Websites to be forced to identify trolls under new measures

reply to post by SmoKeyHaZe


Oh Crap troll pride world wide must be disbanded at once!

Originally posted by GrandHeretic
Alas amigo that is the world that has been created....everyone is special, everyone is equal, and everyone is slowly being turned into a PC dooche bag because of it. Everyone is a winner,,there are no more losers...

Thats the problem. And until it effects them individually, no one will care to raise a stink.

You may not be taking into account that the internet 'boom' only happened recently, as did the sudden proliferation of pornography, inappropriate humor, and whatever else the net brings when people don't have to be nice in front of other people. (Though I 'm sure persons had other places to do this decades ago)

The change would be more of a return to the status quo for better or worse. I don't neccessarily agree with it, but with all the number of controversial things happening online, people being unmasked, telling lies etc ... It will only take a handful of public out cries to make this law everywhere.

reply to post by Pinke


Assuming there was a status quo to begin with as the internet is a constant evolving monster of sorts. you take away a persons anonymity and you propose to deal said goofball a serious blow by taking what isnt real and making it manifest into a reality of sorts.

Like another poster said, thems just words. Take the anger from someone who got butt hurt due to a overwhelming sense of insecurity by such words, and he may just show up at someones doorstep causing much bigger problems.

People have the right to be an a**hole, no one should be able to arbitrarily take that away "for no good reason".

And for as long as I can remember there has always been porn on the net...its the reason it was invented in the first place. You don't honestly think Al Gore gets any from his wife do you?

Originally posted by Domo1
Short of threats you should be able to say whatever the hell you want online. Let it be up to individual sites how they deal with perceived trolls. No one needs the government protecting them from having their precious little feelers hurt. Good luck defining troll. On many a website *ahem* people with dissenting viewpoints are routinely called trolls. I didn't read the article so I may be way off. I don't care, I just want to see myself talk.

I agree that this is not necessary.

The report I saw related to a woman who was stalked on-line and suffered a hate campaign where she was reportedly accused of child abuse and murder by a group of people.

IMO, we don't need troll laws to prevent this, we just need to recognize abuse when it happens. I look at it this way - if someone in the pub called you something, you'd deal with it and move on. No laws required for that.
But if that person then followed you home, followed you to work, called your friends and family, started pasting pictures of you up in the street - then you'd be well within your rights to have something done.

This should all come under online stalking legislation and not any anti-troll law.

That's why I think this is a cover for more internet control. Just as they have been doing around the world under various guises for the last two years.

Governments know that civil unrest is a major risk to their control. They have seen the revolutions playing out around the world and the role social media and the internet has played in mobilizing people and planning dynamic protest. They need a way to stop that before it comes to the UK, USA, France, Germany... all governments are now looking at every method they can think of to minimize the spread of any dissenting message.

This is just another law which claims to be for one thing, but is actually very useful for those in government wanting to silence people.

Can it be viewed as a good thing that they're choosing to "out" trolls.

reply to post by SmoKeyHaZe


Think about it...when was the last time government interference ever do exactly what it claims it will do?

Daym, think of how many more moderators youtube is going to have to employ! Omg! There creating jobs with this! The economy is saved!!

This will only lead to more control of the www. Trolls will eventually be arrested for hate crimes, and then the PTB will go for trolls retroactively. We will need to revert to code words for people we don't like. I have to wonder if the information superhighway was meant to be a trap (as in speedtrap).

reply to post by Lazarus Short


This is my biggest worry.

I don't wanna get paranoid about the situation..

But with the constant discussion of piracy bills, the Internet as we know may be moving towards a direction of lockdown.

The problem is the word Troll is the most misused word on the internet. Whenever anybody's is being sarcastic or just spouting an unpopular opinion, and regardless of how diplomatically they put, they get called a troll in order to shut them down.

So no, I wouldn't support the government getting involved in something like this.

However, I have mixed feelings about this. Because when I've complained to moderators of someone trolling me when i don't deserve it, they never do anything for me but let the other guy say anything they want to. If I say anything the mods don't like, the mods will stomp me and ban me, but never under any circumstances the other guy. In short, I've never ever had any mod be fair to me.

So I really don't know and will have to think on this further.

But this is the UK, not America. At least as far as I know the UK doesn't have freedom of speech like America does.