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Keywords: Trolling

  • AUSTRALIA

    When a friend writes a controversial post, how should you respond?

    • Barry Gittins
    • 10 July 2024
    4 Comments

    How do you respond, when members of your own tribe share their distaste towards those who rub them up the wrong way? Do you ‘unfollow’? Do you engage? And if you vent against those who who offend with their own dearth of tolerance, are you guilty of doing the same?  

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Is social media harmful? A Roundtable

    • David Halliday, Beth Doherty, Tim Dunlop, Matthew Howard
    • 26 August 2022

    When former Facebook employee Frances Haugen released a trove of documents revealing internal research on the negative effects its social media products were having on mental health, the darker side of social media became hard to ignore. So how might the harmful effects of social media be mitigated into a social benefit for a saner, more coherent society? 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fighting identities: Polarisation, nihilism, and the collapse of online discourse

    • Ben Rich
    • 17 February 2022
    11 Comments

    Today we see a resurgence of digital tribalism, a glorification of disingenuous engagement online and humiliating those of a different perspective. Everywhere we see simplistic and belligerent narratives of ‘us versus them’ over more nuanced explanations that might impart a greater sense of shared humanity and common purpose. So what happened?

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  • RELIGION

    In a state of synodality

    • Brian Lucas
    • 21 October 2021
    32 Comments

    One takeaway from the First Assembly of the Plenary Council that might come as no surprise is that the controlling elite in the Church, the bishops, are not dependent on popular support. They are appointed not elected. They are generally irremovable. They come from a culture that is about preserving ‘the tradition’ (which can easily be expanded to include historical novelties that are not really part of the tradition). Moving into the new world of synodality brings obvious challenges.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Long conversations over low fences

    • Jamie Dawe
    • 16 February 2021
    2 Comments

    In a stilted, modest Queenslander in Cumming Street we lived. Pets, organic alimentation and perishable bartering. Egg producing Cackling Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns and Bantams. Freedom to explore the countryside without fear or anxiety. Long conversations over low fences.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why I won’t be signing petitions about the Aboriginal flag

    • Brooke Ottley
    • 25 August 2020
    16 Comments

    If you’re mad about some white people controlling the use of the Aboriginal flag, there are some things you should know. This is not a clear-cut case of white people trying to exploit Aboriginal culture or intellectual property for multiple reasons.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Keeping an eye on police powers

    • Bree Alexander
    • 18 April 2020
    5 Comments

    Most people would agree that certain measures are necessary to both protect those who face the greatest health risks and so that our health systems don’t get overwhelmed. However, these astronomical limitations on civil liberties raise concerns.

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  • RELIGION

    Silence has two faces

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 October 2019
    12 Comments

    It may seem paradoxical that one of the most effective ways of imposing silence is by imposing noise. The Romans did it with bread and circuses. More modern totalitarian regimes have done it with military processions and massive rallies. Governments in contemporary democracies do so by controlling what is fed to the media.

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  • MEDIA

    How fake news stifles democracy in Asia

    • Lika Posamari
    • 24 August 2018
    1 Comment

    In the Philippines and elsewhere, the spread of disinformation appealing to fear and hatred has helped create what Rappler CEO Maria Ressa describes as a 'spiral of silence that has had an incredibly negative impact on our democracy'. Social media platforms are far from blameless.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Parliamentary troll alert

    • Brian Matthews
    • 23 March 2018
    4 Comments

    In Iceland, the most recent 'troll alert' was only 50 years or so ago, and belief in the mythological troll dies hard. What is interesting to consider regarding the revenant troll of the internet age is where they are congregated. Michaelia Cash's recent outburst suggest we might look no further than our Federal Parliament.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Strolling for dummies

    • Ross Jackson
    • 12 February 2018
    2 Comments

    I am so pressed by memories poached in warm air, that I step a good way around circling pavement ants. Though experts say nothing positive about the world, despite the encroaching dark I might just pin badges of purple hibiscus flowers on anyone to hand.

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  • MEDIA

    Media complicit in the rise of political trolls

    • Jonathan Green
    • 02 February 2018
    13 Comments

    Here we have a quick demonstration of a new political method. It's not designed to advance any particular policy position. The point is trolling: the simple art of using rhetoric and political acts to provoke a reaction. Suddenly a lot makes sense. Tony Abbott makes sense. Donald Trump makes sense. So much of social media makes sense.

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