Summary
In the article, Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities, the author began by discussing antisocial behavior and antisocial users. This included information on trolls, users who bait others into arguments and generally engage in “negatively marked online behavior”, as well as a classification of antisocial users into a category. This category is called being a Future-banned user (FBU), these are users who have been banned but whose previous posts are still visible. These FBU’s serve as the basis of the study because it was possible to analyze their behavior and identify why they were banned. The author then explains that they chose to study the comments section of CNN, IGN, and Breitbart. The study brought forth a few findings. One such finding is that FBU’s posts are less similar to other posts in the same topic from users who were never banned, this indicates that they like to steer the discussion off topic. FBU’s are also less likely to use positive words in their posts. It was also found that these users get more replies than typical users, implying they are successful at garnering attention. They also tend to post heavily in a narrow selection of threads that they participate in, because they like to keep the argument going. There was also evidence to suggest that FBU post quality deteriorates over time. This also could tie into the community getting more familiar with the troll and getting their posts deleted more often.
Analysis
I do think that this study was important to perform but I didn’t find the results too surprising. I have seen from personal experience how trolls operate on comment sections of most websites. So this study served to confirm those perceptions. It seems that most trolls or users who get banned like to stir up arguments, but I did like how the article mentioned that some people downvote and report others just because the other user has a differing opinion. People who are not offensive but believe strongly in a different opinion should not be banned or censored. I think that is why having a human moderator check quality of posts is important to avoid people getting wrongfully banned. I also thought it was interesting how the author mentioned giving the trolls a way to redeem themselves, I’m not too sure how well that would work.
Questions
- Would providing a way to promote good behavior and allow trolls to redeem themselves be successful?
- Would there be a way to automate the deletion of offensive posts effectively?
- Do trolls have the right to participate in their behavior, as it is a public board? Is there a line to be crossed?
