Trolls and Anonymity

If you have dealt with an online troll which more surely you have, you need to know what kind of troll because there are many different type of trolls online. There are trolls who just like to cause mischief online and trolls who are hateful and just want to hack your account or otherwise. There are others who  from most of all, are stalkers or just try to act funny. Finally, there are the buck trolls and those are the patent trolls. That the point is there are many different types of trolls and if you knew what type your dealing with, that will help you way more to plan a defence. Furthermore, I think that being anonymous on the internet is not a problem now in society because sometimes you want to leave others in mystery. Which in my opinion is pretty interesting. There are times that people like to post drawings, paintings, writing online and those are good people in this world. Now don't underestimate me because yes, I know theres others who just want to make trouble, crazy people for a better word but who is here to tell you what to do. Now for those who are anonymous let the police or government take care of it, its on them. By excluding them there are others who just have a brilliant imagination and like to keep oneself anonymous and i'm referring to the "Good People".

How being Anonymity can have it's perks

Anonymous. When you hear someone say this word what do you think? I put a negative cognition on it because when i was growing up i would always wonder why this person has to be anonymous to write a negative comment to write and put someone down. When we were talking about putting a good outcome on Anonymous writers. In my opinion they seem to feel more comfortable without knowing who they are so they don't judge right away. An good example for this is the reality show the voice. The celebrity judges are turned around in a chair facing the audience so once the contestants sing and the coaches like their voice they hit a button and they get turn they chair around. That sense of anonymity makes them feel like they can sing without being judged about their image. I understand how they want to be known anonymous when they first walk into the stage because the judges are choosing them on their soulful voice. Now when someone says the word anonymous I can put a positive outlook on the word.

Starting To See The Light

Is anonymity a curse or a blessing? We’ve done so much research in class about the curses of online anonymity and how it leads to trolling. I thought that anonymity bread bad behavior, but there are benefits to being anonymous. Anonymity gives people a platform to ask what they really want to know without feeling embarrassed. It also allows us to share things; our feelings, our writings, our ideas, without feeling judged. Anonymity saves people from being judged and it saves us from judging others. In class when we do our read-arounds, only our student number is printed on our papers. If we read something and don’t know who the author is, we’re more likely to read it with an open mind. If we know who’s paper reading, we already have an opinion established, making us biased.The other week I was so convinced there were more cons then pros when it came to anonymity but, I’m starting to see the light of the other side.

AF: Lindy West Vocab Words

I've been asked to post these here, so here you go:

From Lindy West:

1. pithy (1)
2. misconstrued (5)
3. gratuitous (9)
4. innocuous (9)
5. contrarian (9)
6. refrain (11)
7. gossamer (12)
8. timbre (28)

Remember, the second set of 8 words come from the additional readings, 9 articles in all. Total vocab words = 16, due on Thursday, December 10. Also December 10, vocab quiz and grammar quiz.

Due on Tuesday, December 8: Big chart, completed. Two rhetorical precis, in MLA format. Whitney Phillips wrote the essay I've assigned; you pick the second one.

You will receive the writing task on Monday. All ERWC units travel through an arc where you read, absorb, make notes, and then write. It's time. Next week is essay writing week.

AF

Cool Campaigns and Comments

During class, I followed a cyber link in Ryan M. Milner's article, Dialogue is Important, Even When It's Impolite. It led me to another page about the #YesAllWomen campaign that is going on right now for Twitter. The hash tag has been used by both women and men to wage the war against misogyny and sexism. It also serves to counter #NotAllMen, a hash tag often used in sidetracking or weakening feminist arguments. I took the time to read some of the tweets from #YesAllWomen. The ones I read were very powerful in their message and definitely pulled at my heartstrings. The campaign is a good example of how anonymity can be used for good. With the hash tag, trollers have, of course, used anonymity to harass and defame others, but good people have also felt empowered enough by their anonymity to post and say brave things they wouldn't normally say. I would definitely recommend that you look into the campaign a bit more to get a feel for diversity of opinions expressed with the hashtag. Overall, the hash tag campaign combined with the anonymity of the Internet  "fostered robust conversations" that might not have happened otherwise. From this realization, I have definitely gained a more nuanced (to take a word from our New York Time's articles) view on online anonymity.
I also want to talk about the New York Times website itself. I found it to be truly inspiring! Because the Times moderates all of its comments, I didn't have to sludge through dozens of obscene, useless, off topic, or offensive comments before stumbling across something worth reading. Instead, I felt that each commenter brought something valuable to the online debate about trolling and added to my understanding of online anonymity. I thought the comments were just as good and as important as the articles themselves. The New York Times has been able to pretty much get rid of trolling while still allowing people to post anonymously. Their comments section reflects an ideal: people can express dissident opinions, as protected by the freedom of speech, and people can also protect their identities when they post.
Unfortunately, the New York Times' comments section is not a viable option for many websites. It is expensive to pay moderators to sift through thousands of comments every day, and other similar comment moderating systems have drawbacks of their own. Fighting trolling thus becomes a difficult task for any website with a smaller budget than NYT. The examples of #YesAllWomen and the New York Time's moderated comments section, however, give us hope of a brighter future for the Internet: a future where free speech is protected, anonymity is allowed, and the trolls are silenced.

Fake

The show Catfish is a show that follows the journey of couples in online relationships. Usually an individual from the relationship reaches out to the filmmakers of the show to investigate because they suspect their significant other of having something fishy about them or that they are being untruthful. Usually, the suspected person is caught lying about their identity and who they truly are.

I've watched episodes where sometimes the distrusted person isn't even the gender they say they are. Or sometimes they are in in-person relationships while continuing the cyber relationship, which is unfair to the individual on the other end. The show is overall crazy yet addicting to watch.

It's easy to become attached to a person online because there is little to no confrontation involved. Although a non-anonymous profile may be created, the identity may not necessarily be true. It's very simple to steal someone else's pictures to claim as your own and post false information about oneself. This is what makes the Internet such a scary place.

One may think that posing to be someone else online doesn't affect anyone but if an individual catches feeling for that poser, then the game has changed. At this point, emotions are involved and it may affect an individual's daily life. An individual may make plans to one day meet this amazing person but what will they do when they finally meet them and the person isn't truly who they say they have been?

It's vital to be cautious on the Internet when it comes to meeting new people because a person's online identity is unknown.

Room for Debate: Rhetorical Precis

The next step for this unit is for you to complete the rhetorical precis. A rhetorical precis is an academic summary written based on a selected work. It is more than simple summary, however. It has a rigidly specific format wherein the writer presents essential information about a particular text. There are four sentences in a rhetorical precis and each requires a specific focus:

• Sentence 1: In a single coherent sentence give the following: (a) name of the author, title of the work, date in parenthesis; (b) a rhetorically accurate verb (such as "assert," "argue," "deny," "prove," disprove," "insist," etc.); (c) a thatclause containing the major claim (thesis statement) of the work.
• Sentence 2: In a single coherent sentence give an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim (thesis statement).
• Sentence 3: In a single coherent sentence give a statement of the author's purpose, followed by an "in order" phrase.
• Sentence 4: In a single coherent sentence give a description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience.

Check out this video that Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Phinizy made to help explain the rhetorical precis.

So, you will complete TWO rhetorical precis based on two of the seven articles from Room for Debate: The War Against Online Trolls. These two precis need to be completed, typed, in MLA format by Friday, December 4th. You will be assigned one and you can choose the other. Here are the list of articles:

1. Danielle Keats Citron: "Time to Fight Cyberharrassment"
2. Kristy Tillman: "Women and Minorities as Targets"
3. Annemarie Dooling: "Don't Identify by Names but by Knowledge"
4. Vyshali Manivannan: "When 'Trolling' Becomes an Umbrella Term"
5. Gabriella Coleman: "Anonymity Serves Us All"
6. Ryan M. Milner: "Dialogue Is Important, Even When It's Impolite"
7. Whitney Phillips: "Focus on Actions and Context"

Here is a LINK to the Rhetorical Precis Rubric.