Troll (Internet)
Encyclopedia
In Internet slang
, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotion
al response
or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted".
While the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels subjective, with trolling describing intentionally provocative actions
outside of an online context. For example, mass media uses troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families." The "trollface" (pictured right) has become a well-recognized icon of Internet trolling. It was drawn by deviantArt
user Whynne and uploaded to the site in 2008. Whynne claims that the drawing was an attempt at recreating a comic character named "Rape Rodent."
troller, a hunting term. The noun troll comes from the Old Norse
word for a mythological monster
.
In modern English usage, the verb troll is a fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat. The word evokes the trolls of Scandinavian folklore
and children's tales, where they are often creatures bent on mischief and wickedness.
The contemporary use of the term is alleged to have appeared on the Internet in the late 1980s,
but the earliest known example is from 1992. Early non-internet related use of trolling for actions deliberately performed to provoke a reaction can be found in the military; by 1972 the term trolling for MiGs
was documented in use by US Navy pilots in Vietnam
.
group, alt.folklore.urban (AFU).
Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time. Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been discussed a lot, but new subscribers to the group would not realize, and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a practice to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a positive contribution.
One of the most notorious AFU trollers, Snopes, went on to create his eponymous urban folklore website.
By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroup
s where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.
) or tröll (a troll
) may refer to trolls, the verbs þursa (to troll) or þursast (to be trolling, to troll about) may used.
In Japanese, tsuri (釣り) means "fishing" and refers to intentionally misleading posts whose only purpose is to get the readers to react, i.e. get trolled. arashi (荒らし) means "laying waste" and can also be used to refer to simple spamming
.
In Korean, nak-si (낚시) means "fishing", and is used to refer to Internet trolling attempts, as well as purposefully misleading post titles. A person who recognizes the troll after having responded (or, in case of a post title nak-si, having read the actual post) would often refer to himself as a caught fish.
In Thai, the term "krean" (เกรียน) has been adopted to address Internet trolls. The term literally refers to a closely cropped hairstyle worn by most school boys in Thailand, thus equating Internet trolls to school boys. The term "tob krean" (ตบเกรียน), or slapping a cropped head, refers to the act of posting intellectual replies to refute and cause the messages of Internet trolls to be perceived as unintelligent.
The relationship between trolling and flaming was observed in open-access forums in California, on a series of modem-linked computers in the 1970s, like CommuniTree which when accessed by high school teenagers became a ground for trashing and abuse. Some psychologists have suggested that flaming would be caused by deindividuation
or decreased self-evaluation: the anonymity of online postings would lead to disinhibition
amongst individuals Others have suggested that although flaming and trolling is often unpleasant, it may be a form of normative behavior that expresses the social identity
of a certain user group
According to Tom Postmes, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the universities of Exeter and Groningen, Netherlands, and the author of Individuality and the Group, who has studied online behavior for 20 years"..Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure."
In academic literature
, the practice of trolling was first documented by Judith Donath
(1999). Donath's paper outlines the ambiguity of identity in a disembodied "virtual community
" such as Usenet
:
Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community
:
Susan Herring et al. in "Searching for Safety Online: Managing 'Trolling' in a Feminist Forum" point out the difficulty inherent in monitoring trolling and maintaining freedom of speech in online communities: "harassment often arises in spaces known for their freedom, lack of censure, and experimental nature".
Free speech may lead to tolerance of trolling behavior, complicating the members' efforts to maintain an open, yet supportive discussion area, especially for sensitive topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.
In an effort to reduce uncivil behavior by increasing accountability, many web sites (e.g. Reuters
, Facebook, and Gizmodo
) now require commenters to register their names and e-mail addresses.
pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view
is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold. The concern troll posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals
, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt
within the group.
An example of this occurred in 2006 when Tad Furtado, a staffer for then-Congressman Charles Bass (R
-NH
), was caught posing as a "concerned" supporter of Bass's opponent, Democrat
Paul Hodes
, on several liberal New Hampshire
blogs, using the pseudonyms "IndieNH" or "IndyNH". "IndyNH" expressed concern that Democrats might just be wasting their time or money on Hodes, because Bass was unbeatable. Hodes eventually won the election.
Although the term "concern troll" originated in discussions of online behavior, it now sees increasing use to describe similar behaviors that take place offline.
For example, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair accused a conservative New York Daily News
columnist of "concern troll" behavior in his efforts to downplay the Mark Foley scandal
. Wolcott links what he calls concern trolls to Saul Alinsky's
"Do-Nothings", giving a long quote from Alinsky on the Do-Nothings' method and effects:
The Hill
published an op-ed piece by Markos Moulitsas of the liberal blog Daily Kos
titled "Dems: Ignore 'Concern Trolls' ". The concern trolls in question were not Internet participants; they were Republicans offering public advice and warnings to the Democrats. The author defines "concern trolling" as "offering a poisoned apple in the form of advice to political opponents that, if taken, would harm the recipient".
and at Encyclopedia Dramatica
, which it described as "an online compendium of troll humor and troll lore".
This site and others are often used as a base to troll against sites that their members can not normally post on. These trolls feed off the reactions of their victims because "their agenda is to take delight in causing trouble".
On March 31, 2010, the Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls’ subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a “suicidal slut,” and posting graphic images on her Facebook
memorial page. The segment also included an expose of a 2006 accident
, in which an eighteen-year old fatally crashed her father’s car into a highway pylon; trolls emailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.
In February 2010, the Australian government became involved after trolls defaced the Facebook tribute pages of murdered children Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher. Australian communications minister Stephen Conroy
decried the attacks, committed mainly by 4chan users, as evidence of the need for greater Internet regulation, stating, “This argument that the Internet is some mystical creation that no laws should apply to, that is a recipe for anarchy and the wild west.” Conroy has been noted in the past for his advocacy of Internet censorship. In the wake of these events, Facebook responded by strongly urging administrators to be aware of ways to ban users and remove inappropriate content from Facebook pages.
In the United Kingdom, contributions made to the internet are covered by the Communications Act 2003
. Sending messages which are "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" is a offence whether they are received by the intended recipient or not. As of September 2011, two persons have been imprisoned in the UK for trolling.
. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. Like any pejorative
term, it can be used as an ad hominem
attack, suggesting a negative motivation.
Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore it, because responding tends to encourage trolls to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning: "Please do not feed the trolls".
. In some cases, this type of troll has been used as a scam, most notably on Facebook, where fake Facebook Gold Account upgrade ads have proliferated in order to link users to dubious websites and other content.
As reported on April 8, 1999, investors became victims of trolling via an online financial discussion regarding PairGain, a telephone equipment company based in California. Trolls operating in the stock’s Yahoo Finance chat room posted a fabricated Bloomberg
News article stating that an Israeli telecom company could potentially acquire PairGain. As a result, PairGain’s stock jumped by 31%. However, the stock promptly crashed after the reports were identified as false.
The case of Zeran v. America Online, Inc.
resulted primarily from trolling. Six days after the Oklahoma City bombing
, anonymous users posted advertisements for shirts celebrating the bombing on AOL message boards, claiming that the shirts could be obtained by contacting Mr. Kenneth Zeran. The posts listed Zeran’s address and home phone number. Zeran was subsequently harassed.
Anti-Scientology protests by Anonymous
, commonly known as Project Chanology
, are sometimes labeled as "trolling" by media such as Wired, and the participants sometimes explicitly self-identify as "trolls".
Internet slang
Internet slang is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites...
, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
al response
or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted".
While the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels subjective, with trolling describing intentionally provocative actions
Harassment
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing...
outside of an online context. For example, mass media uses troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families." The "trollface" (pictured right) has become a well-recognized icon of Internet trolling. It was drawn by deviantArt
DeviantArt
deviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
user Whynne and uploaded to the site in 2008. Whynne claims that the drawing was an attempt at recreating a comic character named "Rape Rodent."
Etymology
The verb troll originates from Old FrenchOld French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
troller, a hunting term. The noun troll comes from the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
word for a mythological monster
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
.
In modern English usage, the verb troll is a fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat. The word evokes the trolls of Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.Collecting folklore began when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden sent out instructions to all of the priests in all of the parishes to collect the folklore of their area...
and children's tales, where they are often creatures bent on mischief and wickedness.
The contemporary use of the term is alleged to have appeared on the Internet in the late 1980s,
but the earliest known example is from 1992. Early non-internet related use of trolling for actions deliberately performed to provoke a reaction can be found in the military; by 1972 the term trolling for MiGs
Mikoyan
Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG , or RSK MiG, is a Russian joint stock company. Formerly Mikoyan-and-Gurevich Design Bureau , then simply Mikoyan, it is a military aircraft design bureau, primarily designing fighter aircraft...
was documented in use by US Navy pilots in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
Early history
The most likely derivation of the word troll can be found in the phrase "trolling for newbies", popularized in the early 1990s in the UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
group, alt.folklore.urban (AFU).
Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time. Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been discussed a lot, but new subscribers to the group would not realize, and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a practice to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a positive contribution.
One of the most notorious AFU trollers, Snopes, went on to create his eponymous urban folklore website.
By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.
In other languages
In Icelandic, þurs (a thursThurs
Thurs may refer to:*Thurs, also Thurse, a mythological race with superhuman strength in Norse mythology. See Jötunn.*a name of Thor*Thurisaz ᚦ, the rune expressing the thorn phoneme*Thursday, as an abbreviation...
) or tröll (a troll
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
) may refer to trolls, the verbs þursa (to troll) or þursast (to be trolling, to troll about) may used.
In Japanese, tsuri (釣り) means "fishing" and refers to intentionally misleading posts whose only purpose is to get the readers to react, i.e. get trolled. arashi (荒らし) means "laying waste" and can also be used to refer to simple spamming
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
.
In Korean, nak-si (낚시) means "fishing", and is used to refer to Internet trolling attempts, as well as purposefully misleading post titles. A person who recognizes the troll after having responded (or, in case of a post title nak-si, having read the actual post) would often refer to himself as a caught fish.
In Thai, the term "krean" (เกรียน) has been adopted to address Internet trolls. The term literally refers to a closely cropped hairstyle worn by most school boys in Thailand, thus equating Internet trolls to school boys. The term "tob krean" (ตบเกรียน), or slapping a cropped head, refers to the act of posting intellectual replies to refute and cause the messages of Internet trolls to be perceived as unintelligent.
Trolling, identity, and anonymity
Early incidences of trolling were considered to be the same as flaming, but this has changed with modern usage by the news media to refer to the creation of any content that targets another person. The Internet dictionary, Net Lingo, suggests there are four grades of trolling; Playtime trolling, tactical trolling, strategic trolling, and domination trollingThe relationship between trolling and flaming was observed in open-access forums in California, on a series of modem-linked computers in the 1970s, like CommuniTree which when accessed by high school teenagers became a ground for trashing and abuse. Some psychologists have suggested that flaming would be caused by deindividuation
Deindividuation
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology regarding the loosening of social norms in groups. Sociologists also study the phenomenon of deindividuation, but the level of analysis is somewhat different. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a...
or decreased self-evaluation: the anonymity of online postings would lead to disinhibition
Disinhibition
Disinhibition is a term in psychology used to describe a lack of restraint manifested in several ways, including disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment. Disinhibition affects motor, instinctual, emotional, cognitive and perceptual aspects with signs and symptoms...
amongst individuals Others have suggested that although flaming and trolling is often unpleasant, it may be a form of normative behavior that expresses the social identity
Social identity
A social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group. As originally formulated by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and 80s, social identity theory introduced the concept of a social identity as a way in which to...
of a certain user group
According to Tom Postmes, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the universities of Exeter and Groningen, Netherlands, and the author of Individuality and the Group, who has studied online behavior for 20 years"..Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure."
In academic literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, the practice of trolling was first documented by Judith Donath
Judith Donath
Judith Donath is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center and was the founder of the at the MIT Media Lab. She has written papers on various aspects of the Internet and its social impact, such as Internet society and community, interfaces, virtual identity issues , and other forms of collaboration...
(1999). Donath's paper outlines the ambiguity of identity in a disembodied "virtual community
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
" such as Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
:
Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community
Epistemic community
An epistemic community is a transnational network of knowledge-based experts who help decision-makers to define the problems they face, identify various policy solutions and assess the policy outcomes. The definitive conceptual framework of an epistemic community is widely accepted as that of Peter...
:
Susan Herring et al. in "Searching for Safety Online: Managing 'Trolling' in a Feminist Forum" point out the difficulty inherent in monitoring trolling and maintaining freedom of speech in online communities: "harassment often arises in spaces known for their freedom, lack of censure, and experimental nature".
Free speech may lead to tolerance of trolling behavior, complicating the members' efforts to maintain an open, yet supportive discussion area, especially for sensitive topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.
In an effort to reduce uncivil behavior by increasing accountability, many web sites (e.g. Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, Facebook, and Gizmodo
Gizmodo
Gizmodo is a technology weblog about consumer electronics. It is part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton and is known for its up-to-date coverage of the technology industry, along with topics as broad as design; architecture; space and science....
) now require commenters to register their names and e-mail addresses.
Concern troll
A concern troll is a false flagFalse flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view
Perspective (cognitive)
Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another...
is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold. The concern troll posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals
Ingroup bias
In-group–out-group bias, also called intergroup bias, refers to the phenomenon of in-group favoritism, a preference and affinity for one’s in-group over the out-group, or anyone viewed as outside the in-group. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, linking, allocation of resources and many...
, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt
Fear, uncertainty and doubt
Fear, uncertainty and doubt, frequently abbreviated as FUD, is a tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics and propaganda....
within the group.
An example of this occurred in 2006 when Tad Furtado, a staffer for then-Congressman Charles Bass (R
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
-NH
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
), was caught posing as a "concerned" supporter of Bass's opponent, Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Paul Hodes
Paul Hodes
Paul Hodes is an attorney, musician, and the former U.S. Representative for , serving fom 2007 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He was New Hampshire's first Jewish representative....
, on several liberal New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
blogs, using the pseudonyms "IndieNH" or "IndyNH". "IndyNH" expressed concern that Democrats might just be wasting their time or money on Hodes, because Bass was unbeatable. Hodes eventually won the election.
Although the term "concern troll" originated in discussions of online behavior, it now sees increasing use to describe similar behaviors that take place offline.
For example, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair accused a conservative New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
columnist of "concern troll" behavior in his efforts to downplay the Mark Foley scandal
Mark Foley scandal
The Mark Foley scandal, which broke in late September 2006, centers on soliciting e-mails and sexually suggestive instant messages sent by Mark Foley, a Republican Congressman from Florida, to teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages...
. Wolcott links what he calls concern trolls to Saul Alinsky's
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
"Do-Nothings", giving a long quote from Alinsky on the Do-Nothings' method and effects:
The Hill
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
published an op-ed piece by Markos Moulitsas of the liberal blog Daily Kos
Daily Kos
Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party...
titled "Dems: Ignore 'Concern Trolls' ". The concern trolls in question were not Internet participants; they were Republicans offering public advice and warnings to the Democrats. The author defines "concern trolling" as "offering a poisoned apple in the form of advice to political opponents that, if taken, would harm the recipient".
Troll sites
While many webmasters and forum administrators consider trolls a scourge on their sites, some websites welcome them. For example, a New York Times article discussed troll activity at 4chan4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
and at Encyclopedia Dramatica
Encyclopedia Dramatica
Encyclopædia Dramatica was a satirical open wiki that used MediaWiki software. Launched on December 10, 2004, it lampooned both encyclopedic topics and current events, especially those related or relevant to contemporary internet culture. It was frequently utilized by a socially fluid and dynamic...
, which it described as "an online compendium of troll humor and troll lore".
This site and others are often used as a base to troll against sites that their members can not normally post on. These trolls feed off the reactions of their victims because "their agenda is to take delight in causing trouble".
Media coverage and controversy
Mainstream media outlets have focused their attention on the willingness of some Internet trolls to go to extreme lengths in their attempts at eliciting reactions.On March 31, 2010, the Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls’ subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a “suicidal slut,” and posting graphic images on her Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
memorial page. The segment also included an expose of a 2006 accident
Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy
The Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy concerns the leaking of photographs of Nicole "Nikki" Catsouras , a woman who died at the age of 18 in a car crash after losing control of her father's Porsche 911 Carrera at high speed and colliding with a toll booth in Lake Forest, California...
, in which an eighteen-year old fatally crashed her father’s car into a highway pylon; trolls emailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.
In February 2010, the Australian government became involved after trolls defaced the Facebook tribute pages of murdered children Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher. Australian communications minister Stephen Conroy
Stephen Conroy
Stephen Michael Conroy is an Australian politician and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in the Gillard Ministry...
decried the attacks, committed mainly by 4chan users, as evidence of the need for greater Internet regulation, stating, “This argument that the Internet is some mystical creation that no laws should apply to, that is a recipe for anarchy and the wild west.” Conroy has been noted in the past for his advocacy of Internet censorship. In the wake of these events, Facebook responded by strongly urging administrators to be aware of ways to ban users and remove inappropriate content from Facebook pages.
In the United Kingdom, contributions made to the internet are covered by the Communications Act 2003
Communications Act 2003
The Communications Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It gave regulation body Ofcom its full powers. Among other measures, it introduced legal recognition of Community Radio and paved the way for full-time Community Radio services in the UK; as well as controversially...
. Sending messages which are "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" is a offence whether they are received by the intended recipient or not. As of September 2011, two persons have been imprisoned in the UK for trolling.
Usage
Application of the term troll is subjectiveSubjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. Like any pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
term, it can be used as an ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
attack, suggesting a negative motivation.
Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore it, because responding tends to encourage trolls to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning: "Please do not feed the trolls".
Examples of trolling
So-called Gold Membership trolling originated in 2007 on 4chan boards, users posting fake images claiming to offer upgraded 4chan account privileges; without a “Gold” account, one could not view certain content. This turned out to be a hoax designed to fool board members, especially newcomers. It was copied and became an Internet memeInternet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
. In some cases, this type of troll has been used as a scam, most notably on Facebook, where fake Facebook Gold Account upgrade ads have proliferated in order to link users to dubious websites and other content.
As reported on April 8, 1999, investors became victims of trolling via an online financial discussion regarding PairGain, a telephone equipment company based in California. Trolls operating in the stock’s Yahoo Finance chat room posted a fabricated Bloomberg
Bloomberg Television
Bloomberg Television is a 24-hour global network broadcasting business and financial news. It is distributed globally, reaching over 200 million homes worldwide. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P...
News article stating that an Israeli telecom company could potentially acquire PairGain. As a result, PairGain’s stock jumped by 31%. However, the stock promptly crashed after the reports were identified as false.
The case of Zeran v. America Online, Inc.
Zeran v. America Online, Inc.
Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 , cert. denied, 524 U.S. 937 , is a case in which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined the immunity of Internet service providers for wrongs committed by their users under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act...
resulted primarily from trolling. Six days after the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
, anonymous users posted advertisements for shirts celebrating the bombing on AOL message boards, claiming that the shirts could be obtained by contacting Mr. Kenneth Zeran. The posts listed Zeran’s address and home phone number. Zeran was subsequently harassed.
Anti-Scientology protests by Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
, commonly known as Project Chanology
Project Chanology
Project Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...
, are sometimes labeled as "trolling" by media such as Wired, and the participants sometimes explicitly self-identify as "trolls".
See also
- Anti-social behaviourAnti-social behaviourAnti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...
- Breaching experimentBreaching experimentIn the field of social psychology, a breaching experiment is an experiment that seeks to examine people's reactions to violations of commonly accepted social rules or norms. Breaching experiments are most commonly associated with ethnomethodology, and in particular the work of Harold Garfinkel...
- Cyber-bullyingCyber-bullyingCyber-bullying is the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner. As it has become more common in society, particularly among young people, legislation and awareness campaigns have arisen to combat it.-Definition:The term...
- GrieferGrieferA griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that deliberately irritates and harasses other players.-History:The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.-Overview:A...
- HecklerHecklerA heckler is a person who harass and try to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes.Hecklers are often known to shout disparaging comments at a performance or event, or interrupts set-piece speeches, for example at a political meeting, with intent to disturb its performers or...
- Hit-and-run postingHit-and-run postingHit-and-run posting refers to a tactic where a poster at an Internet forum enters, makes a post, only to disappear immediately after. The term comes from the hit-and-run crime on auto vehicles, in which the driver hits another car or person causing an accident and runs away. It is also known as...
- LurkerLurkerIn Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing, social networking site, listening to people in VOIP calls such as Skype and Ventrilo or other interactive system, but rarely or never participates actively...
- Patent trollPatent trollPatent troll is a pejorative but questioned term used for a person or company who is a non-practicing inventor, and buys and enforces patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to...
- Sockpuppet (Internet)Sockpuppet (Internet)A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term—a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about himself while pretending to be another...
External links
- Article on trolls and the 'art' of trolling by Steve Myers
- What is a troll? from the Straight DopeStraight DopeThe Straight Dope is a popular question-and-answer newspaper column published in the Chicago Reader, syndicated in thirty newspapers in the United States and Canada, as well as being available and archived at the .-Newspapers:...
- Trolling lore and essays
- Searching for Safety Online: Managing "Trolling" in a Feminist Forum
- Malwebolence – The World of Web Trolling; New York Times Magazine, By Mattathias Schwartz; August 3, 2008.
- The relationship between social context cues and uninhibited verbal behavior in computer-mediated communication
- The Subtle Art of Trolling