Part VIII: Social Media, Virtual Community, and Fandom

When Lindy West Met Her Troll

This exercise works with the earlier chapters in this section.

1. Listen in class to the first 26 min of Episode 545 of This American Life: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS in which writer and critic Lindy West discusses confronting her online troll. Contains strong language.

2. Have a discussion with students in which you raise the following questions:

• What is the main distinction between cyberbullying and trolling?
• What is the online disinhibition effect? Why is it so pervasive? Is it getting worse? Why does it seem particularly virulent in gamer culture?

Yelp Reviews as a form of Digital Protest?

1. Read this article in the Independent which describes how Yelp reviewers bashed a fried chicken restaurant in New Jersey owned by the family of 2016 New York bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahimi.

2. Lead an in-class discussion about Yelp as an acceptable or unacceptable form of digital protest against an establishment that has been featured in the news. Is it cyberbullying or digital activism?

The Dual Nature of the Dark Web

1. Explain to students about the Dark Web and its modified browser, Tor. More information can be found at the Tor Project Website.

2. The Dark Web allows for Internet traffic on it to be conducted with virtual anonymity. While this has fostered a fair amount of cybercrime there (illegal drug sales, passport sales, illegal guns), it’s also the place where the hacktivist collective Anonymous has taken down sites that disseminate illegal material. Is the value of privacy on the web offset by the insidious activity that takes place there or should it be shut down (if it could be)?