I’ve never understood the allure of trolling or being a troll online just because you can. Speaking honestly, I don’t think I’ve even trolled somebody intentionally since I’ve started using the internet waaaaaaaaaay back in 1997.
Wikipedia’s definition of a troll puts it pretty nicely.
A troll is a person who starts flame wars or intentionally upsets people on the internet.
How hard up for entertainment to you have to be that your only outlet for relaxation is to argue for the sake or arguing?
Of course, there are varying degrees of trolling. Some might even be funny in the right context…I sure as hell know I’ve laughed at more than my fair share of trolling for good reasons.
But then, there are the trolls who just want to get a rise out of people and they do so in the nastiest way possible.
Like this Danni Danni.
In case you were wondering, Danni boy here posted this on a Facebook post about the 5 people killed in a speeding accident.
Come on, bro. Have some class.
You want to troll, fine. Do it on something benign. Posting it on a post of people dying is in bad taste. Even more if the families of the deceased take a look and read about it.
Danni’s not alone in the lacking class department.
There are a ton of other nasty comments in that post.
These are the tamer comments.
Why do trolls feel the need to belittle, ridicule or laugh at somebody’s misfortune? Even if they did do something to deserve their fate, laughing at them for it and then posting vindictively about it isn’t a moral thing to do.
Psychology Today has a great article examining the root causes that might drive a person to troll and looking at it against the comments on the post, I do get the impression that the troll posts do fit into the described categories…especially these two.
These two are the main causes perhaps. They go hand in hand very well. If nobody knows who you are, nobody can retaliate right? It’s carte blanche for the trolls! That’s mostly true too. Most Internet trolls are actually pretty savvy on the workings of the internet. They use VPNs, burner emails, secure browsers like Tor and the like just to make sure their tracks are covered.
You might think it’s a lot of trouble to go to (and it is) but that doesn’t matter one bit to trolls. The better their perceived protection, the more secured they feel to make insensitive comments.
While the best way to defuse trolling is just to ignore them, we really should make trolling something that’s punishable by law. It’s not ethical by any means, but right now, it’s legal in Singapore.
The UK is on the right track though, as it did jail a troll for inappropriate comments.
Stricter punishment needs to be in place to curb trolling locally, before we have tragedies like murders due to trolling. It’s already happened in Japan, one of the safest and politest societies in the world.
How long before we see a case here?
If you’re a troll, perhaps you might want to take a look at yourself first before posting hurtful comments online.
Maybe there are issues that you need help with? Why not focus on that instead of wasting time online making insensitive comments?