7.3.4. RIP trolling# RIP trolling is where trolls find a memorial page and then all work together to mock the dead person and the people mourning them. Here’s one example from 2013: A Facebook memorial page dedicated to Matthew Kocher, who drowned July 27 in Lake Michigan, had attracted a group of Internet vandals who mocked the Tinley Park couple’s only child, posting photos of people drowning with taunting comments superimposed over the images. One photo showed a submerged person’s hand breaking through the water with text reading “LOL u drowned you fail at being a fish,” according to a screen grab of the page shared with the Tribune after the post was removed. Cruel online posts known as RIP trolling add to Tinley Park family’s grief from the Chicago Tribune

One of the traditional pieces of advice for dealing with trolls is “Don’t feed the trolls,” which means that if you don’t respond to trolls, they will get bored and stop trolling. We can see this advice as well in the trolling community’s own “Rules of the Internet”: Do not argue with trolls - it means that they win But the essayist Film Crit Hulk argues against this in Don’t feed the trolls, and other hideous lies. That piece argues that the “don’t feed the trolls” strategy doesn’t stop trolls from harassing: Ask anyone who has dealt with persistent harassment online, especially women: [trolls stopping because they are ignored] is not usually what happens. Instead, the harasser keeps pushing and pushing to get the reaction they want with even more tenacity and intensity. It’s the same pattern on display in the litany of abusers and stalkers, both online and off, who escalate to more dangerous and threatening behavior when they feel like they are being ignored. Film Crit Hulk goes on to say that the “don’t feed the trolls” advice puts the burden on victims of abuse to stop being abused, giving all the power to trolls. Instead, Film Crit Hulk suggests giving power to the victims and using “skilled moderation and the willingness to kick people off platforms for violating rules about abuse”

In 2016, when Donald Trump was running a campaign to be the US President, one twitter user pointed out that you could see which of the Tweets on Donald Trump’s Twitter account were posted from an Android phone and which from an iPhone, and that the tone was very different. A data scientist decided to look into it more and found: “My analysis … concludes that the Android and iPhone tweets are clearly from different people, “posting during different times of day and using hashtags, links, and retweets in distinct ways, “What’s more, we can see that the Android tweets are angrier and more negative, while the iPhone tweets tend to be benign announcements and pictures. …. this lets us tell the difference between the campaign’s tweets (iPhone) and Trump’s own (Android).” (Read more in this article from The Guardian) Note: we can no longer run code to check this ourselves because first, Donald Trump’s account was suspended in January 2021 for inciting violence, then when Elon Musk decided to reinstate Donald Trump’s account (using a Twitter poll as an excuse, but how many of the votes were bots?), Elon Musk also decided to remove the ability to look up a tweet’s source.

6.6.2. Anonymity encouraging authentic behavior# Anonymity can also encourage authentic behavior. If there are aspects of yourself that you don’t feel free to share in your normal life (thus making your normal life inauthentic), then anonymity might help you share them without facing negative consequences from people you know. 6.6.3. Is authentic self-expression good?# We can next ask if authentic self-expression is a good thing or not. But that depends, what is the authentic thing about yourself that you would be expressing? Are you authentically expressing hate or cruelty? If so, perhaps authentic self-expression is morally bad. Are you part of an oppressed or marginalized group that has been restricted from self-expression? Then perhaps expressing yourself is morally good. (See Trans Twitter and the beauty of online anonymity)

One famous example of reducing friction was the invention of infinite scroll. When trying to view results from a search, or look through social media posts, you could only view a few at a time, and to see more you had to press a button to see the next “page” of results. This is how both Google search and Amazon search work at the time this is written. In 2006, Aza Raskin invented infinite scroll, where you can scroll to the bottom of the current results, and new results will get automatically filled in below. Most social media sites now use this, so you can then scroll forever and never hit an obstacle or friction as you endlessly look at social media posts. Aza Raskin regrets what infinite scroll has done to make it harder for users to break away from looking at social media sites.

Sometimes designers add friction to sites intentionally. For example, ads in mobile games make the “x” you need to press incredibly small and hard to press to make it harder to leave their ad:

When we think about how data is used online, the idea of a utility calculus can help remind us to check whether we’ve really got enough data about how all parties might be impacted by some actions. Even if you are not a utilitarian, it is good to remind ourselves to check that we’ve got all the data before doing our calculus. This can be especially important when there is a strong social trend to overlook certain data. Such trends, which philosophers call ‘pernicious ignorance’, enable us to overlook inconvenient bits of data to make our utility calculus easier or more likely to turn out in favor of a preferred course of action.

Gender# Data collection and storage can go wrong in other ways as well, with incorrect or erroneous options. Here are some screenshots from a thread of people collecting strange gender selection forms:

Antagonistic bots can also be used as a form of political pushback that may be ethically justifiable. For example, the “Gender Pay Gap Bot” bot on Twitter is connected to a database on gender pay gaps for companies in the UK. Then on International Women’s Day, the bot automatically finds when any of those companies make an official tweet celebrating International Women’s Day and it quote tweets it with the pay gap at that company:

Bots might have significant limits on how helpful they are, such as tech support bots you might have had frustrating experiences with on various websites. 3.2.2. Antagonistic bots:# On the other hand, some bots are made with the intention of harming, countering, or deceiving others.

儒（其他关联）# B成为模范人物（例如，仁慈的；真诚的；尊敬和祭祀祖先；尊重各方ents长老和权威人士（照顾儿童和年轻人；对家人和他人慷慨大方）。 这些特质通常是通过仪式和礼节（包括祭祀祖先、音乐和饮茶）来展现和实现的。，从而形成和谐的社会。 关键数据： 孔子中国约500 孟子约350，中国 荀子公元前300年左右，中国 道教# 顺应宇宙自然循环，采取自然而然的行动。强行推动事物发展很可能会适得其反。。 不认同儒家注重礼仪规范，更崇尚自发性和玩乐精神。 就像水（柔软且易变形）经过一段时间可以切割岩石一样。 关键数据： 老子公元前500年左右的中国 老子 庄子公元前300年左右的中国

We also see this phrase used to say that things seen on social media are not authentic, but are manipulated, such as people only posting their good news and not bad news, or people using photo manipulation software to change how they look.

Platforms can be minimalist, like Yo, which only lets you say “yo” to people and nothing else. Platforms can also be tailored for specific groups of people, like a social media platforms for low-income blind people in India.