Internet trolls…
[Note from Steve: This is post #2 about my internet woes.]
My life has changed. Once I was participating in discussion groups on Goodreads and LinkedIn. I ended all those associated with the first and will probably do the same with the second. Amazon bought the first; Microsoft bought the second. They allowed the trolls to take over.
I was banned from an old-fashioned authors’ discussion group I’d joined because the trolls objected to my opinions. I’ll admit that 10+ years in the publishing business have caused me to develop strong opinions about reading, writing, and publishing. But what did some members of that indie board object to so vehemently? My statement that having a successful book is like winning the lottery, that’s what! There are many good authors and books in the game, but few winners. The trolls will often punish anyone who speaks the truth.
Facebook has become just as bad. While I admit that I often use my personal feed (never my author’s page) to express some progressive opinions (mine are too varied to call them all progressive, by the way), what really bothered me were the attacks on me for my opinions about how we’re destroying the environment for future generations, a bipartisan positon to my way of thinking (or it should be). That’s when I started “unfriending” some trolls. I don’t have time to read idiotic comments from global warming deniers. I know the facts; I’m an ex-scientist, after all. If trolls don’t want to accept them, or worse, they believe “alternate facts,” I don’t need them as Facebook “friends.” Period!
I recently joined Twitter (there was a marketing campaign too good to pass up that required it). Except for climate control, I avoid all things political there, unlike a certain right-wing troll who’s like Voldemort—I shall not mention his name. I thank everyone for following me, but I don’t follow everyone. People who don’t have a bio are automatically suspect, but so far the trolls seem to be benign, just female members of the “lonely hearts club band.” (They might find romance in some of my stories. They won’t with me because I’m happily married!)
We have trolls of all sorts: nasty ones, sleazy ones, romantic ones, commercial ones, and political ones. For the average Joe (for many things, that’s what I am), all the trolls are annoying. They’re ruining the internet. That happens in life. We have a good thing going (the internet was invented by physicsists to have an efficient exchange of information, after all), and a small gang of idiots destroy it for the rest of us. I think those tech gurus in Silicon Valley should be able to do something to clean it up, but maybe that’s asking too much. We can’t change human nature…or human stupidity. Einstein said only two things could possibly be infinite: the Universe and human stupidity. But he wasn’t sure about the Universe. Of course, you can argue whether the internet trolls are really human!
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