Check out Mattathias Schwartz’s rather powerful article about the popular online message board /b/ and a subgroup of its netizens, so-called “trolls”, that have turned into serious pranksters both online and off.

While largely unharmful, a number of past troll posts and activities have had serious, even deadly consequences - at least for some of the message boarders.

Think pseudonymous posters publishing violent fantasies about female college students.

Think humiliating details about people’s online dating activities publicly revealed to cause some to loose their job.

Think what seemed to have been the mother of a girlfriend posting unnamed online messages ultimately leading to the suicide of a young girl unable to cope with the public humiliation caused by the claims made online.

My questions: Do any of these troll activities happen because of or despite the Internet’s popular existence? Is the Internet as a “public square” at all capable, let alone intended, to prevent certain social interaction from occurring online.

My take on this: The Web is a ubiquitously public “application” residing on the Internet itself.

As such it was never designed to regulate human behavior. Asking the Web to begin vetting engagement, under the current structure, it wouldn’t work. Not to mention the implications for basic civil liberties such as free speech.

Instead, attempting to curb personal behavior online would be as if anyone taking the railroad or public highway would have to adhere to specific moral, intellectual, or cultural code outside ones own in order to qualify for its regular use.

Ubiquitously available public platforms are just not set out to perform that task.

Good for pranksters everywhere, this is probably why there’s no “thou shalt not humiliate” signs posted anywhere.

Not at one’s local train station, nor shoulder-side down the highway, or anywhere on the World Wide Web.

This is because if such signs existed, they certainly would neither change pranksters’ behavior nor would they make it any easier to catch them after the fact.

Instead, when using any of our shared and (fairly) organized public systems, the large majority agrees to certain ground rules.

Some are rather obvious (such as basic societal laws), other require added sensibility and discretion. Never intended to be foolpoof, that “system” mostly works.

As to the Web, Schwartz, in his article, points to Postel’s Law: “Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others”.

Originally intended as a fundamental ground rule for all of us online, it seems a pretty good guideline for other public platforms as well.