reply, May said that she expected the committee to be re-formed imminently. UK academics have already established that at least 419 Twitter accounts operating from the Kremlin-linked Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) tweeted about Brexit and that thousands of other Russia-based Twitter accounts posted more than 45,000 messages about Brexit in just 48 hours during last year’s referendum.
So yes, this kind of trolling is very serious because it is in fact a new form of warfare by a hostile power. Disqus has a block function and I use that when I encounter these trolls and use ignore here, there's no point in exposing yourself to the kind of poison that is being introduced intentionally into our lives by individuals and organizations that represent the worst not best of humanity.
A good start is avoiding disqus comments. As far as the bigger picture, what should be done? Trolling is against the rules basically everywhere but mods can't be there every moment of the day. That doesn't leave many realistic options besides growing thicker skin and ignoring it.
Hardly realistic since Disqus is everywhere now. You can't ignore it if it's on every thread. I'd like to see you ignore it and grow thicker skin when they invade a forum like this one. See my post above, check his posts, beltane got his start here rudely attacking anyone critical of Putin and trump, he's likely exactly what I was talking about. This isn't just going on in American online forums, this is worldwide everywhere that the Putin government feels it has an interest. It is basically psychological warfare and considering that Putin did a great deal to get his man elected to the Oval Office it is having a huge success for the Russian government.This piqued my curiosity, so I checked my comment history to discover that I started here by responding to Titanomachina's philosophical quandaries.

just leave already, non one wants you here troll…

We really should take online alt-right trolls seriously, because some of them carry through on their violent threats.

trolling is a way to shut down discussion on subjects the troll doesn’t want addressed and it goes on here constantly.
Mike Yohe has been trolling us all for years on an existential threat that is already deadly, you can’t have a rational discussion on human forced climate change here without Yohe eventually derailing it and nothing is done to prevent this over and over. And when he finally runs out of idiotic things to post on the matter then CC “asks” him to clarify some moronic thing he’s posted in the past and the whole cycle starts all over again. Even though it’s obvious to anyone with any knowledge in the matter what a total climate change denial troll Yohe is.
Or beltane who as I posted above started an entire thread on some bullshit examination of Franklin Roosevelt because he didn’t want to deal with what a traitor trump is to the US. Then upped the ante in defence of Putin by trying to claim that Russia armed with almost 2,000 nukes - and about to introduce the most powerful weapon system in history - and engaging in extensive cyberwarfare against western nations doesn’t present a very serious threat to all of us here.
trolls have an idiot position and to defend it resort to lies, intimidation and when that isn’t enough direct threats.
They have no place in rational discussion because their whole focus is on preventing rational discussion.
They are nuts and they want the rest of world to appear as totally insane as they are.