I remember when I was in junior high. I would go over to my friend's house and we would chat with guys online. Sometimes we would lie about our ages and say that we were 18. Even when we didn't lie and we said that we were 13 we had guys talking to us that were in their 20's, 30's, and 40's. Some of these guys wanted to discuss really inappropriate topics with us. They also offered us things like dinners and trips. We never accepted anything and we never gave out our addresses, but if we did we could have found ourselves in a lot of trouble. In this case the anonymity of the men in chat rooms is a big disadvantage. They probably would not go out on the street and approach a young girl, but since they feel relatively safe online they do things they normally wouldn't. I was really happy to see the show "To Catch a Predator". It's nice to know that someone is doing something to try to stop these men.
Trolling... I don't think that it is much different than a person talking badly about someone behind their back. I'm not sure why people do it. Maybe it's like Prof. Proctor said "people feel so comfortable saying things online that they wouldn't say in person". They want to express certain opinions, but maybe they are afraid of the reaction they would receive so they test them out anonymously on the internet. So if there was a way to identify people when they logged into a website it would probably cut down on the negative comments or trolling. Or maybe some people just need a good psychiatrist.
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