The Dark Place: Internet Trolling
Have you ever gotten trolled on the internet? Or maybe seen one of them? If you are an active social media user, you probably have experienced, or seen one of them. Although some people find it entertaining or where “sense of humour” is unleashed with appreciation, the cold hard truth is that it can be nasty or mean sometimes. And here today, we’re looking at the darker side of internet trolling. The act of trolling is getting increasingly familiar on the internet, and to those who is not clear on what internet trolling really is, it can be explained as “taking actions to upset people, such as making controversial comments and posting extraneous messages with the intent of provoking people into responding emotionally for personal amusement” (Moreau 2018).
Trolls can be found anywhere – Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube or any social networking site, you name it. What makes people troll? It is so easy because anyone, literally anyone can do it and they can do it under “protection” without getting any troubles. Trolls come in and spew whatever they wish, and they derive pleasure by inflicting pain upon others.
Anonymity instigates trolling because people can now hide behind a fake-name, faceless user account. In fact, trolling becomes a source of empowerment for cowardly people because they do not have to take responsibility or to suffer the consequences for what they said or did, especially when what they did is bad.
In fact, internet trolling can cause some serious pain to people. Twitter users and celebrities face trolling frequently that it has started to become a norm, an unusually painful one. In 2000, a mother of a murdered victim quit Twitter after suffering online harassment. Having to deal with her daughter’s death was not enough, the mother still had to suffer from verbal attacks online and was compelled to leave Twitter (Cohen 2014).
Amanda Todd - the 15-year-old Canadian girl - committed suicide on October 10th, 2012 after spilling her situation on YouTube and received hate comments that asked her to kill herself. A place where she thought she could relieve some of the pain, turned into a series of bullying where people teased and verbally attacked her aggressively, which left her vulnerable and helpless (boyd 2014, p. 132).
Robin William’s daughter, Zelda Williams, was being taunted – trolls photoshopped and posted her late father’s body in a morgue that did not belong to Robin Williams. In response to that, the 25-year-old Zelda Williams was left “shaking” after suffering from cruel and harsh criticisms (Cohen 2014).
Thinking how some people humiliate or insult random people on the internet just because they like it is just disturbingly sad. To even think of hurting people – there’s just a thin line between trolling and inhumane.
References
boyd, d 2014, ‘Bullying: is the media amplifying meanness and cruelty?’, In it’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, pp. 128-152.
Cohen, C 2014, ‘Twitter trolls: the celebrities who’ve been driven off social media by abuse’, Telegraph, 18 November, viewed 26 October 2018, <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11238018/Celebrity-Twitter-trolls-The-famous-people-whove-been-driven-off-social-media-by-abuse.html>.
Moreau, E 2018, ‘Internet trolling: how do you spot a real troll?’, Lifewire, 5 October, viewed 26 October 2018, <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-internet-trolling-3485891>.
