Trolling….For Idiots

Hello world. My name is Dexter and I’m a troll. You may have had some first hand experience of my activities. I serve the same purpose online as do bacteria in an ecosystem. I take apart and make use of the refuse of online society. I test the boundaries of free speech. I keep the dictators of the real world, the corporations and the media giants from exporting their control of content into the online sphere. I was the one who let you know that those hysterical evangelicals on your t.v. were nothing more than money hungry suited piranhas.

You see I may be harmful to you as an individual, but the system as a whole needs me. Who else can muster up the courage to blatantly stand in the path of a ticking thread of consensus? Who but I, the despicable troll could annoy the voices of fascism back to the nether reaches of taboo from whence it spawns?

Trolls are the dialectic voice in all forums. We inject the counter-position. Without trolls, your forums would be like the new world avian species that evolved without significant predation and consequently went extinct. Without doubt, without skepticism, there can be no science.

In a sea of platitudinous garbage, look to the troll to be your rescue boat of interrogation. Think of how weak and flaccid all of your dialogues would e if they were mere monologues. How hopeless your errors would be were there no corrective voice. The corporations own their patents and their copyright, but they do not own us. Our opinions are how we express our independence. It is healthy for someone to not only know that they are free but to prove it also. Trolls prove it every day. We engage, combat and succeed in exposing the enemies of free speech in this online space which we love. I don’t want to see this web end up as the virtual affiliate of the concrete and steel world. That place isn’t perfect. We should strike out to build a better web. We should make a better version of the world we come from when we log on. An Earth 2.0 A place created by bits and ideas. A place where no idea is barred. The web is an opportunity for us to become more connected as a planet. It is what the UN was supposed to be only real. Right now I could log on to one of dozens of social networks and get connected to hundreds of millions of people around the world. It wouldn’t take a government nor a delegate for me to achieve dialogue with someone and to take the first step to establishing some common ground.

Take a chance on doubt people. You may regret it. But you will most certainly regret going along with the politically correct current as it drags you down to the deepest part of itself and drowns your identity.

So feel free to troll the comments section below, and don’t be afraid to click on the share button either. I promise it’s not an IED.

Ownership on the web

Newspapers like The New York Times just don’t respect the internet anymore. It’s that simple. They weren’t born here and they treat the web kike a rental. They might even have it in their heads that this WWW thing is just another fad. Id like to remind these hard copy dinosaurs that other titans have previously denigrated the new god and pretty soon there after filed for bankruptcy.

The particular issue that I’m decrying here is a new policy by The New York Times’ online edition to reduce the maximum number of articles one can view gratis on their site from 20 per month to 10. As a site that had previously lost its lead as the most viewed online news vendor to The Huffington post, this was the wrong move.

For your love of money NYT, you have opened the doors to all the evils resulting from antagonizing Netizens. We have the privilege of being a mere Google search away from viewing similar if not better content from one of your many competitors. The prospect of having to put on a coat and go to the newsstand to pick up a newspaper is no more. Your insult to us is just as swiftly rebuffed. The only difference is that unlike you, we have mobility. We demand our right as Netizens. Our right to content!

How can they justify making it harder for those who still consume their content, at a time when the tide against them is rising. It’s simply alienating to what remaining loyalists they have. It’s these types of “real world” power trips that have probably caused some of the paper’s current ebbing support. The web is too fluid a medium for anyone to think that they can build a wall that will isolate content successfully.

The New York Times’ declining sales have been attributed to the rise of alternative media including competition from social media. This is kind of obvious since The New York Times has the exact opposite strategy regarding content as does social media. The paper seeks to restrict and maintain a hold on content, how its consumed and by whom. Social media, specifically sites like Facebook have very open policies regarding content. The worst it can get on one of these sites is that its specific users can restrict access to their own contributions. Maybe this stark difference in how these organizations, organize content is the reason why The New York Times is in decline and social media is on the rise.

Social media grew up with the web. It doesn’t exist without it. That is why sites like Facebook and twitter teat their users like MVPs and not like annoying hobos who want free content. The problem with The New York Times is that it acts as if there is any future scenario where it exists without the web. It’s looking longingly at a time when squares were named after it and balls dropped in its honor. Reality check NYT, it’s not 1851 anymore. You’re no longer the toast of the world.

Hundreds of millions of people log on to Facebook daily. You’re just lucky if you can get a measly 30 million. The web is like a brand new country club. You see in the old world you may have been considered as something. But here, online, there are millionaires, and there are centimillionaires!

My advice to “the Old Gray Lady” , adapt or die.