Tag: trolling

Article

Why Emiko is forgetting the trolls and passing on her love of food to her daughters instead – ABC Everyday

Previous coverage on HomeNetworking01.info

Constance Hall puts trolling and bullying in the TV spotlight on Dancing With The Stars

What can you do about people who use the Social Web to menace

Dealing with Internet trolls

How can social media keep itself socially sane?

My Comments

I had come across another personality who had to do battle with online bullies and trolls and she and her fan base turned it around for good.

Emiko Davies is a food writer of Japanese heritage who writes for newspaper lifestyle supplements as well as running an online presence about food. She has two daughters that are part of her food culture with one that has a large body frame.

There was an instance that she documented as part of an interview with Everyday, the ABC’s online lifestyle site. This was where Emiko’s large-bodied daughter was fat-shamed by online trolls, with Emiko being accused of not doing things right as a parent even though she is encouraging an enjoyment-of-food culture.

But, what I liked here was that an army of her online followers jumped in to defend Emiko, her daughters and her food culture. This took Emiko’s mind away from dealing with the perils of online life and led to most of these trolls deleting the comments they had posted.

It also led to Emiko changing her online-presence policy by limiting comment-writing privileges to followers and not sharing content about her children in the online space. Here she was able to rely on her followers as an army of defenders and to use the content-management tools and policies wisely to limit bad behaviour online.

But it also showed up an issue amongst the trolls as not having a healthy relationship with their food or bodies. This was drawing on an unhealthy culture where people who have a large body frame are frequently denigrated while their isn’t much positive content about these people, especially large-bodied children, engaging in joyful activities relating to food like cooking.

It is also driven by the diet culture and a vanity culture amongst women where the “hourglass figure” is considered the ideal look. As well, large-framed people aren’t really portrayed as significant heroes in popular fiction, especially juvenile fiction. There is a reality that some men and women who look large aren’t necessarily fat with this coming about because of ethnic origins or other factors or how one’s body shape changes over our lives.

Some of these accounts are showing up how a group of loyal followers for an online creator can act as their army especially when dealing with online bullying and harassment. It takes the heat off the online creator’s mind and allows them to continue to create good content. In some cases, it can also expose particular hurts that are taking place within our society.

Article

‘It hurts me so much’: Constance Hall targeted by trolls after reality TV announcement | Sydney Morning Herald

Dancing with the Stars: Constance Hall is ready to rumba! Here’s what you need to know about her | NowToLove.com

Video – Click or tap to play (Facebook page)

Previous Coverage on HomeNetworking01.info

Dealing with Internet trolls

Useful Resources

Crash Override Network – A resource centre based in the USA focused on online-abuse issues.

My Comments

Constance Hall, an online personality who has run a blog and is maintaining a Facebook public presence, is participating in the latest Dancing With The Stars season on Ten Network Australia. But because she had decided to star in this popular dancing talent-quest TV show, she got a lot of online abuse from various trolls. She often copped this abuse in her online presence due to how she looks, her outspokenness or her alternative lifestyle.

I have seen this happen with two of the contestants in MasterChef Australia season 10. One of them was accused of being close to George Calombaris because she had him taste a sample of something she was preparing before cooking it in quantity for the contest, while the other who was a nutritionist was turning out desserts which went against the grain of someone whose profession was about “clean eating”.

Even a few years ago, I observed a situation of online abuse directed at a cafe I was visiting because they wouldn’t accept the placement of a protest group’s campaign flyers near their till. It was while their neighbourhood was effectively being divided by the potential presence of a McDonalds fast-food restaurant with this protest group against the proposed development. I even defended that they had the right to defend their space but they even had to effectively shut down the commenting ability on their Facebook presence.

This kind of bullying has become very toxic with the Gamergate saga which was an attack on female game developers and female gaming journalists. This situation got to a point where there were death threats against one of the game developers along with the publication of her home address and phone number.

Typically this can be about a perverse innuendo about intimate relationships involving one or more of the victims; that the victim doesn’t “fit the mould” expected of them; or that they are “taking the wrong side” on an issue.

But Constance Hall produced a Facebook video addressing this kind of behaviour in the online space. Here, it was about stopping the acceptance and normalisation of online bullying and she had related it to what happens to children and teenagers. This video was even played as part of the introductory video package that preceded her dance routine in Dancing With The Stars. This meant that the issues being raised in the video had a good chance of being aired on prime-time traditional TV.

It is also part of her personal campaign to reach out to and encourage teenagers and other young people who are at risk of being bullied during their life’s journey especially in the online context.

A good practice to deal with trolling in an online environment would be to “insert” some common-sense in to the conversation. It may be best to approach it in a neutral form without appearing to take sides.

If it is getting out of control, most social-media platforms and some other online environments have the ability to “mute” participants or “hide” conversation threads so you don’t have them in your view. Social-media platforms also have the ability to block participants so they can’t follow you. As well, you may also have to report offensive behaviour to the online environment that it’s occurring in if it is becoming consistent.

If the online environment has the ability for users to upvote or downvote comments or threads, it can be used as a way to bury questionable comments. It is a feature that has appeared in some commenting platforms like Disqus or some online forum software, but is slowly being rolled out to major social media platforms like Facebook.

I applaud Constance Hall for how she has turned a negative experience around for something positive as well as underscoring a “you can do it” approach. This is more so for people who are or are likely to become an online personality who can easily fall victim to the ugly side of the Internet.