Trolling Online: Harmless or Hateful?

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Plato - "Morality comes from full disclosure; without accountability for our actions, we would all behave unjustly."

There is a reason why in every children's nursery rhyme the Trolls are always the bad guys.  Maybe it's because they are always living under bridges or in other dark and scary places.  Maybe it's because they are green and warty.  Or maybe it's because all they seem to want to do is eat you; are at least give you a really bad day.  I don't know about you, but I tend to steer clear from people and things that try to eat me or otherwise make me upset.  Just like the Trolls in the nursery rhymes, cyber Trolls are usually up to no good.  Why? Well, according to them just because.

Mattathias Schwartz in his article The Trolls Among Us, describes a "Troll" as "someone who intentionally disrupts online communities" and that Trolling is a "subculture that is built on deception" and the "provoking of strangers."  Trolls, or online bullies, find the anonymity of cyberspace a very appealing place for inciting anarchy.  It's easy to see that the biggest advantage to bullying online is the fact that no one can really know who you are, unless you are found out-which is probably the biggest disadvantage (just ask Lori Drew).  A Troll can be as sophisticated as a hacker who inundates epilepsy sites with flashing images or as amateur as a suburban housewife tormenting a high school girl over MySpace.  In her article, Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt, Julie Zhuo (as well as every Psychology class I've ever taken) touches on one of the main reasons why trolling is so popular.  She notes that "research has shown that anonymity increases unethical behavior."  Cyberspace is the ideal place create, or fabricate your image.  Even social networking profiles can be falsified, so how can we truly know who anyone really is online?  Zhuo says that by "promoting accountability most trolls wouldn't...say to another person's face half the things they anonymously post on the Internet."  The freedom that comes with anonymity can be a very intoxicating drug and one that some won't be willing to give up without a fight.  But how do we make people accountable when they can create any persona they wish?  I doubt very much that online users would approve of signing in using their social security numbers to verify their identity.  Also, privacy concerns would prevent the releasing of IP addresses to the masses as a way of identity verification.  If there is little that can be done to fully prevent bullying in the "real" world, I don't see how anyone can stop it altogether from occurring online.

Despite all of the benefits the Internet has given us, Schwartz notes that it has also created a new place to generate hate.  He states that, "technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd, it can also intensify hatred as well."  I do agree with one Troll on how to get rid of the Trolling problem.  If we stop taking them seriously, they may not fully go away, but we will take some of the wind out of their sails.  The coverage that they get from their antics, at least in part, fuels their desire to continue.  My advice: If you come across someone online who you consider "trollish," try to avoid them and don't feed their need for notoriety.