Internet troll

An Internet troll is a person who intentionally upsets others in social media forums. The troll’s actions, called trolling, are generally understood to be undertaken to cause consternation. Many post inflammatory or malicious comments on social media as a means of gaining attention and generating comments. The use of the word trolling is believed to refer to the action of fishing by trailing a baited line behind a boat. References to online trolls date to about 1992, and the origin of the reference, whether to the act of fishing or the monsters of folklore, is uncertain.

Trolling has been found to do great harm to many victims. Targets have become depressed and, in some cases, suicidal. Researchers have found that trolls know the effect they have on their victims but do not feel remorse or responsibility. They are generally less empathetic and more likely to enjoy causing others pain.

In the 2010s, trolling became increasingly widespread and menacing with the revelation that foreign governments were using so-called troll farms to influence elections. The aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election was fraught with discussion of curbing such state-sanctioned actions.

Background

While the Internet, blogging, and some social platforms date to the late twentieth century, social media channels did not gain popularity until the early twenty-first century. The first to enjoy widespread use was Facebook, which Mark Zuckerberg and associates initially launched for Harvard students in 2004. When it opened to the public, Facebook quickly gained members who used it to post status updates and follow what their friends were doing. As of 2006, however, it was still trailing behind Myspace, which was the most popular social media platform. YouTube debuted in 2005, allowing people to post and watch videos and comment on them. Many people established themselves as “influencers,” posting fashion and makeup tutorials; others established video game channels.

The next major advance was the 2007 launch of Twitter, an online microblogging service. The messages users can post, called tweets, are limited to 140 characters for most users. Within a few years it became the platform of choice of many celebrities. Actor Ashton Kutcher was the first to amass more than one million followers in 2009. Politicians, notably Senator Barack Obama, recognized its value as a means to reach people, in particular young adults who might not normally follow politics. Obama gained more than twenty times as many Twitter followers during the 2008 presidential campaign as his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain. Obama went on to win the presidency. Twitter also became known as a source of breaking news as people began posting images and updates of events.

The image messaging app Snapchat debuted in 2011, and emerged as a favorite among teens and young adults. By 2018 fewer than half of Americans aged from twelve to seventeen were using Facebook once a month or more. Snapchat, meanwhile, was gaining about as many users as Facebook was losing in that age range. Facebook was gaining older users instead. In 2018 Facebook had more than 169 million American users, while Snapchat had more than 86 million.

Overview

Psychologists say Internet trolls exist and thrive because of the disinhibition effect. This means they are made bolder by the anonymity of online interaction. While they might not say or do something in a face-to-face encounter, they do not feel inhibited online. This may manifest as toxic disinhibition, in which they are rude, critical, angry, and sometimes threatening, or as benign disinhibition, which involves sharing personal information, including secret fears, or being unusually generous.

Several factors contribute to this disinhibition. These include anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimizing authority.

Anonymity means individuals can hide behind fake names and images. Even if they use their real identity, strangers online only know what they reveal. When individuals can separate their actions from their real-world selves and identities, they lose inhibitions. They may feel less vulnerable about sharing, or feel free to act in any way they wish, because these acts cannot be connected to their physical lives. When they act in socially unacceptable ways, for example being aggressive or hostile, they can tell themselves that this is behavior is not really them. This is called dissociation.

Invisibility allows people to drift through chat threads, message boards, and other online platforms without anyone knowing they are there, aside from a few experts such as webmasters who may be watching traffic. They can post messages or send emails while remaining physically invisible. This invisibility can embolden people. They can remain in the dark about how the other person is responding because they cannot see frowns, head shaking, or other signs of disapproval. Therefore, they do not have to be restrained by such cues.

Asynchronicity refers to the time lag that often exists between communications. An e-mail may be followed up hours or days later; a message on a thread might generate a response weeks or years after it is posted. People can become disinhibited because they are not faced with an immediate reaction. Some people use this deliberately when they post something very emotional, hostile, or personal, because it feels safer than dealing with others in real time.

Solipsistic introjection is an effect text communication sometimes has on people. They assign characteristics to a person online, which might include physical characteristics, vocal qualities, and mannerisms. This online person becomes a person in the individual’s head, and the individual may incorporate the online person into his or her imagination. This might include fantasies and imagined conversations. Sometimes people simply read posts made by others and hear it, in their heads, in their own voices. This reduces inhibitions because they may feel they are talking to themselves.

Sometimes people dissociate from the online persona they have created. This dissociative imagination means they see the other character as living in a sort of dream world, which allows them to avoid taking responsibility for what the character is doing.

Minimizing authority refers to the anonymity of online interaction. Wealth, race, gender, status, and other factors are negligible, at least initially, online. Everyone starts on a level playing field, although one’s actions may raise one’s status. For example, good writing skills may help one communicate ideas more clearly, which can influence others. People also feel that if others are their equals, they can say whatever they wish, without being inhibited by an authority figure of any kind.

Internet trolls generally share similar motives. Some are bored and looking for entertainment. Some need attention, even if it is negative. Some people feel they are missing out on some success, and enjoy trying to bring others down, especially those they feel are successful. Trolls generally have low levels of affective empathy. This is the ability to share another’s emotional experience. Many trolls have psychopathic traits and high levels of cognitive empathy, or the ability to predict how another person will feel. This means they understand what hurts people, but do not care.

Some researchers suggest that trolls could be treated by increasing positive reinforcement. By rewarding pro-social behavior, they say, they can increase the frequency of good actions.

Bibliography

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Hardaker, Claire. “What Is Turning So Many Young Men into Internet Trolls?” The Guardian, 3 Aug. 2013, www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/03/how-to-stop-trolls-social-media. Accessed 7 Jan. 2020.

Heffernan, Virginia. “Scrolling, Rickrolling, and Trolling.” Wired, 12 Mar. 2018, www.wired.com/story/history-of-scrolling-rickrolling-and-trolling/. Accessed 8 Jan. 2020.

March, Evita. “Psychology of Internet Trolls: They Understand What Hurts People but Simply Don’t Care.” The ABC, 12 July 2017, www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-13/trolls-understand-what-hurts-people-but-they-simply-dont-care/8701424. Accessed 7 Jan. 2020.

Maynes, Charles. “The Trolls are Winning, Says Russian Troll Hunter.” Public Radio International, 13 Mar. 2019, www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-13/trolls-are-winning-says-russian-troll-hunter. Accessed 7 Jan. 2020.

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