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this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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"How to remove humans from the internet?"
Actually we might be well on our way
As long as the internet remains easily accessible, you're not going to.
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Bad news, 1. It's impossible 2. They aren't just on the web.
right, has OP ever not had a noisy neighbor? or like been in public outside?
barely a week goes by I don't meet some horrible person who goes off on a service worker and at least once a month someone goes off on me. periodically i have neighbors who harass me for not good reason if I spend too much time outside in porch or my garden, to come and 'helpfully' tell me what is 'wrong' with my property. even though i live in a condo building, as if I am solely responsible for the entire building...
last week i was returning my shopping cart and this lady like came running at me and started screaming at me that i was 'being too slow' and grabbed my cart and ran off with it. it was BIZARRE. there was an entire row of them by the entrance to the market, but she zeroed in on me in the middle of the parking lot and decided to harass me because my walking was too leisurely for her or something.
has OP ever not had a noisy neighbor? or like been in public outside?
It's not because people can be turds in real life that it has to be so online as well. Moreover, in real life accountability can be imposed because one knows who they are. Online, not as much.
Anyway, I started this thread to seek for potential solutions. Saying "it's impossible" does a disservice to human ingenuity, or more people than I imagine are smurfing as trolls.
Get rid of them entirely? Not happening.
Severely reduce them? Ban advertising. As it stands, you can spin up hundreds or even thousands of free accounts on any given site for not much investment, which means banning a troll account doesn't do much. Without advertising, the web would require you to pay for access. If people have to pay real cash for every BS bot account and trolling shitpost, they would be less inclined to spam or harass people.
What would stop advertised from buying accounts?
Cost, bad PR, etc. Wouldn't end the BS entirely, but it would decrease the general BS level.
The worst type of troll or bad actor is the one I have put in bold:
Trolls often provoke others into displaying emotional responses,[3] or manipulating others' perceptions, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur. I quit my niche youtube channel of 500 subscribers and 70 videos because of one extremely motivated troll.
Uhm.. block them? Or what I love to do, don't interact with them, dislike their posts if they are really shitty. Then you'll either get blocked by their communities(shoutout to those weirdly specific AI "communities") or you just see them often enough to know their name and just block them, because after all it's not like you want to see their posts anymore. As long as there is no harm in what they're posting, there's no need to annoy mods about it.
the mods on fedi often agree with the trolls though, because the mods themselves have troll beliefs.
reddit was the same. i got banned from many subreddits for not agreeing with the mods political or social agenda.
one time it was for posting a picture of my cat, it got me a site-ban for 'inciting violence'. by the indoor-only cat people.
trolls have beliefs?
trolling is only for the lulz
How to rid the Web of trolls, bad actors, misinformation, et cetera?
M U R D E R
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By creating upright societies, I guess.
"Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear... but it was never the streets that were evil."
Damn the writing in SMAC was so good. How do they get you nodding along to a Christian theocrat thinking "Well I dont like her, but she makes some good points"
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As far as the whole web, you can't, and if you care about free speech you shouldn't try to. Everybody talks about getting rid of these people, but the unspoken assumption is that the person making the statement or people in their in-group will be deciding who gets a voice. A rule of thumb I use when thinking about laws or administrative controls is to consider whether they could be used against me should someone who doesn't like me gain power.
As far as individual sites, have clear guidelines and enforce them. Be open with people why they're being banned (looking at you, YouTube). On the Fediverse, block and defederate.
Don't feed the trolls.
It's a rule almost as old as the intranet. It doesn't work, but there isn't anything better.
Trolls are a dying breed now. It's all automated bots that don't care whether you "feed" them or not.
Only by mass culling of humans as a whole. There's no other way because humans inherently want to make things worse and have to be taught empathy and respect.
I do t agree with “block them”
Actively bully them. Call out misinformation.
On my Nextdoor a guy was constantly posting stuff that was just false. They would occasionally get a response from other neighbors. After the 3rd “I don’t think this is legit info” responses I finally called them out with “stop posting things that are factually incorrect. Take this post down. I’m reporting you.”
Holy shit did the neighbors unload on him. 30 responses later, which is likely the most active post of the month, he took it down and apologized.
People just needed one person to get the ball rolling.
That mostly worked because you're talking about neighbours, they knew where the troll lived and he was aware of that.
Actively bully them. Call out misinformation.
I strongly disagree with the former, I agree with the latter. Imagine you're your neighbor and you read the same advice you just wrote. You've now justified him bullying other people despite him likely being in the wrong. Moreover, one rarely knows the mental stability of strangers met online and offline, and some people really, really cannot handle criticism and will resort to unhinged behavior.
i mean unless they can dox you they are not a real world threat. at most they will report you and try to get you banned, which is annoying, but not going to really impact you in a large way.
in real life, yes, troll type people will try to ruin your social reputation. i had women in college spread claims of sexual assault when i rejected them for sex. they got their comeuppance eventually but it sucked to be harassed by random people who believed their lies. and a lot of people are increasingly mentally unwell and unhinged and will resort to violence if you upset them.
I love that you did this, and that it was successful, but TBH I don't have the time and energy in my life for doing the lord's work this way. I just block and move the fuck on. I assume if they don't get attention they will go away, but either way I'll have made it not my problem and others can make the same decision or not.
I had a friend I used to argue with all the time. He would post blatantly false shit on Facebook and I'd call him out. And we'd go back and forth until ultimately he would concede that he "didn't really know that much about it." And then the next day he would post the exact same lies like we'd never even danced that dance.
I can't confront that level of willful idiocy. It cost him nothing to post lies, while I'd spend an hour or so researching facts, providing links, and explaining that oil industry insiders might not be a great source for climate science (for example).
I’m not arguing with the poster, I’m speaking g up so others aren’t afraid.
all that does is further solidify them in their delusional beliefs.
and on fediverse, they just label you a nazi/facist/zionist and tell you that you are brainwashed by nazi/facist/zionist 'propaganda'.
im not trying to give out redemption arcs i wanna reduce the quantity of bad guys' political activity and reduce the effectiveness of their remaining political activity
and what if your actions just have the opposite effect?
hostility breeds hostility. resentment breeds resentment.
you're shooting yourself in the foot to spite the other guy. just like they are doing. you are them.
There’s no reaching these people but they can get booted off their platforms so others don’t get sucked into their nonsense.
they control the platforms on fedi.
You're not going to.
Go outside or read a book.
Go outside
Believe me I do, plenty, and increasingly so.
Bots seem to be the biggest problem though
Kakapoo
got me. Is there any aspect of the web that is not more bot than human. I love the web but I trust it as far as I can throw it and it has no physicality. Its interesteting to converse but my decision making is with people I know face to face.
Destroy capitalism
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