I’d like to say I have a certain degree of experience with trolls, being a nerd that uses the internet and plays video games pretty often. What is described in the readings and my experiences with trolling on the internet differ in content and style, but for the most part, the general context and purpose of trolling is more or less universal .
Let’s start by defining this thing. Trolling doesn’t just mean being cruel or ruthless to someone on the internet. It doesn’t only refer to bullying or flaming. Trolling is, put simply, acting in a way that will elicit a response from someone. This can come in the form of verbal abuse or harassment, or simply by making a dumb comment to rile up commenters. Some trolls are essentially harmless and honestly hilarious: even if you hate the idea of trolling, you must admit Ken M is a master at his craft. But some trolls are vicious and toxic: having played online video games before, I’ve seen some terrible terrible things typed in the chat.
But the more violent side of trolling can extend far beyond that. When institutionalized prejudice is given a strong, anonymous voice, the result can be horrifying. Having read the article and listened to the podcast about the Lindy West incident, I can’t even think about how I would respond to being harassed by a fake twitter account in the name of my deceased father.
The podcast related to this incident shed some light on the causes of trolling. The former troll admitted it was a point of weakness in his life, and he had just been trying to feel in control of something. He targeted this woman because she was confident and unafraid of her flaws, which was something he had been struggling with, and frankly he also targeted her because she was a woman. Because of anonymity, trolling is easy, free, and void of real consequence. You can simply type a few words, click the ‘post’ button, and instantly feel a fleeting surge of superiority.
In terms of moral obligations as companies, I do not think companies have any obligation to try to mitigate trolling (but it is in their interest to do so anyway). I do believe that there is an obligation to help prevent harassment, including having a measured degree of anonymity and freedom of speech, providing tools to block/report trolls and abusers, and put in place harassment and stalking policies to decide when content crosses the line.
I honestly don’t want to categorize anonymity as a blessing or a curse. There are times when I prefer to be anonymous; I don’t want my real name connected with my gaming profile because I don’t want people to find out how actually terrible I am at Heroes of the Storm. But there are certainly times when requiring personal information is important – I wouldn’t want anonymous strangers being able to comment on my Facebook pictures. And I certainly could have done without the troll account that commented “haha sux” on an Instagram post memorializing my dead dog. These are cases where anonymity and by extension trolling is mitigated by privacy and “real name” features created by technology companies.
I do not think that trolling as it stands is a real “we need to deal with this ASAP” issue, because trolling will be around as long as anonymity is around (and possibly longer). The harmful cousins of trolling (stalking, abuse, harassment) are a major problem, and hopefully the development of security features in social media will provide more resources to victims of such abuse. In the meantime, I’ve found that the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them (hard as it may be – again, I don’t know how I would have reacted if I were in Lindy West’s shoes). Battle not with monsters…
Jack thoughts 