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by penprog 4247 days ago
This is why I hate these articles, we get people like you that call insults "weapons". They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by an insult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon this is what the word weapon means

The only way to stop online trolling is by educating people to ignore stuff on the internet. If some anonymous nobody starts saying weird stuff to you, ignore them. If they threaten you, call the police and ignore them. It's that simple.

edit: changed weapon to comment
2 comments
jerf 4247 days ago
"They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by a weapon."

Err, I know what you tried to say there... but you're still wrong, because "physically" hurt is not the only relevant type of hurt.

You are not a robot. You are an emotional being, and you can be emotionally hurt by things that perhaps wouldn't hurt Spock but do hurt you. Your threshold may be much higher than many other people's. As it happens, mine is too.

But that doesn't make us "right", or better, and it doesn't mean that people don't get really hurt on the Internet when thrust into a world their brain is quite literally not prepared for. If anything, we are the freaks of nature.

Also note I didn't even limit it to insults... just perfectly normal social interaction can be quite draining. The realm of "negative feedback" is far richer than just "insults". Just receiving 4000 emails on a topic is an astonishing experience that I have but put my toe in the water of, and have little desire to experience the full blast.

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delecti 4247 days ago
From that article:

>In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary.

Harassment goes beyond just "insults", and coordinated targeted harassment campaigns against an individual are absolutely capable of inflicting severe mental trauma.

If you disagree, consider the difference between me calling you a "poopy head" (insult), and me organizing a group of people to call the cell phones of you and several members of your family, multiple times per day for the next several months and leaving aggressive or threatening messages.

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