Trolls (both kinds) are both necessary and important

Trolls (non-internet version)

A bunch of people who have a platform to say what they want (and mostly don't) have decided that we need something akin to an ASBO for Twitter:

A group of MPs has called for people spreading abuse on social media websites to be slapped with an 'internet Asbo' which would ban them from using Facebook and Twitter.

Introducing such a scheme would make it open season on anybody sailing close to the wind - what starts with 'anti-semitism' soon becomes 'Islamaphobia' then slowly extends to people who say the wrong things about women or think it just fine to hunt and kill foxes. Particular attention will be paid to people who are 'anonymous' with much prurient chuntering about 'vile, internet trolls' and so forth.

Nothing is served by this process. The law is pretty clear on threats, racism and homophobia, there really isn't any need to extend this to encompass some sort of ban (a frankly unenforceable ban as it happens) on people using social media because they said the wrong sort of stuff.

So without wanting to labour the point, here's why anonymous internet trolls are important:

He runs a Facebook and Twitter account in Persian using a fictional character to parody the religious politics of Iran's imams and mullahs. BBC Trending spoke to the man behind Ayatollah Tanasoli - which can be translated as "Ayatollah Genitals" or "Ayatollah Penis."

Tanasoli has 20,000 likes on Facebook and 7,000 followers on Twitter - not enormous numbers but significant for Iran, where many people are afraid of openly aligning themselves with scathing satire and criticism.

How long do you think this man could do this if - as some of our MPs think - they shouldn't be allowed to stay anonymous on social media? Perhaps those ayatollahs, famed as they are for tolerance and understanding, would just laugh off the lewd micky-taking from Tanasoli. Or more likely he'd find himself languishing in jail awaiting one of the creatively vicious punishments the ayatollahs are wont to enjoy?

So next time you're "offended" be a "troll", stick to crying or moaning and try to avoid calling for them to be banned, locked up and punished. Even in our (supposedly) open and liberal democracy having folk who sit behind the mask of anonymity and tell us we've got no clothes on is an essential part of the freedom that we cackle on about so much. Let's grow a pair and keep it that way, eh?

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In defence of anonymity...

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Writing at Conservative Home, Charlie Elphicke the MP for Dover and Deal has called for the banning of anonymity on social media:

We should target the anonymity hate-tweeters use to harass people online. At the moment it’s just too easy to set up a bogus account and viciously stab at people from behind the curtain. Ensuring people can’t set up anonymous accounts would mean hate-tweeters would be forced to be responsible for the hate they spew.

Elphicke goes on somewhat egregiously to suggest that wanting to ban anonymity isn't a free speech issue arguing this point by creating a new definition of free speech that no-one had used until he dreamt it up:

There are some who will claim this undermines the principle of free speech. They are wrong. It’s an insult to all those who fought for our right to speak out. Free speech is not there to protect people who spread hate while hiding their identity.  The whole point of free speech is the right to speak freely in your own name.  There is also a big difference between the privacy of surfing the internet and claiming “privacy” in aid of anonymity to launch attacks on people. There should be no hiding place for the trolls.

Unlike Mr Elphicke I think this is absolutely a free speech issue and the right to speak anonymously - whether offline or online - is an essential element of that liberty that, in the MP's words people "fought for". And there are very good reasons why we should allow anonymity. Here's one:

A blogger who used the user name, "Miut3" was kidnapped and killed in Reynosa Tamaulipas. She was a "Tuitera" with the over 41k followers on her popular twitter page, that sent out situations of risk, and narco news tweets.

This women - a 'citizen journalist' in a place where the mainstream media and government is coerced by violent criminals - used anonymity to protect herself and to allow the brave resistance to the Mexican borderland's dysfunctional society. If the price of allowing this woman and others like her to challenge and question criminal conspiracy, corruption and murder is that some people use anonymity to post abuse then it's a price I'll take.

Now I can hear Mr Elphicke saying that the UK isn't Mexico and that things are different here. But imagine some other situations - perhaps someone wants to expose wrongdoing within their industry. Do you think that posting under their own name would enhance their career prospects? People simply won't take the risk.

Look at the great blogs exposing some of the management problems in the police - closed down because the blogger got identified. We'd be worse as a society without blogs like Night Jack. And there are tweeters and bloggers who use anonymity to catalogue their struggles with drug addiction or alcoholism safe knowing that anonymity protects their life from intrusion and attack.

Look also at the lengths to which public authorities will pursue bloggers who challenge and criticise them - local councils such as Bexley, South Tyneside, Carmathen and Barnet have all expended council taxpayers money pursuing bloggers (with differing degrees of success). Anonymity facilitates challenge and criticism and this is one of the reasons why public authorities are so keen to see it stopped.

It isn't pleasant to be abused online anymore than it's pleasant to be abused in the street, the pub or at work. But most of the time we walk away, a little upset maybe but not otherwise harmed. The same applies online - switch off the computer, go and make yourself a cup of tea and read a book or watch the telly. The abusers will soon go away if they don't get a response. And don't - unless you're a troll yourself - play the silly game of broadcasting on Twitter, Facebook or your blog that you're being 'trolled'. All that does is make you even more of a target - you've responded so the trolls know they'll get a rise from you.


So I say to Charlie Elphicke, get a thicker skin, stop claiming it's all "for the children" when it's not and read and remember the final tweet from Miut3 - posted by her murderers:

Friends and Family, my real name is Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, I am a doctor, now my life has met it's end.

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In which David Allen Green is nominated for the Blair Prize!

Unlike some folk I do not blog under an assumed name. Not because I have some superiority complex or even so I could say things that I would not otherwise be able to say. And those who do blog under a pen name do so as part of a very long and extremely honourable tradition – one that includes George Orwell, John Le Carré, Joseph Conrad and the incomparable Lewis Carroll.

Now while Guido Fawkes, Obnoxio the Clown and Jack of Kent do not compare to such brilliance, they continue in a wonderful tradition of anonymous – or rather semi-anonymous – commentary on politics. A cursory glance at 18th century newspapers show a parade of similar pen names – names adopted almost as nommes de guerre in the political battles of the time. Such a practice allowed for the writer to attack the sacred – to criticise the king or the church – and to use language that would not otherwise be permitted.

And the tradition continued throughout the 19th century – we now know Boz as Charles Dickens but his coruscating critique of the social conditions of that time was published in magazines under that pseudonym. And into the 20th century – we forget too readily the contributions of ‘Beachcomber’ and the glorious right-wing whimsy of Peter Simple.

So carry on blogging under an assumed name – or your own name – under whatever name you want to. It is part of the writing tradition not just some adopted ‘handle’ in the manner of CB radio as the blogger formerly known as Jack of Kent would have it. And Jack – or David – it’s a bit rich as a criticism from a blog shortlisted for the Orwell Prize! Or should we rename it the Blair Prize – now that would be funny!

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Anonymity...

In commenting on a blog, I was struck by our inconsistent – bordering on hypocritical – treatment of anonymity. Now I have always had a straightforward view on anonymous allegations – that is what I have a bin-shaped filing cabinet for.

And I hear the screams.

“Anonymity protects the person making the allegation.”

“The right for journalists to protect their sources is a hard-won freedom.”

“We should always investigate allegations – it’s what the public expect.”

And so on. Well let me tell you that this is all nonsense. If we want to protect complainants, why do we do so only selectively? Are some complaints more important than others? Is anonymity only to be granted to a special, privileged category of alleger? That – to me – is how it appears. Yet on this basis people I know and respect have lost their jobs and others have had their careers wrecked.

Usually that is the sole point and purpose of the anonymous allegation

And please can we stop all this, ‘journalists are little tin gods’ nonsense. Journalists are not supermen on a great moral crusade to save the planet from whatever their newspaper tells them it needs saving from. Journalists mostly just do the job and often this job driven by tittle-tattle, gossip and unfounded allegation as these make by far the best stories and most exciting copy. Which means more circulation, more advertising and more profit. Hey ho!

And the public aren’t as dumb as you think – they understand the impact of anonymous backbiting (occasionally indulging in such a pastime themselves) and that most allegations are raised with the sole purpose of advancing the allegers (or his friends) interests. Those interests might be the search for political power, they might be money, business advantage or control. Or the interest might be good old fashioned vengeance. Almost never is the motive of the anonymous alleger to bring the light of truth to play into murky corners.

Anonymous allegations should be – wherever possible – avoided or dismissed. And never ever trusted.

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Anonymity, rape and the burkha

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Two issues that have exercised the febrile minds of our chattering classes – anonymity in rape cases and banning (or not banning) the burkha. And there’s a link in the hypocrisy and self-righteous smugness of the cuddly lefties who like to pontificate on such matters.

Banning the burkha is wrong but authorities should be allowed to require the veils removal for justified reasons of identification. And, other than when that person’s safety is at risk, there should be no anonymity in the court system – whether in rape or any other crime.

The arguments put up by those most indignant about the proposals to grant some anonymity to those accused of rape are a pile of piffle constructed from the ruins of an army of straw men. If –dear lefty women – it is right to grant anonymity to the victim, it must also be right to grant anonymity to the accused. I know you like the word – that is FAIR. Stupid…but fair. A bit like granting anonymity to victims who might otherwise “not come forward because of the stigma” (one of the more nonsensical notions in all this debate).

In all this the lefties share common ground with the frothing nutters (and the French it seems) who think that the law should have anything to say about what we should or shouldn’t wear while going about our normal business. Ah, they say – we don’t know who they are, we can’t see their faces, they might be terrorists! This is the same argument as that used to argue against granting anonymity to men accused of rape – they might be serial rapists, there might be other witnesses, they might be allowed to walk free!

I don’t like burkhas or rapists but find the arguments about special treatment in both cases to be without any logic or sense – but that’s what we expect from the racist left and the cuddly left.

Hypocrisy.

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