Most of the internet is anonymous. Do you remember those little accounts you made when you were younger like ClubPenguin, Poptropica, or Fantage? Those were also anonymous, though they were heavily monitored as they were child-oriented. Swear words would automatically get you banned for a couple days and there was a report system, but you could get around the swear word ban by misspelling the word.
This is another positive aspect for being anonymous online. When you're a kid, you just wanna play some games and talk to other kids without worrying that someone will know who you are in real life.
I spent a lot of my younger days on these kinds of online communities and I honestly don't remember one instance where I saw someone be mean to someone else or to me. Does that mean that children are just inherently kind? No, it does not. It's most likely because kids don't want their account banned, and it doesn't cross their mind to mean online; they just want to play some games. Why is it that these anonymous online communities have no trouble with trolls? Is it because of the banning and report system, or is it because the only people playing it are kids?
What I'm trying to get at here is that it is possible to have anonymous online communities without trolling. There just has to be a system that works. But the internet is the internet, and it doesn't come without hate, so we'll just have to deal with it.
I don't think that we have to find a system that works.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I don't believe that such a thing exists.
There's too many people out there that want to be problematic. However, I do like your example of the online websites we used as kids that you mentioned. I think though that the lack of trolling in those had to do with who we were at the time.
We were kids! We were innocent! All we wanted to do was have fun and be happy. With time we've lost sight of such things.
We were so much simpler back then.
I think maybe trying to retrieve those values and views we once had could aid us in the fight against trolls and cyberbullying.
I agree that as kids, we had no idea what trolling even was due to our innocence, but that begs the question. At what point in our lives do our minds become corrupted to the point where we start bullying people online? When do kids' start to become trolls?
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