Thread by @Anjyoun

Been sitting on this thread for a week.

Near's death has seriously affected me - It's good to see it getting more exposure.

This article in particular touches on something most miss: This behaviour is a part of humanity and the scary thing is we don't know where it comes from.

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1418626149366734850

The site in question doesn't, either, only that it's fun for them. It's a spectacle. The cycle will continue, whether that site exists or not. It always has - From early usenet through IRC to web forums and to social media and beyond. That's because it's not a unique phenomenon.

I think to some extent people fall into this pattern because they see other people as characters in a play. They see themselves as protagonists in their own story and everyone else is along for the ride. Protagonist syndrome.

What troll farms do is give these people that rare sense of contributing to something bigger, that rare sense of camaraderie that they rarely get in the real world, while also getting a laugh out of it. Maybe punching down this way makes them feel like less of a failure.

It has real consequences, though. And I don't think that's something that crosses their mind - Or if it does, it doesn't matter. There's always another one to mess with, after all, and that - specifically - is why Near took their life.

Which is funny in a twisted way, because they can't understand it. They couldn't touch Near's opsec! They had nothing. But when they started focusing on their friends, that was too much. And now they're confused. They didn't do anything to Near, not directly.

The idea that someone can care more about others than themselves is foreign to many because it often comes with trauma. I mean, just look at anti-maskers and anti-vaxers, and those who have lost someone and changed. That's why troll farms are scary: So many people are primed.

Brigading is a thing on the internet. It's become far more common with the rise of internet culture, and giving people a platform to direct hundreds, thousands, or more followers is both the internet's greatest strength and its greatest downfall.

Tribalism has gotten much worse in recent memory thanks to algorithms, social bubbles, and monetization. It's pushed organizations and people to extremes and pitted them against each other in ways unthinkable as recently as 10 or 20 years ago.

Look at the rise of QAnon, from a fringe on 4chan at the height of misinformation campaigns like Pizzagate in 2015 to mainstream politicians and everyday folks in 2020-21. Fear, a clear enemy, and reactionary groups on the opposite side self-sustains it.

All of which is to say that most people don't understand what they're doing. Most people don't understand where their beliefs, their actions, and the consequences thereof come from, or what they mean. A lot of them don't care or think about it because they've never had a need to.

And that's where we are, both in the political minefield and on the internet. This is where casualties like Near, like Rachel Bryk, like Chloe Sagal, and many more have and will come from. I don't know the answer. More and more people are speaking out - Maybe that's a start.

Recent reveals about the RetroArch guys are a pretty good example of that, although sadly I don't think Near would have wanted this to happen - Even in the end they weren't vindictive about it and didn't want to lash out - They were just bitter and disillusioned.