Startup Idea: “Ignore the Trolls”

When you’re having a debate with someone about harassment, ostracism, and verbal abuse, and they say “Just ignore them” or “You should get a thicker skin” or “Why should feelings matter more than results?”, you refer them to this website.

When someone signs up for “Ignore the Trolls”, they electronically sign a contract expressly permitting the company’s Customer Disservice Representatives to orchestrate a customized Sarkeesian- or Quinn-level harassment campaign against that person, including the rights to dig up dirt from that person’s history, contact their family members, friends, and employers, etc.

The harassment is carried out by expert Customer Disservice Representatives who custom-tailor the abuse to that person. For example, if they are not a heavy Twitter user, but they spend a lot of time on a small cross-stitch enthusiast forum, they will be harassed there over private message and public outcry.

• The referrer and willing victim mutually agree on a time-span upfront, though the default is one year.
• The referrer is notified as soon as the willing victim accepts the terms and the harassment campaign begins.
• The company collects and analyzes data from actual harassment campaigns so that its simulated campaigns resemble them as closely as possible, from the wording of abusive e-mails to the various media used to transmit the harassment.
• The willing victim can stop the harassment at any time by hitting a big red button on the site that says “Make it Stop”. All public harassment will be instantly depublished, and all records on that person will be destroyed, but the referrer is instantly notified.
• If they do not accept the terms within one week of being referred, the referrer is notified.
• Statistics are published on the front page regarding how many harassment campaigns are currently in progress, how many have ever been launched, and the average amount of time willing victims last before hitting the “Make it Stop” button.

If they make it the full span without hitting the “Make it Stop” button, nothing happens. They have the option of depublishing and destroying all traces of defamation and harassment, but no one is notified, there are no badges, there is no “Congratulations!”, there is no “Hall of Fame”.

They just get to go back to life as usual.