WebProNews

Tag: trolling

  • Kid Reads Hateful YouTube Comments to Show How Bullying Affects People

    Kid Reads Hateful YouTube Comments to Show How Bullying Affects People

    YouTube is a wonderful thing – arguably one of the top three most important websites in history. YouTube comments, on the other hand, are a cesspool.

    Sometimes it’s easy to look at the trolling, the virtiol, and the downright stupidity being spewed beneath any given video and think hey, everyone knows it’s YouTube. Nobody actually takes any of it seriously.

    But you know, trolling or not, things hurt people. Especially if you’re 11.

    A kid named Logan is making the viral rounds with a short video he made with the help of his dad. In the video, Logan reads a bunch of YouTube comments he’s received on his videos. No, they aren’t even close to some of the worst shit that gets thrown around YouTube, but listening to him read them is pretty heartbreaking.

    Check it out:

    I winced as I scrolled down to see the top comment on this video …

    Fuck you, cyber bullies.

    Maybe there’s some hope for us after all.

  • Hillary Clinton Is Getting Domain Trolled Too

    Head on over to HillaryClinton.net.

    Oops – that’s not Hillary.

    The frontrunning Democratic candidate for President is the latest to fall victim to some domain trolling. Hillary Clinton has HillaryClinton.com on lockdown, but her name dot net redirects to GOP hopeful Carly Fiorina’s campaign page.

    From BuzzFeed:

    No one in the press seems to have noticed that Clinton failed to secure one of her own eponymous domain names. It’s unclear when HillaryClinton.net began redirecting to Fiorina’s campaign site — but the URL has been the stage of a conservative squat protest for some time now. According to the Way Back Machine internet archive, the site was prompting visitors to donate to the political action committee for Sen. Ted Cruz in January 2014.

    And Fiorina’s team says they have nothing to do with this. I doubt they’re upset about it, however.

    Clinton is just another candidate in a long line of those getting domain trolled. Ted Cruz didn’t lock up TedCruz.com, and now he’s getting trolled.

    Carly Fiorina didn’t lock up CarlyFiorina.org, and now she’s getting trolled.

    Rand Paul had to waste over $100,000 to secure RandPaul.com.

    And I’m sure Rick Santorum (who hasn’t officially entered the race yet) isn’t too thrilled about what happens when you head to santorum.com.

    We’ll continues to cover candidates getting domain trolled, as it’s not only funny but appears to be an actual element in the race at this painfully early stage.

  • Twitter to Kick Trolls Off ‘Right and Left’, Says CEO

    Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has admitted something we’re all well aware of: Twitter is pretty bad at handling instances of abuse on its platform.

    “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day,” said Costolo in an internal memo obtained by The Verge.

    “I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.”

    The admission came in response to internal discussions about a recent This American Life story, in which writer Lindy West talks about her harassment at the hands of some on Twitter.

    If you’re Twitter, it’s hard to deal with this issue for a multitude of reasons. For one, you don’t want to be a platform that’s seen to be limiting free expression.

    On the other hand, Twitter can’t be a platform for rape threats. What’s the line? Where does Twitter draw it if they find it?

    In August of last year, following a spate of high-profile stories of large-scale Twitter harassment, Twitter promised to work on its anti-abuse policies. By December, Twitter had unveiled new protocols for reporting abuse.

    In the leaked memo, Costolo promises to get rid of “these people” at all costs, saying that everyone in Twitter leadership knows how “vital” it is.

    “We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them,” says Costolo.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Robin Williams’s Daughter Zelda Returns to Twitter After Harassment

    Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late great Robin Williams, returned to Twitter after leaving in mid-August, shortly after her father’s death. At the time, she said she didn’t know how long she would be gone, but indicated that it could be forever and deactivated her account.

    Following her father’s death, some Twitter users trolled Zelda by posting very graphic photoshopped pictures of Robin Williams. Williams committed suicide on August 11 by hanging himself with a belt, and some of the pictures depicted him with bruises around his neck. Understandably, this proved to be too much for Zelda to handle, which led her to deactivate her account.

    Zelda posted the following message on August 13:

    Much of Twitterverse was happy to see that Robin Williams’s daughter was back in action on Monday. Zelda made the following tweet, which she linked to an inspirational quote posted to her Tumblr account:

    Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.


    The quote was attributed to Harvey Fierstein. Fierstein appeared in Mrs. Doubtfire as the makeup artist brother to Robin Williams’s character.

    As difficult as it must have been for Zelda to go back to Twitter, knowing full well that some of the same Internet bullies that get their kicks from tormenting someone in grief are still out there, many people were happy to see the young lady back and offered words of support:

    In other Robin Williams news, PBS plans to feature the late comedian in an hour-long special of Pioneers of Television next week on Tuesday, September 9. According to a description of the segment, “Chicago native Robin Williams is undoubtedly one of America’s most beloved comedic actors.”

    Check out the video below from when Williams was featured on Pioneers of Television earlier this year:

  • Reddit Is Fighting Trolls by Ripping off Their Badges of Honor

    Reddit Is Fighting Trolls by Ripping off Their Badges of Honor

    Who’s up for a little taxonomy? Let’s take a quick look at what ‘karma’ means to different subsets of redditors.

    The first distinction is obviously whether or not said user cares about karma (reddit points) at all. Some couldn’t give less of a shit. To them, reddit is about browsing and finding interesting things – it has nothing to do with scoring upvotes. Next, among people who do care about karma or at least keep track of it, most users want positive karma. It’s instant gratification that people like your submissions – whether they be comments or actual links. If you have a lot of positive karma, you have been accepted, multiple times, by the reddit community. Congratulations.

    There’s also a subset of users who care about karma, but instead seek negative karma. They want to be downvoted into oblivion. These people are trolls, and you’ll likely see them tossing chum into the lakes of reddit’s most easily outraged communities.

    To comments trolls, the more negative karma, the better. It’s a badge of honor. The Daily Dot points out that a super successful comment troll can sport some serious negative karma. For instance:

    Well, it looks like reddit is taking away that badge.

    In a r/modnews post, admin Delmorz recently laid out some new rules regarding negative comments karma. It’s going to be capped at -100.

    Not internally – just publicly.

    “Later this week, we’re planning to deploy a change that will cap the amount of negative karma displayed on a user’s profile page at -100. A “bottom end” for displayed karma already exists for link karma (which can’t go below 1)…We decided to allow comment karma to go somewhat into the negative before capping since there is definitely value in being able to distinguish between an account with few comments and one that’s been significantly downvoted.”

    “This change is intended to address both the increasing amount of ‘downvote trolls’ and also hopefully help lessen the amount of crazed-mob-downvoting that happens in a situation like someone ending up on the wrong end of a really important argument about jackdaws or something.”

    Jackdaw? That’s a reference to events that led to the banning of one of reddit’s most popular users, resident science smart guy u/unidan.

    Delmorz clarifies that this just affects the negative karma that’s displayed:

    “This will only affect the amount of negative karma displayed on a user’s profile page. There is no change at all to how much comments can be downvoted, no change to the scores of individual comments, and the full amount of negative karma will still be tracked internally, just not displayed.”

    Many users have wanted this for a long time, and for those who fail to see the humor in going for troll glory, this should be a welcome change. Is this going to eliminate the trolls? Haha. No. But it does take away a troll trophy.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Facebook Threats to Kill Schoolchildren Land Self-Described Troll in Jail

    Less than three months after admitting to making threats to shoot over 200 schoolchildren, a 24-year-old British man has been sentenced to 28 months in jail.

    Back in April, Reece Elliot admitting to making the following comments on Facebook. They appeared on a tribute page for an American girl that was killed in a car crash back in October of last year:

    I’m glad the fat bitch is dead. Let’s drink to drink driving. No one gives a shit that she’s dead, get over it. If I was there now I would rape you.

    My father has three guns. I’m planning on killing him first and putting him in a dumpster. Then I’m taking the motor and I’m going in fast. I’m gonna kill hopefully at least 200 before I kill myself. So you want to tell the deputy, I’m on my way.

    I’m killing 200 people minimum at school. I will be on CNN.

    The threats were taken even more seriously than normal considering the timeframe – Elliot made the posts shortly after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut made global headlines. Officials were forced to suspend school for nearly 3,000 students.

    When confronted, Elliot claimed that he was just trollin’ – saying those offensive things just to get a rise.

    Elliot plead guilty to making a threat to kill as well as eight counts of “sending grossly offensive messages.” This isn’t his first run in with the law – he already has 17 convictions for 28 different offenses, according to the AFP.

    Trolling or not, it looks like he’ll have plenty of time to refine his skills in prison.

  • Russell Crowe UFO Video Leaves Twitter Fans Baffled

    Russel Crowe may be scheduled to play Superman’s father, Jor-El, in the upcoming Superman movie reboot Man of Steel, but it wasn’t a flying Kryptonian that Crowe spotted outside his Sydney offices this week.

    The actor posted a YouTube video to his Twitter account this week, showing what he claims in a genuine UFO. Crowe stated that he and a friend set up a Cannon 5D outside his office in Sydney to capture images of fruit bats “rising from Botanic Gardens. Instead, three photos taken over 4.5 seconds show something brightly lit passing over the scenery very quickly.

    Crowe is technically accurate in that the object in the photos is unidentified and appears to be flying. However, dressing the video up with sinister music and weird editing to imply an alien presence implies that the actor is simply trolling his Twitter followers.

    The stunt has gained Crowe some attention on Twitter, though. The star has retweeted various stories about his video and has replied to several fan theories with his own explanations. He even showed that he’s in on the joke by retweeting what is clearly the best explanation for the phenomenon:

  • Answer Random People’s Twitter Questions with “You Asked It” Tool

    When my anti-Twitter friend finally joined the service, I expected that it would only take a few days for him to see why we love it. But after a week, he’d already deleted his account, saying it simply wasn’t for him. So I inquired further, and asked him if he’d been tweeting.

    Nah, not really, he said. Well, what about responding to others’ tweets? Nah, not really, he said.

    Well, duh. That’s the problem. You gotta engage, I told him. And now, a year later, his incessant Twitter use is borderline annoying. It’s all about engagement.

    And what better way to utilize the Twitter platform than to engage with strangers by helping them answer their questions. I’m sure you’ve seen some Twitter users use the service as if it were a polling forum, or even Google. So many questions floating around on the Twittersphere – why not take some time and answer some of them?

    That’s the thought behind Youasked.it, a new single-serving site that allows you to respond to random people’s questions on Twitter, in real time. A random question will be generated for you, and you then have 30 seconds to respond. If you don’t want to answer the given question, you can skip it and get a different one. You can also narrow down the type of questions you’re likely to receive by telling Youasked.it what string of keywords the tweeted questions must contain.

    Yes, you do have to be logged in to your Twitter account to participate – you can’t just send totally anonymous responses to people. But if you’re looking for a funny (and possible conflict-inducing) way to engage with people on Twitter that you may have never had the chance to engage otherwise, this is a pretty interesting little concept.

    Feel like trolling the Twittersphere? This tool makes it easy.

    [Youasked.it via Maarten Schenk via reddit]

  • Parents Troll Their Kids by Pretending They Ate All of Their Halloween Candy [KIMMEL]

    Jimmy Kimmel has been asking parents to unleash their inner troll for a couple of years now, and the product is always entertaining. For the second year in a row, the late night host made a simple request: tell your kids that you ate all of their Halloween candy, and film their reaction.

    Mean? Absolutely. Hilarious? Absolutely. I, for one, think it’s good to teach your children how crushing disappointment feels at an early age. This way, they are better prepared for life’s curveballs. I know that’s cynical – but hey, it’s Monday.

  • iPhone 5 Impresses People, Even If It’s Really Just an iPhone 4S [VIDEO]

    Jimmy Kimmel decided to hit the streets and troll some people yesterday by having them give their impressions on the brand new iPhone 5.

    “Much lighter!” said one person.

    “Definitely better, and I have the iPhone 4S” said another.

    The only problem was that the people weren’t actually getting a hands-on with the iPhone 5. Kimmel had simply given them an iPhone 4S and told them it was the new iPhone. But they still loved it, nonetheless.

    Check out an example of why Apple fanboys are one of the most derided groups on the internet:

    Though some are calling the iPhone 5 an uninspired rehash of the iPhone 4S with a bigger screen, there’s a lot to be excited about with the new device. The iPhone 5 comes with a faster A6 processor, and improved camera, a thinner and lighter frame, and yes, a 4-inch display. You can pre-order the device on Friday and it will ship to the U.S. and a half dozen other countries on the 21st.

  • Subway’s Facebook Page Trolled with Anime Porn [NSFW]

    One one hand, this is a cautionary tale for all brands that maintain Facebook pages. On the other hand, this is just really, really f-in’ funny.

    Subway’s Facebook page has been hijacked by a wave of anime porn. And not just generic images of anime porn, but with images involving Subway’s many five-dollar footlongs. The Daily Dot first spotted the work of the trolls, and they say that Subway is already in the process of removing the images.

    They’re fighting a tough battle, however. Although only one or two of the images are currently showing up on the company’s Timeline when you filter by “post from others,” dozens are still visible when you look at the tagged photos of Subway. I don’t even know whether to tag NSFW on these, as they’re suggestive but all genitalia has been obscured by tasty-looking sub sandwiches. Alas, here’s a snapshot of Subway’s tagged photos, porn amidst subs:

    Although the photo uploads seem to be coming from various users, many of them originate from a FacePunch forum dedicated to photoshopping subway sandwichs into hentai. One prankster spoke to Daily Dot, saying,

    “We all went to websites for original pictures, saved them, opened them up in Photoshop or whatever other editing program we had, and placed the sandwich pic and or logo in there. Subway also banned us from the page afterwards, which isn’t surprising at all.”

    Like I said before, this really is a cautionary tale for brands who operate pages on the site. Privacy controls allow you to limit who can tag photos of you, and the admin panel lets you moderate posts to the Timeline.

    But also, LULZ.

  • Jimmy Kimmel Straps Kid Into Lie Detector, Continues To Make Children Miserable

    Jimmy Kimmel likes to put people in uncomfortable situations for our amusement – and that applies to his late night show and beyond. Whether he’s harassing old people to comment on Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, coaxing people to unplug the Super Bowl at a crucial moment and capture it on video, or poking fun at the President at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it always seems to make for great viral content.

    But it’s when he goes after kids, well, that’s the real gold. He’s already pranked some unfortunate children by asking their parents to wake them up and tell them they’re late for school, pretend like they ate all of their kids Halloween candy, and give them a terrible present for Christmas.

    Now, he’s strapped some poor kid to a fake lie detector and made him miserable for a good five minutes. Seriously, the kid looks like he’s about the cry the whole time and it’s great.

    Check it out below:

    As you probably did as well, I kind of lost it when the kid had to say his favorite bad word. There’s quite the debate raging on reddit and YouTube concerning what the kid actually said. Was it “F*ck, and stuff?” “Go f*ck yourself?” Whatever it was, Kimmel seems to think it’s rather funny.

    I think we can all rejoice in the fact that they uploaded this video as “Jimmy Kimmel Lie Detective #1,” which hints at the fact that there’s a #2, #3 and maybe even more to come. If there’s one thing we remember about Jimmy Kimmel Live in 100 years, I sure want it to be his undeniable skill at the craft of kid trolling.

    [via reddit]

  • This Awesome Pro-Internet Troll Song Is Untrollable

    In the interweb realm, so many people get so much credit each and every day. I’m talking about the girl who starts on online petition and ends up affecting real change, or the guy who uploads a stunning cover of a popular song to YouTube, shattering our misconceptions. What about the guy who makes a breathtakingly insightful post on some social media channel – everybody lauds him for his work.

    But there are plenty of people out there online that work just as hard will much less recognition. In fact, few if any respect the dedication that it takes to scour the YouTubes and the Facebooks and the reddits hour by hour, day by day in a frantic search to find hot-headed, gullible people to piss off.

    Of course, I’m talking about the trolls – God bless ’em.

    Courtesy of Clever Pie comes this delightful tribute to all the sexually aggressive, racist, homophobe, misogynistic, cowardly, illitterate, wastes of human skin out there. It’s called “Thank You Hater!”

    And it’s a stanza like this that makes this one of our favorite virals we’ve seen in a while:

    You wished me cancer and misspelled “cancer”
    But I know that it’s a metaphor. You hope that I will grow,
    Just like the tumour you hoped would kill me
    Inside the tits on which you said you’d also like a go.

    Check it out below (NSFW, obviously):

    [h/t The Next Web]

  • Facebook Must Help Identify Trolls, Says UK Court

    If you’re in the UK and are in the mood for some particularly malicious Facebook trolling, you might want to rethink your decision. That’s because there is now precedent for a court to order Facebook turn over everything they have on you. A UK high court has sided with 45-year-old Nicola Brookes and ordered Facebook to help identify her cyberbullies in one of the first cases of its kind.

    We told you Ms. Brookes’ story a few weeks ago, when she first began to pursue legal action to have Facebook identify her trollers. According to Brookes, a comment she made on the Facebook page of an X Factor contestant sparked a deluge of harassment in the form of hundreds of lewd messages.

    According to her, she was branded a pedophile and received death threats as well. The harassment became a little more serious when someone set up a fake profile in her name and used the account to send explicit materials to underage girls – some as young as nine.

    She went to court to force Facebook to give up info on those who set up the fake account.

    And now, it looks like she has won. Per court order, Facebook must now give up the names, email addresses, IP addresses and more of those associated with the bullying.

    According to the Guardian:

    It is understood Facebook has not yet received the court order, known as a Norwich Pharmacal order, but will comply when it does. The order was given backing at the high court on 30 May and must now be physically served on Facebook in the US, where the social network is based.

    In their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook says that they must notify users if they are to share your information. But they also say that “nothing in [the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities] shall prevent us from complying with the law.

    In terms of this particular case, Facebook says,

    “There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline. We respect our legal obligations and work with law enforcement to ensure that such people are brought to justice.”

    Apparently, anonymity only goes so far.

  • UK Woman Wants Facebook To Identify Her Trollers

    It’s not an unfamiliar story – people on the internet can be jackasses. Why are people mean? Well, without delving into anything that would require a psych evaluation, one thing that people always point to is anonymity. On the interwebs, you’re hidden by a big wall of protection – you’re an unknown. That means that you can do and say anything you want (within reason), as long as you maintain an online identity separate from your real-life identity. Recent cases have challenged this truism, however, as “internet bullying” has become a job for law enforcement in some areas.

    Now, one woman wants to force the hand of one of the internet’s biggest facilitators of communication (both good and bad), Facebook. Nicola Brookes wants to force Facebook to reveal the identities of those who trolled her on the social network, so that she can pursue legal action against them.

    According to the Telegraph, it all started when Brookes made a comment on the Facebook page of an X Factor contestant. Apparently, she went against the deluge of negativity and then became a target herself.

    According to Brookes, she received hundreds of lewd messages and threats within a few hours. “Facebook users began deliberately targeting me, writing under my comment that I was a pedophile and hoping that I would die,” Ms Brookes told the Telegraph.

    As the messages got more personal, Ms. Brookes found that someone had also set up a fake account in her name, complete with photos and all. That account was reportedly used to send explicit materials to young girls on Facebook – some as young as nine.

    Now, Brookes wants Facebook to reveal who set up that fake account. If that happens, lawyers want to use that information to begin prosecution.

    For their part, Facebook says that they “respond aggressively to reports of potential abuse.” They are clear about this kind of stuff in their Rights and Responsibilities statement.

    Section 4.1 clearly states:

    You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

    Other clauses say that users “will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user,” and “will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.”

    But for Facebook, removing the fake accounts is one thing, but turning over the identities of the perpetrators is a different animal altogether. While Facebook states that they will only share your information after they have received your permission or given you notice (in a change of privacy policy), they also state that nothing in the terms of service prevents them from complying with the law.

  • Maria Sharapova Trolls Facebook Fans With Short Hair Pic

    Maria Sharapova is first and foremost a world-famous tennis player. But as we’ve seen in the past (looking at you, Anna), if female tennis players happen to be strikingly beautiful, that fact tends to overshadow their athletic talents.

    That’s not to say that Sharapova is any slouch on the court. She’s won Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open – 24 WTA singles titles in all. At one point in her career, she held the number one world ranking. But she’s also embraced her popularity with modeling and endorsement deals for companies like Samsung.

    Because of this, you can understand why her legion of fans flipped out when she posted some pics to her Facebook account showing that she’d chopped off her glorious locks.

    Or did she?

    Monday, Sharapova posted a couple of images with the captions “So what do you guys think?? I kind of love it!” Check them out below:

    (image)

    (image)

    This set off a firestorm of comments – some of them positive, but a large handful negative. In short, people were concerned (over 13,000 comments). “I am in shock! It’s too short!” wrote one fan.

    Apparently, it was just a wig. She quotes her email inbox’s “stressful 24 hours” of messages from fans “going bananza” in clarifying that she never really said she had cut it:

    Wow, when I posted those photos with the short hair I had no idea everyone would all go bananza….( my dear friends, I never actually said I cut my hair!) so for the sake of my email inbox and it’s stressful 24 hours, I would like to show you the below pictures…my hair is still long…and blonde…and well it’s pretty much the same! We did a shoot a few days ago and I sported all types of hair styles…long and yes short (a wig!!!).

    She posted another pic to prove it:

    (image)

    Kids, don’t believe everything you see on Facebook, and if you do – don’t freak out. Maria Sharapova can hardly turn herself into a beast with a short haircut.

  • Arizona House Bill 2549 Looks To Combat Internet Trolling

    For those who have perused the internet for any considerable amount of time will tell you, it really does bring out the worst in people. The ‘invisible man‘ syndrome is on full display when you visit most sites that offer the ability to comment, or join a forum. Why bother adhering to the decency of society when no one can see you? I doubt H.G. Wells ever considered the theme of his sci-fi novella coming to real life. Especially in the scope that the internet provides.

    Arizona is combating internet trolling, albeit in an inadvertent and dangerous fashion, with Arizona House Bill 2549. For anyone who understands how freedom of speech works in conjunction with the internet; this bill absolutely reeks. Here’s the clause everyone is up in arms over…

    “It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.”

    When you read it in this simple form, you begin scratching your head and wonder how the Arizona congress could be so clueless. It’s the wording of “any electronic or digital device” which is worrisome. If you begin to dig deeper it’s pretty obvious where things went awry.

    The link I posted above leads you to a PDF of the bill in its purest form, where you see that the original bill was constructed to prevent harassment by use of the telephone. The clause I posted above begins to look a whole lot different when you’re talking about the law protecting against telephone harassment.

    (image)

    I don’t think anyone wants to support the right for someone to call another person directly and harass them, or annoy them. However, the wording leaves a lot to the imagination even when dealing with a phone conversation. I think if the lawmakers left out the words “annoy or offend”, there probably wouldn’t be much to make over this.

    For those who are well versed on first amendment rights, internet policy, and communication methods utilized online, this bill represents the worst kind of slippery slope. If someone wanted to be creative they could use this bill as ammunition for anything they didn’t like being said.

    Imagine if I posted an update on Facebook stating, “President Obama is a pedantic old fart, and hates the United States“, and then someone comes along and tells me, “What a ridiculously stupid comment, why are you acting so foolish? Stop spewing hatred“… Um, excuse me, this person has just annoyed me and I don’t like it. Oh, we both happen to live in Arizona, where HB 2549 states that I have a right not to be annoyed by someone using an electronic or digital device for communication. I guess it’s time to call the police. Technically, the law would be on my side. A judge would probably laugh me out of court, but I’d still have enough to bring about charges.

    This is a ridiculous scenario of course, but that’s the point. The language of law is important, as it can open up ridiculous situations and allow laws which were once drafted to protect us be turned into a joke. The bill has made it through both houses of the Arizona congress, and only has Governor Brewer to stop it. Please, just take a second to reword some of the language.

    No one likes the invisible man, but it doesn’t mean he deserves to be shot in the face.

  • Google+ Battles Spam, Trolling

    Google+ is taking new measures to fight spam on its conversations stream. New updates will make spam comments even less visible to users.

    Google came out with its new comment spam moderation system in December last year. Google+ will immediately identify possible spam and mark it for review. Other viewers won’t see the comment; you’ll see it grayed out with the option to remove, and the commenter(spammer) won’t know the difference. Unless, of course, you decide to remove it. Every time you remove or restore a grayed out comment, it helps train their systems in identifying spam.

    The recent changes hide comments marked as spam in a small indicator just beneath the comment count. Check it out:

    So, now, the spam comments are hidden to you unless you decide to read them, or mark their appropriateness.

    @ApuAhammed
    Apu Ahammed    Wow great Google+ update. #googleplusupdate http://t.co/w0f1YEUX 11 hours ago via ManageFlitter ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @JuliaDoherty
    Julia Doherty    Making Spam Even Less Visible #googleplusupdate Googler Nandini Kappiah has some good news on the battle against… https://t.co/R9IGNilt 14 hours ago via ManageFlitter ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @machado
    Andrew Machado    “@louisgray: Making Spam Even Less Visible #googleplusupdate http://t.co/HIptIJzx <– don’t spammers go after sites with users? 14 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • Deadmau5 Trolls Skrillex At The Grammys, Tweets His Phone Number To The Masses

    What’s better than a little bit of good, simple, old-fashioned trolling?

    If you watched the Grammys last night, you probably caught the Foo Fighters/deadmau5 performance (or better yet, Dave Grohl’s awkward dancing once he left the stage and deadmau5 took over). Despite what you think of his performance, that mouse helmet, or all the crazy kids and their glowsticks, you have to appreciate the little Grammy prank he pulled on a fellow musician.

    In what can be seen as a wonderfully funny or painfully dickish move, deadmau5 showed up to last night’s Grammy awards wearing a T-shirt with dubstep artist Skrillex’s phone number. “U mad bro?” By the time deadmau5 performed at the show, the phone number was no longer visible – he just exposed the digits on the red carpet. But the internet did their job and the thing went viral. Plus, it really helped that deadmau5 tweeted this to his nearly 900,000 Twitter followers:

    Skrillex seemed to be a decent sport about the whole thing, tweeting this:

    @Skrillex
    Skrillex     Haha @deadmau5 just wore my phone number on his fokin shirt on tv gotta retire this phone 20 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    And he even tried to turn the prank back around on deadmau5, to no avail:

    @deadmau5
    deadmau5    Nice try with the call forwarding @skrillex 😉 one step ahead of you! Ps. Congrats dude! Seriously, so rad! 18 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Twitter users reported that they were getting voicemail box full error messages when trying to contact Skrillex. Apparently, some people did a little bit of overreacting to what seemed to be a pretty innocent prank. Deadmau5 addressed these people in a Facebook post:

    lady gaga can somehow pull off wearing meat, but as soon as i have a lul with a friend, OH SHIT NO I DIDNT. relax people. just a harmless bit of fun and trolling. gotta love the lil goblin for being a good sport about it… if i didnt think he would have… well… i probably would have done it anyway. why am i even writting this? epic fun times in LA! but i gotta scoot back to Toronto and finish off this damn studio so i can do whats *actually* important to me. making music.

    Did you watch the Grammys? Impressed with anything in particular? Meh? Let us know in the comments.

  • Jimmy Kimmel Wants You To Unplug The TV During The Super Bowl

    Jimmy Kimmel is becoming something of a master troll these days. Every now and then, he asks viewers to do something to piss off loved ones, capture it on film, and post it to YouTube. He then selects the best clips and shows them on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

    In October 2011, he asked parents to trick their children into believing that they had eaten all of their Halloween candy. The responses from the children were hilarious, and ranged from anger to utter despair. During Christmas, he asked parents to give their kids a crappy present – and the results were similar.

    Now he wants you to mess with one of the most scared institutions in America – the Super Bowl.

    Kimmel is asking that you wait for a big moment in the game on Sunday, maybe a crucial 3rd and 1 or a game-winning field goal attempt – and just before it happens, unplug the TV. Of course he wants you to film everyone’s reaction and upload it to YouTube with the title “Hey Jimmy Kimmel, I Unplugged The TV During The Game.”

    He will pick the best reactions and present them on his show next week.

    Be prepared: this prank is sure to bring about harsh reactions. Vases may be broken, noses could get punched. You might even get a hot wing to the face. But the reactions are sure to be pretty awesome.

    Earlier, I mentioned Kimmel’s Halloween and Christmas pranks. Check them out below and please note that your friends might have the same reactions as these children when you black out the game on Sunday.

  • Anonymous: Facebook “Attack” A Joke

    Anonymous: Facebook “Attack” A Joke

    You may have noticed that Facebook was having intermittent issues last night. You may have even thought that Anonymous was behind it. Well, you’re probably wrong.

    It’s true that Facebook, which rarely has any issues, was having trouble loading for some users last night. It’s also true that Anonymous made a comment about it via their Twitter account.

    @YourAnonNews
    Anonymous    cough cough, uh, looks like http://t.co/NhcgztAZ is having a slight accessibility problem. #Anonymous 11 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

    What makes it even incriminating is that they make a second post right after saying that Facebook is back up. It almost sounds like a test run for their supposed attack on Facebook on January 28.

    @YourAnonNews
    Anonymous    You are now free to play Farmville and Mobwars. 11 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

    Some sites ran with the story claiming that Anonymous was attacking Facebook, which prompted Anonymous to come clear with their intentions. Facebook wasn’t attacked and Anonymous was just trolling everybody for some “lulz.”

    @YourAnonNews
    Anonymous    That awkward moment when Facebook goes down and everyone jumps on Twitter to find out why… 11 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @YourAnonNews
    Anonymous    Facebook down? http://t.co/WX4Eqryq — Bwahaha, trolled! #Anonymous ^_^ 11 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    Once again, we must stress that it’s hard to tell what is official or not when it comes to Anonymous. As far as we’re concerned though, @YourAnonNews is the official Anonymous twitter account that’s accountable for the majority of the group’s actions.

    The group finished up by giving some advice to journalists who may want to cover their attacks in the future.

    @skwashd
    Dave Hall    Dear journalists, when @YourAnonNews reports a site down from an #Anonymous sanctioned #DDoS, they will use the phrase “X is tango down”. 11 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto