Did trolls kill Charlotte Dawson?

It goes without saying that the death of Charlotte Dawson was a sad event. Suicide is always depressing. Of course when something like this happens lots of people look for something, someone, or some group to blame. Not surprisingly social media trolls have been seen as the major culprits here.

I don't think there's any doubt that the massive amount of abuse she copped online was a contributing factor in her death. But can you say they killed her, as many people on Twitter and elsewhere have been claiming?

No way. She killed herself. If you believe that adults are responsible for their own actions then you have to accept that it was she who made the final decision to end her own life.

Yes, there were many factors that brought her to that point. And we can argue about the extent to which one or more of them contributed to her death. But if you say that she had no power whatsoever in this equation and it was all due to the actions of others you're just deluding yourself.

I'm no shrink but it's pretty obvious from recent coverage of the tragedy that several factors were at play. There was Dawson's ongoing struggle with depression. There was the fact that almost everyone in the country knew about her parlous emotional state for years thanks to ongoing mainstream media attention. More specifically there was the recent stress of a 60 Minutes report about former partner Scott Miller and his drug problems. This clearly dredged up many deeply painful memories for her. There was the fact that her career was floundering. And there were the trolls.

It seems to me that "blaming the media" for her death would be just as rational as blaming trolls. The way they cynically exploit the suffering of well known individuals such as Dawson and Miller for ratings while simultaneously wringing their hands about it just makes you wanna puke. The fact that these reports are done with the full cooperation of the vulnerable individuals concerned is not an ameliorating factor. Maybe such troubled souls are doing it for the cash or the attention, or both. This just makes the whole thing even more creepily predatory in my opinion.

As well as compounding her humiliation, the ongoing media coverage of Dawson's struggle with mental illness made her even more of a target for trolling. We've all heard the term "don't feed the trolls". Well, a lot of that food was being supplied by the shows that made piles of filthy lucre from "documenting" her battles with them.

The same can be said of a lot of this hand-wringing in the wake of her death as well as the campaign by nanny-statists to make her into a martyr and increase censorship of social media. Rather than landing a powerful blow against trolls in general, all these things will embolden them further.

It's pretty clear that trolls genuinely wished her dead. So by arguing that their harassment of her was the main cause of her demise, you're basically saying: "You won trolls." (Actually, I read several tweets that used almost those exact words.) All that'll do is ensure that they'll redouble their efforts to emotionally destroy their next target.

Much better to just ignore these pathetic people in my opinion. Don't give them the power they don't have by telling them that their putrid online harassment actually succeeded.

Robbie Farah's trolling ordeal and the push to censor Twitter

Gotta feel sorry for Robbie Farah. Must be horribly upsetting to have such nasty things tweeted about his mother's death. But this crusade he's on is just pointless. He, like Charlotte Dawson, has made the mistake of feeding the trolls. And of course the abuse hasn't stopped.

Obviously, anyone who posts such nasty, vile hate messages is a waste of skin. But unless they're actually making physical threats then you should just ignore or block them. If a well known person acknowledges that the troll really landed a punch it makes him feel important somehow -- exactly the result he craves. 

Obviously, if someone is posting what seem like serious and repeated threats to kill or harm then that's another matter. Go to the coppers. And if someone is tweeting lies about you -- saying you're a crook or rapist or whatever -- and it's affecting your reputation, then maybe defo action is justified.

But this recent troll-hunting push is not about defamation or criminality on Twitter. It's something else entirely. It's more to do with taste, really.

It reminds me of the legislation that the complainants in the Andrew Bolt case used to silence him. It's Orwellian as all get out.

It's stupid in the extreme to enact and enforce laws to protect people from having their feelings hurt because by their very nature they are so subjective.

Then there's the slippery slope aspect: Firstly, how can you define when major snark crosses the line into intolerable trolling? Twitter is a seething maelstrom of bitchiness. If the wished-for crackdown were to occur the jails would be full in no time, and the authorities still wouldn't have put a dent in the problem.

And if mocking someone's death on Twitter is deemed a criminal offence, then what about other media? The Chaser gleefully making fun of Peter Brock's demise comes to mind here. Nasty, tasteless and offensive, sure. But criminal? (Actually, I thought it was one of the best things they did because it actually required some writing, musical and performance skill, unlike most of their other "work".)

If this taste push gets momentum, then will such sketches be deemed illegal? If they are, then that would be terrifying. And if they aren't, well, it would just show how silly and inconsistent this nanny statist campaign actually is.

I think you can make a strong case that the Chaser boys should be thrown in jail for crimes against comedy. But of course that would be ridiculous -- just a little more so than criminalizing nasty tweets.

Campbell Newman fights unions on Twitter

Have just read that Campbell Newman is taking his differences with Queensland unions to Twitter:

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has resorted to using a Twitter account to dispel union "myths" about his government's jobs and services cuts.

"We have set up a Twitter account called Queensland Mythbusters and people can Tweet a query to that and we'll come back with an answer," Mr Newman says.

Hmmm. Considering what recently happened to Charlotte Dawson, this could be very unwise.

I mean, we know how much the unions hate the likes of Newman. And terms like "bully" and "thug" -- often inaccurately used to label Dawson's trolls -- are much more appropriate when describing militant unionists. Those who've had to walk past a picket line can certainly attest to this.

So I think Newman's new online strategy could easily result in a vicious snark-spiral. Will we see him "pushed to the brink" like Dawson, only leaving his hospital bed to talk to 60 Minutes about his ordeal?

It's possible, readers ...

All I can say is, Campbell, if things start to get really nasty, just don't feed the trolls.

Stay away from your PC and turn off your iPhone. Remember that your family loves you. The haters don't matter. And the block and unfollow buttons are there for a reason. Don't hesitate to use them, okay!

Comment trolls should be laughed at, not unmasked

Nasty anonymous commenters can be annoying (although usually they're just sad). And I think they lack cohones for not using their own names. But this push by Labor MP Andrew Waddell to demand that they publicly identify themselves strikes me as petty and pointless. It's also pretty authoritarian.

By writing their puerile and vindictive comments all they do is reveal their own sad emotional state. Sure, the fact that there are so many people like this out there is a bit of a worry. It's a phenomenon that needs to be studied, if anything. So we shouldn't outlaw the evidence.

And if people get upset by troll comments they should just learn to shrug them off. These people have nothing worthwhile to add, so why be bothered by their hatred? That old schoolyard saying about "sticks and stones" is certainly worth remembering here.