Psychology of Trolling: Why People Troll online? - IPC
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Most of us remember trolls from a childhood story, The Three Billy Goats: they were big, they were terrible, they were quarrelsome, they were antisocial, and they always hid under bridges. The same is the case with internet trolls. These internet bullies hide behind their computers, phones, or tablets and do their utmost best to cause online misery.
Trolls are people who create and spread offensive messages over the internet to upset a particular person or a specific class of people. These people usually select easy targets like public figures or an oppressed class. Victims are often targeted because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Online trolling ranges from profanity and name-calling to personal attacks, sexual harassment, or hate speech. Approximately four in every ten Americans have faced trolling, and this figure has increased drastically over the past year.
Reasons for trolling vary from person to person. Some people do it out of boredom, and some want to get a response from the celebrity they idealize. Some do it for seeking attention, while there may be others who have negative social potency.
According to research, people who are insecure and want to get a kick out of being hostile towards others are more likely to troll. People with a propensity to seek excessive stimulation have often been found trolling.
A psychoanalytic study suggests that people with antisocial, narcissistic behavior and sadistic personality disorder are more likely to perpetrate trolling behavior. These people derive pleasure and enjoyment from being intentionally cruel to others.
There are trollers who are just jealous people who wish to lash out at successful people like celebrities because they have all the fun and happiness in life which the troller lacks. Educated, strong and successful women give such people a colossal inferiority complex, which they show by lashing out at them.
Trollers tend to tease and exploit human errors and weaknesses. They wish to gain a reaction and then troll them some more to further upset their victims to have some fun. The best way to deal with such people is to ignore them. Being ignored kills their fun and they move onto their next target.
It has been observed that men are more likely to troll as compared to women because society tends to encourage traits of arrogance, dominance, and competitiveness in men.
Psychologists suggest that anonymity plays a vital role in trolling. People feel a lack of restraint when they are communicating online. They tend to easily say things over the internet that they would not say in face-to-face communication.
Factors such as mood also play a vital role in trolling. When people are in a negative mood, they tend to vent their negativity through their messages. Many people being tagged as trolls might just be people like us who are having a bad day though they could have chosen a better way to deal with it.
The context of a discussion is a likely reason for trolling. If a discussion opens with a trolling comment, it is more likely to be trolled by almost all the participants in the discussion. Thus a single troll comment can lead to worse reactions to a well-intended or harmless message.
More often than not, trolling is revenge-driven. In these cases, the troller personally knows the victim and feels that the target has committed a personal offense against him, and he seeks to tarnish the reputation of the target as just revenge. In some severe cases, this sort of trolling has even led to suicide as the victim feels highly threatened.
It has been observed that even ordinary people can also troll others if they are influenced in an online community. The desire to be seen as cool amongst online friends, and to feel a part of the pack of wolves drawing blood, is often a reason for trolling in teenagers. When members of a group are trolling a single target, trollers achieve a sense of belonging by conforming to the group's behavior, no matter how inappropriate.
At times people are so rigid in their beliefs that they engage in trolling behavior when they feel that their belief is being threatened. This is often the case when a discussion is about religion and politics. They feel justified in trolling when they believe the victim has somehow committed an offense against them by stating a contradictory point of view.
Sometimes people just wish to express a different point of view than others which is taken as trolling. These people might just be facing miscommunication issues rather than actual trolling. Disagreement must not be taken as trolling in this case.
Corporate organizations, political parties, and even some countries resort to hiring trolls to further their causes. Fake identities and accounts on social media are being used to create bias, to harass, to manipulate and to deceive opponents.
Spreading misinformation is one of the primary purposes of trolling. This type of trolling is usually agenda-driven and conducted through fake accounts and pseudonyms. The basic purpose of this sort of trolling is to create counterfeit perceptions regarding a situation. They demonstrate a numerical strength and pose a threat by sheer numbers, if not merit.
There are some pervert trollers who make inappropriate comments and sexual innuendos. Some even go as far as threats of rape and derive perverse pleasure out of it. If ignored, they might turn into future molesters and rapists.
It is high time that appropriate steps are taken to manage trolls by increasing control over online spaces. Social platforms must redesign their harassment reporting procedures. The user who posts comments with profanities, threats, and hate-speech must be blocked forever from the forum.
There should be a way to put a stop to fake accounts and accounts with pseudonyms as trolling and online harassment can never be eradicated entirely without this vital step. Accounts of users must be linked with their identity like social media platforms should require a passport number or ID card number so that in case of a severe issue like sexual trolling, the member can easily be traced. The loss of anonymity might prove to be a check enough to discourage such abhorrent behaviour.
Lastly, the role of legislation must not be ignored. Laws must be made to include trolling and online harassment in punishable offenses and to hold trollers more accountable for their actions.
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Is social media responsible for societal damage of tolerating trolls?
Isn't that like blaming the car for a drink-driving wreck instead of the drunk driver?
No, it is like blaming an employer for a hostile work environment.
Going to be very hard if not impossible to support a claim that social media is responsible for people doing bad things.
Maybe some day people will wake up to the facts that they CHOOSE to be on social media and that there are "off' buttons on the electronic devices folks are using to access that media.
[Do not derail this discussion into personal comments and meta. Further trolling will lead to points toward suspension.]
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Makes sense. Insecurity leads some to compensate by putting others down. But I suspect most of the trolling on social media forums (especially those dealing with politics) is based on a primal need of some to be a loyal group-think warrior and attack 'them' (and then high-five cohorts after the attack). And the attack need not even be a winning move. Just attacking 'them' seems to be good enough even if the 'warrior' looks like an absolute fool in the process. Logic and facts are not important ... what is important is to oppose 'the opposition' to attack 'those guys' and to stay true to the party position at almost every turn.
[ See @2 for a 'contribution' that is simply a personal attack on the seeder. ]
(see opening paragraph) It certainly is not limited to teenagers, but it seems (to me) to be a behavior of immaturity.
Very obvious to observe this. Disagree with someone (especially if the disagreement is particularly effective) and you are now the enemy. There is a price to pay for making a good argument and if a good counterargument cannot be articulated, the next best 'treatment' for the 'enemy' is to troll them.
Key contemporary example: defending Trump at every turn. No matter how obviously wrong Trump is in various specific actions (e.g. suborning Pence to commit an unconstitutional act) we see individuals refusing to acknowledge even blatantly obvious wrongdoing and instead deflecting into demands for absolute proof and refusing to accept anything short of a legal verdict for a formal trial (even then I suspect they would claim the trial was rigged).
Not everyone wants to discuss / debate issues / ideas based on rational, fact-based discourse. And those who do are more-often-than-not distracted by trolls who sour the experience.
Does social media tolerate blatant trolling because TPTB believe in free speech, or is it that the conflict trolls create increases comment counts and up vote responses resulting in increased site income?
Or, does tolerating trolls discourage membership and participation?
Or is it because the economics of monitoring are unsustainable?
Let's do some math. How many people do you think Twitter would need to hire to police trolling? Whatever that number is, multiply it by 10,000 for Facebook. Very quickly, you get to a point where the platform is so expensive to maintain it's impractical to keep it going.
Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg can afford moderators...
Then, of course, there are sites that do not pay their mods!
Really? What would it cost? How many would they need? Would that be per daily user or per post/tweet? How many new FB posts are there every day? How many tweets?
Who decides what constitutes "trolling"? What's the difference between "trolling" and "banter"? Are those definitions fixed or do they change? How many people would it take to monitor language/societal changes and amend the policies? What would that cost?
The District appeals court in Texas just ruled that big tech doesn’t have the right to censor speech based on viewpoint. On to the Supreme Court next.
Excellent point.
We haven't even begun to discuss the cost of the expansive legal teams social media networks would need to fight off challenges to the decisions of their armies of moderators.
That ruling will likely be overturned but it has nothing to do with trolling, doxing, threats etc.
I'm curious why you think so. Given the current SCOTUS makeup, I would not have thought they had a chance in hell. That said, I am unbelievably bad a predicting these outcomes, so I'm curious about other views.
It has everything to do with the actual practical applications of policing billions of entries of data.
Why in the world do you think a media company should be forced to allow all content.
Should we be forced to allow blatant racism and homophobic content on this site? Not allowed to monitor or ticket bad behavior?
en the current SCOTUS makeup, I would not have thought they had a chance in hell
It will come down to how much influence the government has in the censorship. If the company is operating independently, they will win. If the evidence shows they are censoring posts after being advised by the government to do so, then they could lose.
Why would you act like I think that? What's with the melodrama?
Are we calling racism a "viewpoint"?
I think that because of the stuoid law and lawsuits. It is only there becasue of some butthurt republicans think they are being censored when in fact it is just them that cannot follow the rules of a company and then cry foul.
Is it not?
Serious question...
How would the banning of a person for politically biased Tweeting be different from a sign in your restaurant window that says "No Liberals Allowed"? Wouldn't they both be a denial of service based on political views?
Good point. If the reason is strictly political bias, that is insufficient.
The banning based on tweets should be because the tweets are causing harm. Much like a patron in a restaurant loudly complaining about the service — especially if the complaint is a lie.
It's an easy enough thing to prove/disprove. How many conservative posts get removed vs. how many liberal posts get removed, and then does that difference meet measures of statistical significance?
“How many conservative posts get removed vs. how many liberal posts get removed…”
On a site that may have fifty visitors at any one time? Those that choose to post here do it as an emotional outlet.
Those that choose to listen in are more than likely laughing at us.
Who is to decide? Who is to examine all these posts? Maybe there is some conservative nutjob that keeps posting conspiracy that the company deemed they didn't want on the platform. That one person could fudge the numbers.
Just saying a company cannot censor is a very broad thing. It is being brought down to left vs right, which is totally ridiculous.
Should the new 'truth social' be able censor posts from extreme Liberals that are there to troll?
The law only applies to platforms with more than 50 million daily users.
Then we are lawless hereabouts…explains the all too common idiocy..
That is an insufficient measure of bias. Bias would compare the unfair tickets per capita of conservative members to that of liberal members. (Using conservative and liberal just to keep this simple.)
Further, I think the assumption (if made) that there necessarily is an equal number of conservative trolls as liberal trolls is faulty. Maybe on extremely large sites like Twitter we would see the results of entropy ultimately ending in statistical balance, but I would not expect that on smaller sites. So if a site has more liberal trolls than conservative trolls, we would expect to see more liberal tickets (and vice-versa).
Excellent questions, which I asked myself in 3.1.3.
The law in question only applies to mega-platforms (50m active daily users). Think FB, Twitter, and Instagram. So a single person is never going to move those numbers..
Have you read the Texas law? I just did. There several qualifiers that allow them to take stuff down if it's really terrible.
I suspect they'll be able to because I can't ever see them getting to 50m users.
Let me save you some time and energy. Over about a half dozen different posts in just the last few days, you've asked me a question like this. They all go along the lines of "if liberals are not allowed to do XYZ, then should conservatives be prohibited from XYZ?"
My answer always going to be yes, rules need to be applied uniformly. I was a public school teacher. You do not survive in that environment with inconsistent enforcement of rules.
So... IF... "truth social" or whatever foolishness they have going ever happens to get to 50m active users, then they absolutely must be restricted in the same way Twitter or FB are.
The Texas statute only applies to sites where that would happen. Smaller sites are exempt.... or "lawless", as afrayednot so eloquently describes.
So where did this 50 mil number come from? So the government can intervene in a company that has an amount of users that is a worldwide number. Are they deeming them too big to fail?
This is basically championing government intervention in to a private enterprise, no matter how it is framed.
Good question. I dunno. Seems arbitrary. There could be a statistical justification for it, but given that almost all laws are written by people who never took a math class, that seems really, really unlikely.
Well, it would obviously be idiotic and impractical to try to enforce regulation on every forum and message board in the US. You could find yourself arbitrating a 6 person GroupMe.
On the other end, there is definitely a point where mega-platforms like Twitter or FB become a primary arena for the exchange of public ideas.
So there has to be some threshold.
Rather than "too big to fail" I think the question is "big enough to matter"? Again, I don't know how you decide 50m is a magic number rather than 15m or 150m.
But you favor that in most arenas of life. You would object to a restaurant refusing to serve somebody in a "Obama 2012" t-shirt, and rightfully so. You do object to a baker refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding. If an employer arbitrarily fired everybody with a Biden sticker on their car, you would find that unacceptable.
We have laws that govern all those instances, and now we have one governing electronic services.
Is that the right way to go though. We have seen where governments use it to stop the flow of ideas.
It is a completely different scenario to me than someone being refused service.
I liken it to freedom of the press, only with the voices of the people.
Good question. I think it remains to be seen.
The law specifically prohibits stopping the flow of ideas, so I'm not sure how we could reach a scenario where the it could be used to do the exact opposite.
I'm not sure I follow the freedom of the press comparison. It would seem that a law prohibiting censorship would support freedom of the press/voices of the people. What do you foresee happening that would undermine that?
It is the government getting involved in a private business in order to enact what it considers justice from what I don't know exactly. All I can tell is republicans claim without proof that they are unfairly censored.
This law is saying you cannot censor a viewpoint yet once again, who is going to be the arbitrator on this? The government?
To me it is like telling fox news they have to have Liberal people on not just as token figures, the same with MSNBC, make them have a solid conservative anchor.
Plus where does it end. This law seems broad enough that someone that is racist should be able to spout replacement theory without fear of repercussion because the are extreme right wing.
It is the company being forced to allow what it deems against its policy. The only thing they are going on for this broad policy is some belief by republicans that had their rhetoric monitored.
Racism is the one social construct that literally serves no purpose at all. (Except hate, of course)
Personally, I try very hard to evaluate new laws/bills/ideas on the basis of:
It kinda sounds like your primary concern is that these shady Republican bastards are up to no good again. They've certainly earned a healthy level of suspicion, but I don't know that automatically makes all their ideas terrible.
Well if you're not censoring, why do you need an arbiter? The text of the law allows for illegal posts to be removed.
Those aren't social media outlets where anybody can voice a view.
Yes. People will no doubt say offensive things and/or things with which you disagree. That's the price of living in a free society.
This brings us back to the CRT question. If it's not actually happening and there isn't any intention of doing it, what's the objection to codifying that?
aka Trolls will be Trolls. In D&D they have regeneration 5 which in social media terms means as long as anyone replies to them, they will regenerate no matter how badly their premise or argument was damaged.
Sadly, that seems to be the case on NT and other social media.
Let me say how much I admire you and the restraint you exhibit when trolls attack you so personally and so obviously unfairly. I wish I could remain so stoic when the trolls troll on me. It is damn unpleasant...
“Trolling” is an extremely subjective subject. I find that accusations of “trolling” often gets proffered simply when the accuser doesn’t like and/or agree with what is being said. Much of the time it is simply a partisan circle jerk
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Do you often feel trolled? Harassed? Bullied?
Wrong again .....
Wouldn't that be trolling? Using a Clinton GIF to make a point to a known conservative?
Do you consider @5.1.3 to be trolling?
... and you're playing games with it as well because now my comment PRECEDES the instant by two minutes.
I do. It's her 'nails-on-the-chalkboard', dismissive, condescending, omniscient 'no'.
Lol .... classically sophomoric .....
Lol ... nice job playing the change your post game. One wonders who you think you are fooling
What I find a classic example of trolling is when someone asks a question, that question is answered, and because the person asking the question does not like the answer, asks the question again and again, until they perceive that they got the answer they wanted.
I apologize for my differing opinions.
So if you make a point like, say, "Biden is the most dishonest PotUS in our history" and someone replies with the GIF @5.1.3 , you would consider that to be trolling??
How about if someone offers this instead?
Would you consider this to be trolling?
nope
Sure. It serves to antagonize without furthering discussion. A definition of trolling ignores that some historically dish it out and can expect it some time later as retribution.
True, but I think just one meme is tolerable, however, using memes as a constant form of response to just about everything is definitely a form of trolling.
Yea, like 5.1.10. Fuck that discussion.
A lot of times a question is asked and a deflective reply is given. Then the deflector insists that responding to the question is 'answering' the question.
I think most readers see right through that tactic.
Depends on the message of the meme. If someone were to agree with everything you wrote by posting various mems which represent your points, is that a form of trolling?
Memes are simply an alternate means of expression. The meaning is what matters; not the means of expression.
I don’t think so and by the way this article is not about me. You should know that since you started it.
As comment #5.1.10 was neither to nor about you, WTF?
The label 'trolling' is indeed overused and I agree it is sometimes used to connote: "I strongly disagree" or "your comment(s) cannot be taken seriously". But what I have observed (for decades now) is that there are individuals who predominantly write comments to simply annoy 'the enemy'. Comments that offer no real value to the subject and are simply attempts to annoy are what I would deem trolling and these are very commonplace.
That is why the distinction between content and the person is so critical to understand. When one writes a comment whose predominant goal is to annoy and whose target is (directly or indirectly) some (or several) members on a site, one is trolling. In contrast, writing a comment that produces a thoughtful counter-opinion or rebuttal is not trolling.
In concept, I agree with that. The problem is polarized perception is often off the mark. By a lot. Of course those folks usually do not feel they have become polarized .... which is actually the root cause of the problem. They tend view the other side as only the “enemy.”
Another very subjective topic. One persons simple annoyance is not necessarily indicative of trolling.
I see you being trolled all the time and it isn't just disagreement.
It is plainly an effort to irritate, bother, frustrate and annoy you...
Your persistence is often called trolling, by the trolls trolling you.
More empirical evidence to support my point.
No, but that comment is a fine example of trollish behavior..
Agree one hundred percent
Yes of course this is subjective, but in most cases it is quite easy to recognize trolling. It takes no special skill for someone to recognize a series of comments written mostly (if not entirely) to annoy select others.
And when a series of comments are derogatory and personal (not about the content but rather the person who wrote the comment) that series typically is an instance of trolling.
In short, the extremes are easy. Mere disagreement on content is not ipso facto trolling. And on the other extreme, a series of directly personal attacks lacking any thoughtful justification are invariably trolling. The more subjective 'trolling' include cases where one's interlocutor is simply being obnoxious and engaging in intellectually dishonest tactics (regarding content) in lieu of a thoughtful response.
Wrong again ....
Trolling accusations happen here all the time. Many times it’s simply just a difference of opinion. Nothing more.
Some regularly use that tactic as an attempt to mold/censor the discussion. Not unlike the flagging feature .....
And many times it is an accurate designation of a comment.
When you are lazy, are not very facile with words, and not great at expressing yourself , it is a lot easier to just keep babbling, for the simple reason that people want to have something to say. Some dont care about the quality of what they say , they just want to say something.
Sure seems that way. Some apparently have no concern about looking like a fool. The priority is to get 'one of them' and looking the fool is apparently a fair price to pay for making an attack and being applauded by the home team.
When someone keeps asking the same question over and over and is never satisfied with the answer, that is a form of trolling
The flip side is when one deflects from a question and claims that a response alone is an 'answer'.
What makes someone repeat a lie month after month despite being proven wrong dozens if not hundreds of times?
Is it a fetish:? What makes someone troll like that?
Anger .... anger and hate.
Thank you for always bringing sunshine and light everywhere...
"Do I hit the IGNORE or ESCALATE button?"
You're providing a rich background of how digs get out of hand.
You are most welcome. It’s really quite easy with all the love coming from my buddies here that lean left.
Other than that, what are your thoughts on this article?
Which of the author's main points do you disagree with?
Efforts to change the topic onto this seeder are trolling behaviors.
The topic is not me or Trump. Please return to the article's topic...
Where did he mention either you or President Trump?
"Yet, beginning by at least 2014 and continuing right up to election day in 2016 Trump was in secret negotiations with clandestine agents of Putin's Russian State Intelligence Services to build Trump Tower in Moscow. Trump even offered Putin a luxury penthouse as a bribe to get the deal". Remember? Dies that ring a bell? What else did you think Sean was trolling me about? Shirley you knew! You call me a liar and demand that I prove it every single timr...
You have repeated that many times.
One thing you never, ever do is tell the WHOLE STORY.
All those investigations you cite amounted to nothing more than a waste of time, as no charges were ever filed because nothing was illegal about it.
But let's make sure you keep spouting the same irrelevant nonsense about it, mmmkay?
1. What does ANY of that have to do with the question I ask you?
2. How many times are you going to keep pushing false information? It was already found to be NOTHING.
Pretending you do not know what is really going on is trolling!
Illegal? The predicates for the Trump Russia probe were legal.
Pretending you do not get my point to frustrate me is trolling...
What the fuck IS your point?
Trump was investigated. Nothing came of it. He DID NOTHING ILLEGAL.
You keep repeating shit no one even gives a fuck about because there IS NOTHING TO IT.
You have no legitimate point.
Unless your 'point' is that because Trump was investigated, he is guilty based on absolutely nothing more than the fact they investigated him.
Fortunately, we still live in America where laws apply.
Not everyone who can't see your imaginary 'points' is trolling you despite your 'thoughts' on it.
If you are frustrated, take responsibility for that.
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Still haven't answered any of my questions. Or are you looking for a meme to deflect with? (BTW that's trolling)
Trolling seems to exist everywhere. I posted some furniture on Craigslist the other day and was immediately hit with a couple responses that claimed they were very interested, but then proceeded to ask me if I was a scammer and to respond with a verification code. Of course, there is no such thing as a verification code from a buyer on Craigslist and there is no logical end game to asking a seller if they are a scammer. It’s just a troll preying on people to get their hopes up on making a sale, and to bait them into repeatedly responding with increasing frustration. I use Craigslist to buy and sell all the time so I recognize this pointless type of response right off the bat, but I’m sure this pointless taunting works on older or less experienced folks. Apparently some dirtbags just get enjoyment from ruining a stranger’s day.
“Anonymity is a universal convention of the blogosphere, and the wicked expedience is that you can speak without consequences.” ~ Lee Siegel
I love it that a few of NTs worst trolls are here to advise us on trolling. How ironic.
Wait a minute! Isn't this post miscategorized? ?
Shouldn't this be in Meta? Accck!