The Daily Telegraph's stunningly-hypocritical Stop the Trolls campaign has got off to a pitiful start despite featuring on the front page of Wednesday's newspaper and being mentioned across the mainstream media and online. But the big issue appears to be that politicians and mainstream media appear not to know know what trolling really is and are subsequently equating all of it with cyber bullying, which it isn't.

At the time of writing the petition was well short of 1000 signatures (672 on Friday afternoon and 702 this morning) with the sign-up rate slowing to a crawl with just 10 new people in the past several hours - a total flop for a forced viral campaign. This despite some exaggerated media coverage equating trolls with cyber bullies.

What's more, one has to question how informed and committed to the cause the sign-ups really are.

Not surprisingly, the associated #stopthetrolls Twitter hashtag is hardly being used for the cause anymore and is riddled with trolls already. Perusing the petition sign-ups' Twitter feeds last week also showed that a fair few had no problem dishing out criticism and abuse to others themselves. While we can only see the last ten signups, it's interesting to note that eight of the last ten (at the time of writing) had made less than 100 tweets ever. Six had made less than 50 (There are a surprisingly common number of very-low-use accounts such as this one where the person has made two tweets or less.). One is a stripper who is sick of her audience making crude remarks to her. While another recently posted a picture of Craig Thompson that could easily be construed as offensive and bullying.

And it's the latter that's important. Original Satire saw a Satyr roaming the stage and penetrating other characters' comedy-sized lady bits with a giant dong. For over 2,000 years satire has continued to range from whimsical and witty right through to downright obscene and offensive. Now all of a sudden there are calls for wide-sweeping legislation which will curtail freedom of expression because some celebrities were offended by Tweets. And let's look at the celebrities that started it all.

Robbie Farah certainly received a horrible tweet. It begs the question though - why do we need a NEW law if this is already illegal? Unfortunately, Farrah has completely undone his credibility with his pleas to the Prime Minister for anti-abuse-on-Twitter legislation being countered by his own tweet stating that he'd like to buy her "a noose" for her 50th birthday.

Then there's Charlotte Dawson who tragically resorted to self-harm and was consoled by a frothing mainstream media who agreed with her that trolls should be legislated against... only to ignore all manner of context and facts about what had actually happened. The first being that Dawson actually is a Twitter troll who earlier this year was exposed for threatening a fashion designer in one of her tweets.

It begs the question, is powerful legislation really warranted based upon two hypocritical tweets?

There is also the issue that much of the abuse (if not the overwhelming majority) that came Dawson's way was orchestrated by online communities made up of people based overseas. Many of the offending tweets carried hashtags which read #9gagarmy which is the calling card of the online community 4Chan - the kings of internet trolls - who were trying to frame their upstart rivals, 9Gag. In frequent, similar cases a celebrity is chosen and the vast community hits social media and mourns their passing, for laughs.

It might be funny until you realise that some celebrities then have to spend days calling forlorn friends and family to assure them that they are still alive.

Don't feed the trolls

It's unfortunate that Dawson was unaware of this because the only option in the face of such a sea of abuse is to turn off the computer and ignore it until it passes. Unfortunately she spent seven hours confronting them (mistake number one) and then got someone suspended from their job (huge mistake) in retaliation which made everything worse. I can't stress how much I hope she's alright now. But attacks like that usually don't last long and it's important to note that most of it mustn't be taken personally - these people would have had no idea who she was or what, if anything, she had done.

It's scant comfort to point out that the fourteenth rule of the internet (and these are rules that aren't in any way official but they are widespread) is don't feed the trolls.

A clash of values

While that still might outrage those who are unfamiliar with online realities, like Barry O'Farrell, people need to realise that there is nothing on this earth the Australian government can do to stop poor-taste attacks like this because virtually the whole community is overseas and largely anonymous. Twitter couldn't identify many of the people even if it wanted to. There's a discussion about the differences in acceptability between real life and the online world here. Prepare to be horrified.

A new law?

Facebook and Google constantly remind us that they always hand over information when requested to by the police. There are already laws in place (discussed here). So what is actually being asked for? Laws to prevent anonymity online equate to calling for the mandatory carrying of ID cards, which Australia vehemently opposed.

Many Australians won't need to guess which other politicians jumped on the bandwagon to support the Telegraph's campaign. Stephen Conroy (architect of the contentious internet filter) and Nicola Roxon (pushing for data retention) both have a history of lobbying for legislation which curtails freedom of expression online whether for "the sake of the children" or to protect us from "criminals and terrorists". They released a joint statement supporting the Telegraph's campaign. Some have said this could could be to gather support for the Data Retention issues of the Nat Sec Inquiry?

A troll I made earlier

Popularity may have something to do with matters. Few complained when Gina Rinehart recently copped so much online abuse that she became an internet meme. In instances like this a picture of someone is used and captions added which can range from bitingly witty to hugely offensive. Should the following be classed as unacceptable anonymous trolling?

How about these?

It also begs the question, is it only offensive to the public when the media gets hysterical? If so, is that a basis for law? That all might sound like airy-fairy hypothetical scholasticism, but it's actually largely how Australia's classification system already works. The Classification Board has a history of making decisions and then reversing them when a media campaign or politician gets outraged.

Anonymity

The common theme across the internet is that abuse is constant and escalates when hidden by anonymity. However, the online denizens consider anonymity a right. The problems develop when a minority strays too far from biting wit and into a place that's overly nasty and threatening. At that point, if the victim has a high enough profile, hysterical media and outraged politicians wade in wanting to ban the whole lot which only goes to make things worse.

Trolling is a art

One of the main issues here is equating all trolls with bullies when they are nothing of the kind. One of the most popular figures on the internet is a character called Trollface who makes an appearance whenever some sort of mischief, wind-up or jolly-japery is present. On top of this, a popular website collates trolling examples from across the web. It's called The Art of Trolling and some attempts very much are works of art. Others are, well, less so.

The following picture, posted by Redditor, MeadowbankMujahideen sums up the entire situation very well.

Trolling and real life consequences

Waleed Aly recently wrote in the SMH,

"The trouble is that in our digital world, there is always something to oblige. Anyone can Google their prejudices, and there is always enraging news to share with others. Entire online communities gather around the sharing of offensive material and subsequent communal venting."

That was in response to the recent Sydney riots and gives further food for thought to what's being called for.

Meanwhile, late last week, Catherine Deveny was visited by police who investigated her over a tweet that wasn't anonymous. It gives lie to fears that criticism and negative expression itself is being threatened.

Certainly a balance is required here, but it should be relatively-easy to separate a bully from a troll. Blanket-banning any kind of online criticism with new legislation is surely something that should be discussed properly and not imposed by politicians off the back of a failed, hypocritical and poorly-thought-out media campaign.