TrollsGonnaTroll

You might think trolls only lurk in the dark corners of the internet, but you’ve probably encountered them without realizing it. Trolls will disrupt any conversation or forum they can find. Trolls are always going to find a place to troll

The Internet is a global community capable of educating mass audiences and facilitating healthy critical discourse on major cultural topics. This is a tool which is capable of perpetuating the betterment of humanity.

However, the web suffers from a pest problem; there are users who seek to poison the internet through the spread of misinformation and anger. These malicious users are called Trolls, as they hide within a community attempting to pose as one of its responsible and dedicated members before exploiting any topic or information capable of fetching an emotional response from other users. They seek to disrupt, destroy, and dismantle any chance of coherent conversation between community members. Some might say this is a victimless crime, just a normal part of using the internet, a price we all must pay for accessing the content and having the conversations we want. They also used to say that about bullying in schools.
"The trolling behaviour tend to fade away once they realize that they cannot garner a reaction..."
Often, trolls seek attention out of boredom, vengeance, pleasure or to damage the (online) community. What differentiates trolling from cyber bullying is the “pointless” disruption they cause, as they often, to an extent, target their victims indiscriminately. The trolling behaviour tend to fade away once they realize that they cannot garner a reaction out of certain groups or individuals, while their behaviour may increase as they feed off those who do give them attention.

The problem with trolling is that it often escalates very quickly from simply annoying to genuinely malicious behavior, and even to hate speech and legitimate threats. The worst part of this is that the more severe crimes are still justified as “just trolling”, and pushed aside.

There are 6 factors that speculate what may motivate an otherwise civilized online user to become a troll; these factors together make up what psychologist Jon Suler calls the Online Disinhibition Effect:

Dissociative Anonymity: The fact that most interactions online are anonymous means that the online self becomes a compartmentalized self. Individuals - in this case, trolls - do not feel as if they are required to own up to their behaviour since they become disassociated with their offline “self”.
Invisibility: Since it is rare for users to see each other during most online interactions, the lack of physical human presence gives courage for trolls to do and say things that they otherwise wouldn’t. Being unable to see each other’s physical reactions may cause trolls to behave inappropriately. This overlaps with anonymity, however users can know each other’s’ identities and the invisibility factor may still raise the chances of the online disinhibition effect.
Asynchronicity: People don’t interact in real time while online. We underestimate how powerful interpersonal communication is when we are in a continuous loop of interaction; our behaviour is shaped as we interact from moment-to-moment, which increases the likelihood of conforming to societal norms. Due to the delay in feedback that online interaction causes, trolls’ responses are more likely to progress towards deeper expressions that may deviate from the norm.
Solipsistic Introjection: The aforementioned factors may cause a troll to believe that the person they are interacting with online is the same as the one in their minds. Trolls may unconsciously assign an image or voice to the person that is on the other side of the computer. This person then becomes a character within the troll’s mind, and in some ways, the user on the other end becomes an extended part of the troll’s self. Talking with oneself may either lead to a feeling of security or to a sense of confrontation. If the latter, this may be a factor as to why trolls tend to take a strong offense in online interactions.
Dissociative Imagination: Trolls may subconsciously feel that the “character” that they created of a user is in a different plane of existence. Their knowledge of fiction (online) versus fact (offline) may be split; once they are offline again, they may relinquish responsibility for their online interactions, as online is only “make-believe” and is not relative with their offline reality.
Minimization of Status and Authority: Much of authority is expressed in interpersonal behaviour, such as body language and clothing. A user’s status cannot be seen by default online, and the absence of their status may reduce the sense of authority in their words. Even if one’s status is known online, the online environment creates an equal playing field where all users have the opportunity to express themselves, regardless of status or social standing. In addition, people are hesitant to voice their true opinions in the face of authority as they fear disapproval. Interactions online read more like a peer-to-peer relationships, which may minimize a user’s authority. This explains as to why, even in the presence of a higher online authority, trolls have the buoyancy to continue their inappropriate behaviour.

Know the Troll

Most trolls are quite visible once they’ve become active within a community’s forum; their comments quite often designed to purposely cause chaos and elicit emotional or fury driven replies from serious members of a community. The following is a list of characteristics of a troll:

Purposely attempting to create chaos and disrupt constructive conversation.
Exploiting hot issues in order to anger other users.
Drawing other users into purposely circular and endless arguments.
Posting incendiary comments in order to provoke community members.
Attempting to implode a community and make it’s users argue.
Other displays of purposely Sadistic and Antisocial behavior designed to cause others grief.

Caging The Troll - How You Can Deal With Trolls

When dealing with these viciously antagonistic internet users, it is important to remember that any feedback you give them, whether it be negative or positive, empowers the troll and encourages it to continue abusing users. The best doctrine is a cold shoulder in these situations; throw the troll into a cage of communication quarantine and starve it out.

The first step to caging your troll is to be educated. Learn the identifying characteristics above so that when somebody attempts to troll within your community, you are immediately aware of their purpose. If you do unfortunately find someone trolling a community, don’t take anything they say personally and remember these tips:

1

Do not communicate with the troll, your attention is their nourishment.

2

Responsibly use the website's ‘Report User’ function if one is present.

3

Discourage others from falling into the troll's trap.

Other Resources

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Why do some people find so much pleasure in harassing others online? A study done by Erin Buckels at the University of Manitoba examines the type of people who enjoy trolling on the internet. The study revealed that trolls are, in real life, “more likely to have narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic personality traits.” Read more...

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Popular Science shuts off comments

In August 2013, the Popular Science website turned off its comments. “As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine,” they said they were committed to encouraging lively, intellectual debate, but that trolls had largely compromised their ability to do so. The decision to turn off the comments was made after multiple studies had been done that showed the negative impact of trolls. Read more...

About this site

This website and all its content was created by University of Calgary Students as part of a senior level Communications Studies course.