The third edition of Coffee and Circumvention was our
liveliest one yet! Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we actually
had coffee this time? I dunno, but
was such incredible fun!
Tech
Her’s Mya Agu kicked things off with brief introductions
and a shout out to our co-collaborator Kim’s Coffee, represented at the event
by the lovely Sainaan.
Things were off to a great start as the participants gave
varying, mostly humorous answers to the question of what they considered
trolling to be. We had some people who considered receiving hurtful comments or
having an opinion or belief attacked online to be trolling. Mya, who led the conversation, cleared the
confusion by giving out one the most
popularly accepted definitions of trolling, “Trolling is defined as creating discord on the internet by starting
quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off topic messages in
on online community. Basically, a social media troll is some who purposely says
something in order to get a rise out of other uses.”
The conversation only got more interesting from there! There were varying opinions on how to deal with trolls, whether to engage or just ignore them (on this, a lot of people suggested that the block button on Social Media
was made specifically for this purpose!)
The discussions got even
more animated when Mya posed the question as to whether there was anything as
‘good’ trolling or it was all bad. The room was divided on this front – some
people considered all trolling to be bad while others said some people deserved
to be trolled for the kind of things they post online. At some point in the
discus
sions, someone suggested that trolls were sometimes necessary online as
they kept things interesting.
The most recurrent question of the evening was - how exactly
do you deal with trolls? Although they were a LOT of different answers and
opinions, everybody agreed that it was important to protect yourself and your
space online, whether it meant blocking offensive accounts, ignoring trolls or
responding to them graciously. Everybody also agreed that responding with
humor, if you can, was one of the best ways to counter trolls!
All in all, this was our best C&C yet and that could not
have been possible without the valuable, insightful and humorous contributions
of our participants!
Needless to say, we are eagerly looking forward to the next
one!
