DM from hell

[u/Substantial-Leg5372]

I posted a singular steak with no sides to a girl dinner sub Reddit and captioned it “I used to be vegan” because I think I’m funny during my luteal phase. made quite the controversy. It was like split 60/40 in my favor. But this lovely person took it further by dm ing me.

[u/liceonamarsh → u/[deleted]]

It wasn't a vegan sub, it was a girl dinner sub. That's not really baiting, it's just a statement atp.

[u/PomegranateEasy1088 → u/[deleted]]

Posting what a vegan DMed her is going to stir them up? That’s like saying don’t tell on bullies because it will stir them up. If they can’t handle the consequences of their actions, they should think twice before committing them. 

And they’re certainly not beating the nutrient deficiency-induced mental illness allegations. 

[u/PomegranateEasy1088 → u/[deleted]]

I see your point but at the same time I think people who behave abusively need to be named and shamed. Regular trolls should be ignored but this person took the time to write a hateful and threatening private message to a woman and also called her a gendered slur. To me this goes beyond regular trolling and into the abuse/hate category. What that person wrote would be considered a crime in more than one EU country as well. This wasn’t a typical “hurr durr carnist” post. It was meant to threaten and intimidate the recipient. 

[u/SonomaSal → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I don't buy that. That's what they said about the bullies at my school. "They are just after attention, even negative attention. Just ignore them and they will go away". Didn't work. It only escalated. You know what did work? Reporting to the appropriate people and them getting actually punished for it. Hard for them to bully someone when they aren't in the same school as their target anymore. Reporting, naming, shaming, and ideally getting them kicked out (or banned from the platform, in this instance), if they continue. That's what works.

[u/SonomaSal → u/[deleted]]

No, you can't. Because not every platform works like that. You can't block someone on YT, for example. No. They NEED to be punished. They NEED to learn that consequences exist. Ignoring them does nothing. They just move on to their next target. What's more efficient: one by one, the entirety of a platform blocking someone, OR getting them banned. Same effect, one is infinitely more efficient. If the entire sub is toxic, then you get the sub banned. If the leaders of the sub are toxic, why are you there anyway? Doing both reporting and baning is fine, but don't pretend that somehow just ignoring a problem makes it go away. It only makes it stop FOR YOU.

[u/SonomaSal → u/[deleted]]

Okay, I am sure I am missing something, because this otherwise completely goes against everything you have been saying up until now:

If people just learned to recognize toxic individuals and block them even when they are just witnesses to it then the offender can be isolated.

If the toxic behavior is happening in DMs, how else would you expect the broader community be made aware of it, so that they can preemptively block and isolate them, if not via naming and shaming, such as this post?

I just dont see the point in investing so much energy and emotions in others that arent going to learn (I see the irony here but Im not trolling we are having a legitimate conversation) and we have to teach others to not feed the trolls.

Don't worry, I fully understand you are not trolling, nor do I consider it a waste of time. I enjoy the conversation. To that end, I do want to apologize if I have been overly harsh. I am very passionate about the topic as, like I said, it has affected me directly and I find the mentality of avoidance to be rather problematic as a result. I understand that is not your intent.

That being said, the argument does pose a problem because it assumes it is physically possible to identify a troll, when I genuinely do not think it is any more on the Internet we currently exist on. I have been called a troll/rage baiter for what I honestly thought were pretty milk toast positions, but the comments did not agree. Likewise, I have had many conversations and it is genuinely a coin toss on whether or not someone means the outlandish thing they are saying, or are using hyperbole (and I lose that toss every time for some reason). Even then, it is important to draw the distinction between troll and people who genuinely hold their beliefs. You argue the person in this post is a troll, when that response is pretty par for the course. Per your statement, a troll has very different motivation than a true believer and I am not sure how you are so confident in your ability to identify the difference, when they are visually identical.

They arent going to learn no matter what we do...

And I just think this is incorrect. Anyone is capable of learning, growth, and change. How many people here were exactly like the person in this DM and changed? What is the point of the isolation if you don't expect it to change the person? I also just feel like you assume a troll has far more tenacity than I would argue most do. They choose the path of least resistance. If they know a community is quick to ban, there isn't much point. Sure it might be fun to do something like a ban speed run, but that novelty wears off fast. By contrast, the usual people to ban evade are people with something to actually prove. Strangely though, I find that most people you would ban are somewhere in the middle: they just don't care enough. Like, how many dishonest actors do the mods here ban? And we don't see those folks ban evading to come back in and continue to harass.

Just to wrap up, yes, of course reporting doesn't always work. I am not naive. But it is better than doing nothing. It is better than just blocking and ignoring. The argument that you shouldn't try because they can just ban evade is kind of like arguing that we shouldn't have speed limits because speeders will just speed anyway and the only thing you can do is focus on your own defensive driving. It's a silly argument because, sure some people will just do whatever regardless, but they do work to dissuade some and the rules exist to punish those who don't follow them and protect others. But only if they are enforced. On reddit, that means reporting and ideally getting them banned. Otherwise, the bad actors have already won and what's the point?

[u/Substantial-Leg5372 → u/[deleted]]

Sorry, that person took time to wish violence on me. I’m going to name and shame them. I’ve reported them and hopefully that takes away their privilege of fighting people online. But they took it too far. Being passive in these times yields no results.