Issuu

&The Rise and Fall of

Comment

Rob Spivey The concept of ‘trolling’ may be about to enter decline as prison sentences are handed out to extreme cases.

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Trolling is potentially only in it’s infancy with population and internet usage figures continuing to rise

Landslide Win For Tory

Rob Spivey An unsuprising winner in unnoficial study to determine the political leader least popular among the public.

The Guardian | Monday 12th May 2014

Debate

the Internet Troll

here once were three everyday Twitter users, a casual tweeter, an average tweeter, and an avid tweeter. The subject they were posting about had been discussed so much by everyone that there were barely any talking points left. So together they decided that it would be best to take a trip over the bridge and start discussion about a new subject.As they began to cross the bridge, a voice bellowed out from beneath, “who’s that Twitter-Tweeting over my bridge?!” The Three Billy Goats Gruff analogy works very well for a comparison of internet trolls here, as their method is almost exactly the same of their name sake from the tale. They sit lying in wait for an unsuspecting victim to come along and cross their path, at which point the opportunistic sadists pounce on their prey with a flurry of ‘hilarious’, sarcastic responses. Trolling became popular thanks to the fact that when you are online you have almost uncontested opportunity to say and do as you please. These people would no doubt not have the same courage to stand up and spout as they please in a physical public space. The presence of actual people, as opposed to just profiles, provides just enough fear of a consequence to prevent them verbally harassing other members of the community. The trouble with trolling is that it is unbelievably easy for them to achieve satisfaction, and the opportunity is endless. There are over 58 million tweets posted every day, and for someone sittings doing nothing but lingering in a dark room waiting for someone to comment on anything to which they have stockpiled a number of sarcastic responses. Issues that touch and affect the nation are like feeding frenzies for the trolls, as the more people that are

talking about a particular subject, the bigger the audience. This may well be due a belief that by undermining other members of society they are perhaps increasing their own personal social standing. Fortunately, for us human folk, the popularity of trolling may be about to hit a downward spiral with more serious punishments being handed out for more extreme cases of trolling. These have even gone as far as leading to the arrest of individual members such as the Twitter user, Riley69, who was involved with insensitive Tweets directed at Olympic diver, Tom Daley, back in 2012. More recently was the arrest of two men, including Robert Riley, for the ‘trolling’ messages that were sent regarding the murder of Leeds teacher, Ann Maguire. You could argue that these are the more extreme, and certainly deserving, cases of trolling, but hopefully they will serve as a reminder that the consequences are in place to

he people have spoken and the Twitter votes for the least popular politician have been counted. Based on a study conducted into the public’s responses to tweets posted by the three political leaders of the UK, it has been determined that the accolade for least popular politician is awarded, unsurprisingly, to David Cameron of the Conservative party. As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, it is easy to assume such a promotion would require considerable acquiescence amongst the general public so why is the head of the Conservative party the least popular of the three political leaders? Each tweet posted by the leader of the United Kingdom displayed on his Twitter feed is almost instantly met with Tweets riddled with abuse. New posts are usually greeted with expletives and a reference to the Prime Minister being ‘dish face’, which has now become a cult saying amongst the anti-Cameron brigade. David Cameron’s desperate attempts to appear down to earth and as a ‘man of the people’ have probably not helped his popularity. In 2010 the country was plastered with 15ft

billboards showing the Conservative leader’s face, coupled with slogans relating to British issues he planned to try and resolve. The apparent airbrushing of the PM’s face within the adverts, sparked the creative talent of the nation, who began creating many different versions of the poster but altering the tag lines. One of the original posters reading ‘airbrushed to perfection’. With a need to appeal to as many potential voters as possible, politicians have to remove themselves from their comfort zones and approach members of the public outside their party’s associated socio-economic groups. The Prime Minister was recently gunned down by the Twitterati for showing his support to Stephen Sutton. Stephen, who is a terminally ill 19 year old, has raised in excess of 300% of his recently targeted £1 Million, for Teenage Cancer Trust. Cameron tweeted a message of support for the cause to encourage more people to donate, and in return was hit by a flurry of angry Twitter users declaring that he was hijacking Stephen’s story for some positive PR. To add to the pressure of Cameron being damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, is the ever present association with the party of Margaret Thatcher. Show too much

deal with these people and act as a deterrent to stop the trolls crossing the line and taking their ‘fun’ too far. Trolling is potentially only in its infancy, with population and internet usage figures continuing to rise all the time as we move forward in this technological age. The fact that sanctions are being brought in and the offenders are being held accountable for their comments is a great step forward to making sure that the Internet can hopefully remain a safe place for people to enjoy their virtual lives. And hopefully one day, people will be able to cross that bridge knowing that underneath is a troll sitting quivering below, too scared to jump out and cause any hassle.

resemblance to Thatcher and he runs the risk of losing the confidence of members of the general public. If he tries too much to distance himself from her ideologies then he loses credibility amongst his peers. Being the Prime Ministerial figure of a country holds you in the limelight almost all of the time, requiring a constant professional face to display to the public. You also have to be held accountable for your actions, meaning you are always open to scrutiny and there is always going to be displeasure with any decision. ‘Hate culture’ could arguably be responsible for the unpopularity of Cameron with it being almost ‘fashionable’ to dislike certain figures, of which he is one. Posting hate for Cameron is more popular than posting support of him and this causes people who do support him, to refrain from showing it. The Prime Minister’s supporting force has retreated to the woodwork and so the haters are prevalent on the public fora. Cameron was followed in close second position by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and last place was reserved for Labour’s Ed Miliband. You can read more and donate to Stephen’s cause online at: http://www.justgiving.com/ stephen-sutton-TCT

The Guardian | Monday 12th May 2014 Follow us on Twitter @commentisfree Join us on Facebook facebook.com/guardiancomment

Comment editor: Becky Gardiner Telephone: 020 3353 4995 Fax: 020 3353 3193 Email: cif.editors@theguardian.com

Power to the Tweeps

Privacy is Not Dead

Rob Spivey

Social media assists in massive boost of charitable donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust for Stephen Sutton.

Websites always want every last detail from you, but the good news is privacy isn’t dead, not yet any way.

ack in 2005 a clever, albeit inadvertent, marketing campaign by a small Sheffield band exploded their name and popularity seemingly overnight. The Arctic Monkeys began by giving out free CD’s of demo songs at their gigs, not to make money, but purely to spread awareness of the band and get their music out to people. They themselves had no knowledge of how to use social networks but the fans took care of that for them by sharing their music with each other freely, turning the Yorkshire quartet into a sensation. Social media has again worked wonders by lending a hand to Stephen Sutton, who is raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity. For the last three years Stephen has been battling with cancer, which doctors believe to be incurable. This has boosted Stephen’s ambition and he has made it his goal to raise as much money for charity as possible in the life that he has remaining. Stephen set out with a goal of raising £10,000 for the charity, a modest but very respectable target. Little did he know that with the help of Facebook and Twitter he would be able to take this to over 32,000% more than he initially intended. Well before it reached the increased £1 Million target from donations, Manchester based comedian, Jason Manford, became aware of Stephens situation and joined the campaign. Manford pledged to help him reach the new target before there were any more complications with his illness and reached out to other comics and famous figures, urging them to spread word of the JustGiving cause and to make donations themselves. Stephen will perhaps feel slightly disheartened after recently being readmitted to hospital after a bout of breathing difficulties but the fact he has now raised over £3.2 million for the charity should fill him with a great feeling of significant self worth. You can’t deny that getting the backing of Celebrities, and their assist in marketing the cause, has been a massive influence over the huge sums of money that have been raised nevertheless, without the effectiveness of these networking sites the causes may never have even been brought to the attention of the majority of the public. The members of the UK who have helped the cause and their generosity have been a massive boost to Stephen and have provided an incredible amount of support for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Although Stephen’s condition may have worsened it is important that people continue to make donations so that long term improvements can be made in the healthcare of teens dealing with Cancer. So let’s continue to support Stephen and let social media show that a little sharing goes a long way for caring.

F Rob Spivey Why our teens being absorbed by modern technology doesn’t mean they are being anti-social.

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YouTube offers a service through which its users can be paid for creating regular content.

Today’s Youth Anti-Social Socialites

sk any member of a generation born prior to 1960 for their opinion of today’s youth and they will probably tell you that they are an anti-social and ignorant bunch with complete disregard for anything occurring outside the touch screen interface in the palm of their hand. Initially the opinion may seem fair enough, but it would be unfair to state it as factual. Modern technology and the rise of social media has changed the way the world communicates and while younger generations may be oblivious to anything within their physical presence, it is due to them being fully immersed in their virtual lives. I was 10 years old before we had our first permanent computer installed at home, and access to the internet required plenty of patience, waiting for the monotone ‘blips’ of the dial-up connection. Thanks to the technological revolution we are experiencing, by the age of 10 today, kids already have access to laptops, smartphones and tablets and are therefore learning about technology from an incredibly young age. Even as early as 20 years ago, the concept of opening up your friendship circle to include people from all different corners of the world would have seemed ridiculous. But now thanks to sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, it is easy to find people with shared interests and hobbies which open up the chances for you to interact with people from all corners of the globe. The majority of families, in first world countries, have access to at least one mobile phone per family member, with 60% of mobile phone users in the UK using smartphones. The main attraction of a smartphone is its ability to install various applications, of which social networking applications are amongst

the most popularly downloaded. In 2012 it was estimated that 76% of smartphone users had the Facebook application installed on their phones, which is around 30% more than those who had either Gmail or YouTube’s respective applications. The Internet has paved the way for the future and people are now not only turning to the Internet as a means of looking for work, but also as a format for work. There is a high volume of websites where job listings can be posted and searched for based on various criteria including qualifications and location. he popularity of video streaming service YouTube has created an almost unlimited job pool for anyone who is creative enough to produce unique content, captivating a large audience. Now owned by Google, YouTube offers a service through which its users can be paid for creating regular content which continually gets a significant number of viewers. This in turn is pushing online traffic to the YouTube service, generating advertising revenue. Users can be paid a fixed figure every time they reach a significant milestone for example receiving payment each time a videos view count increases by a thousand views. An account holder must apply to the payment scheme and upon being accepted they become what is known as a ‘Youtube partner’. International YouTube sensation Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, or ‘PewDiePie’ to his fans, is the most subscribed-to YouTube channel with 26.5 million subscribers. His fame is based on his charm of character and sense of humour, which he coupled with his love of playing video games. His high demanding fan base means he is creating content on a daily basis and is able to make a living simply by doing so. PewDiePie can thank the rise of social media

for his fame and success as doing something as ordinary as playing video games has brought him a wealth of opportunity and has in itself created a career. Many businesses have jumped on the back of the success of social media by creating Facebook pages and Twitter accounts in order to utilise the unparalleled access to potential customers. It allows them to effectively publicise their business and at no cost, including displaying opening times, upcoming special offers and notices. Customers can be encouraged to share the page amongst their friends which again widens the business’s potential footfall. Before the growth of social media you would have been looking at thousands of pounds worth of advertising in order to acquire the same reach. Social media is the new adaptation of the ‘word of mouth’ concept and as well as discussing experiences with friends in person, people now turn to Facebook to express how they felt about a particular place and recommending it to friends online. From a business’s point of view, if you bear in mind the fact that ‘the average teen has 300 Facebook friends’ then that is quite the potential outreach from simply supplying one customer with a positive experience. If that sparks another customer to use the service your business offers and then they share their experience as well…? The domino effect continues, offering up a massive chance for companies to increase their demand. People are often afraid to open themselves up and let in the unknown, but by opening up your social network there is an endless supply of success that you can find yourself gifted with. Every avenue that may take you somewhere in life is worth at least exploring.

acebook, Netflix, Supermarkets and Banks. The more popular services demanding that we hand over every last bit of our personal information. When you consider all the different websites that have their hands on your details, it may leave you feeling a little bit exposed. People are now of the mindset that there is no such thing as privacy in the online universe because each new site you visit just wants you to hand over everything you could possibly tell them about yourself. The good news is that privacy isn’t dead; it just requires a bit of work on your part in order to make sure that it is secure. Services such as Facebook thrive on its users supplying all of their details because it opens up the number of advertisers that will approach them to buy advertising space to target specific users. Advertisers are strongly attracted to this ability because there is more chance of an advert being successful if it is targeting the right audience instead of every Tom, Dick and Harry. Facebook has to rely on advertising for it’s revenue given that the service is offered free of charge to everyone. The other attraction to advertisers, is Facebook’s massive footfall, with 757 million members of the social networking site logging into their accounts every day. When you sign up for your Facebook account, you are a little unaware of what may lie in wait ahead. Filling out their registration forms as quickly as possible is of course the human thing to do in order to minimise the wait for you getting out there into the world of friend requests and Farmville. Initially your profile is left wide open to the world, but with a brief ten minutes of your time it is very straightforward to close off any of the information you would prefer to keep out of the shop window. Facebook’s privacy settings are easy for you to choose which members of the networking site’s community can view your profile. By the simple click of a button you can change your location from being publicly visible, to only viewable people you are friends with, or as exclusive as to only be seen by yourself. The World Wide Web may seem like a dangerous place to be, but it entirely depends on how much care you take. If you fill in forms left right and centre, with no concern for what it is for and where it is going, then of course you are more likely to have difficulties with your details being used and stolen than someone who carefully picks and chooses which services actually do require certain information. I have spent the last 12 years of my short life, constantly using online services and of the many accounts I own, I could count on one hand the number of foul uses of my details that I didn’t authorise. The internet is as dangerous as you let it be.