I wanted to give a few thoughts about the troll discussion. I read the definitions on a few other posts and understand what a troll is.

 

What is interesting is how easy people feel that they can attack when they are hidden behind the monitor and keyboard. As I brought up in class the other day, I was having a bit of fun with the election and made a comment that I was voting for a cartoon character. This opened up a heated discussion with direct attacks about my thinking credibility and decision. When I explained that this was supposed to be a funny lite humor post, they finally understood. But, I did have a friend turn it back to serious, including an attack on religion.

 

This blog post is not to push any candidate – that’s not the issue. I have been careful to avoid political debate on the internet. It just gets too nasty because of the way responses are – especially when these responses come in a way of drop the bomb and run.

 

The background, I have known this friend since the early 1970’s and have never seen her act as bold as she was behind the keyboard. When I made an indirect comment about her attack on my views, she changed her tone, not her views, but how posts on this interaction were done. I do think she forgot that she was posting to someone that really knew her from real life.

 

My story above was about someone that I knew doing a tiny attack. There was no worry or problem, but she did go to a friend that is very political who friended me, I took the “bait” and accepted. This person proceeded to post every few minutes about her political agenda. Now I do agree with being open minded, but do not agree with someone pushing me to vote, as they want.

 

 

It was an interesting to watch the interaction.

 

On the Troll issue, these people are using the same attitude, by hiding behind a computer causing havoc.

 

The question in class came up, “Do we go ahead and let the government control of the internet, or do we keep it open?”

 

My answer is that I want to keep the government out of the picture. Private sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, or Reddit all have created rules that subscribers to the sites must follow. We do not need the government taking over the internet.

 

These were random thoughts about class on Monday -- Thanks