interestring article on Inet trolls..

[VINMAN]

Interesting but pretty disturbing article on trolls.
Some people just need a good azz kickin!


'It just makes me happy when I can make someone angry' - A special investigation into the dark world of trolling | Information, Gadgets, Mobile Phones News & Reviews | News.com.au

BEN spends up to 70 hours a week on the internet getting high on other people's anger and despair.

The unemployed 19-year-old from Victoria - who spoke to news.com.au on the condition of anonymity - doesn't go out much and doesn't have many real friends, but he doesn't feel alone. He believes he's part of a community of similar-minded people who scour the web looking for pages to vandalise and lives to upset.

Ben (not his real name) first started trolling in 2008 on the online forum 4Chan.

His first act was innocuous enough: he weighed in on a discussion about religion and claimed to have disproved everything people had written.

Since then his trolling has become more vicious and destructive.

"It just makes me happy when I can make someone angry. It sounds weird but I kind of feed off their anger. The angrier I can get them, the better I feel," he told news.com.au.

Meet the trolls part II: So who do you think invented LOLcats?

He usually only trolls a post or website once before moving, not out of any sense of decency, but because he is scared of being arrested.

He said the worst thing he ever did was vandalise the Facebook memorial page of a young girl who had committed suicide. "I wrote, 'How's it hanging guys'."

He doesn't feel any remorse, and strangely doesn't consider his actions bullying despite claiming he probably wouldn't have started trolling if he had not been bullied at school.

IT'S HOT IN HELL

"I'd feel responsible but I wouldn't care. I've pretty much lost all hope for humanity anyway, I don't believe that anything can save people," he said.

Ben and the hundreds of thousands like him reflect the dark side of the internet. They believe themselves to be cultural critics, indulging in harmless fun, but RIP trolling is one of the most destructive and harmful forms of trolling. It mocks and exploits the pain of those grieving the loss of loved ones. It ranges from the sort of distasteful comment Ben posted to plastering pages with photoshopped pictures of babies in meat grinders or hardcore pornography.

Last year Bradley Paul Hampson became the first Australian to be jailed for it. He plastered the Facebook tribute pages of two slain schoolchildren with child pornography, an act the judge described as depraved.

In the UK, one of the most infamous RIP trolls, Sean Duffy, was sentenced several months later for persecuting on Facebook four families of dead children. On one girl's memorial page he wrote: "Help me mummy, It's hot in Hell."

But trollers like Ben and Hampson may not be just hurting their victims.

Cyber-researcher Karyn Krawford claims that extreme trolling may be a sign of mental ill-health.

Ms Krawford said she had done studies which showed the empathy of mental health sufferers decreased for every hour they spent online.

LACKING EMPATHY

"This lack of empathy caused people to become emotionally immune and desensitised to images they're not seeing in real life," she said.

In one study, subjects displayed a complete lack of empathy when shown images of people dying. "They couldn't see how much that person was hurting; they couldn't see the cut off arm or the pain and distress and terror.

"As a consequence they were able to make these remarks and express these bullying type behaviours."

Twenty-three-year-old stay-at-home mother Sarah, from South Australia, is one such bully. For years she limited her trolling to snarky posts on the parenting website BabyMama.org, reserving her vitriol for discussions about breastfeeding and vaccinations.

But last month her actions spiralled out of control and she started actively bullying other users. Sarah set up a Facebook page belittling another mother that had posted near naked pictures of herself on the website.

"She started getting negative replies and deleted the pictures but I saved the pictures and uploaded them to a Facebook group where she was humiliated," she said.

Sarah quickly apologised and deleted the photos after other users criticised her actions and the site threatened her with expulsion.

"I randomly targeted a lady for no reason, humiliated her for no reason - just to be a *****. Looking back now it was petty. I'm one of those remorseful trolls, I suppose."

Sarah, like Ben, attributed her trolling to years of bullying she suffered at school. "I dropped out of school in year nine," she said. "I suppose I'm an ******* to people because I’m carrying all this spitefulness around with me. I hurt people."

Sydney student James admits he has problems switching from the "vicious but joking troll" persona on gaming sites to "James the nice guy" elsewhere.

"On gaming sites, if you don’t troll you’re pretty much seen as someone who is sucking up to the site moderators," he said.

And he has no shame when it comes to trolling. "If the person I was trolling was from a poorer area, maybe I'd say something like 'How does it feel having no future knowing you're from that area'," he said.

"It's just my mentality to make it personal and a lot of people take things way too seriously – especially on social networking sites."

POWER OF THE WEAKLING

Psychologists have long attributed bad behaviour online to "deindividuation" - the feeling people get when they think they are anonymous.

"Social distance can cause a 55-year-old climate change sceptic with a job and a mortgage to behave like a spastic donkey with strange malicious behaviour," said researcher James Heathers, of the University of Sydney.

He said the quality of online conversations in general seemed to be worsening by the day, and had now turned into a competition to see who can yell "urrgggh lame" the loudest.

"There's no turn-taking, or reacting like there is in face-to-face communication," he said. "The conversational structure is completely broken and there’s no thoughtful consideration of issues."

Psychiatrist Dr Tanveer Ahmed said people who troll may well feel a sense of regret, guilt or shame afterwards but mostly they rationalise their behaviour.

“It's a bit like the day after a big party - a part of you could be filled with regret but most of you is like, 'I was off my face, I'm giving myself a pass'."

He said that people don't feel the need to moderate their behaviour when they were online.

"The ability to say 'hi how's it going' to people we dislike helps us function in society, but that facade isn’t required online and often the first thoughts that come to mind – thoughts that would be unacceptable in other forums – are the first ones we bang up into a comment section on the web."

He said a sense of power was important to how people behaved online. "You're far more likely to be a troll if you’re a relative weakling elsewhere," he said.

"The internet is kind of a Wizard of Oz type setting, where people can feel big, whereas in another social setting they can be, well, pissheads frankly."

MEET THE TROLLS

BEN

- "It just makes me happy when I can make someone angry. It sounds weird but I kind of feed off their anger. The angrier I can get them, the better I feel. I'd feel responsible but I wouldn't care. I've pretty much lost all hope for humanity anyway, I don't believe that anything can save people."

SARAH

- "I randomly targeted a lady for no reason, humiliated her for no reason - just to be a *****. Looking back now it was petty.. I’m one of those remorseful trolls."

JAMES

- "On gaming sites, if you don’t troll you’re pretty much seen as someone who is sucking up to the site moderators. It's just my mentality to make it personal and a lot of people take things way too seriously – especially on social networking sites."

[Joeaksa]

Karma has a way of dealing with people like this...

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

BEN (not his real name) spends up to 70 hours a week on the internet getting high on other people's anger and despair.

70 hours a week posting?

Anger?

His real name is not Ben, it's Hugo930.

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Karma has a way of dealing with people like this...

Yes sir, that boy has some big problems. Someone going to discover that little tickturd and kick his arse good.

[Hugo930]

Thanks for mentioning me.

I am not out to piss people off but I do enjoy being the extreme to the opposite extreme that exists in PARF.

Nonetheless, 70 hours a week...wow.

[MattKellett]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Karma has a way of dealing with people like this...

The sad thing is Joe, that he'll probably never be hit by karma!

[BlueSkyJaunte]

"Social distance can cause a 55-year-old climate change sceptic with a job and a mortgage to behave like a spastic donkey with strange malicious behaviour," said researcher James Heathers, of the University of Sydney.

OK, that was pretty funny.

[scottbombedout]

Thought it was pretty funny at first until I read about defacing facebook memorial pages.

Like someone said, Karma will deal with that turd.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by turbocarrera

Looks like the first troll in this thread is McLovin.

Bingo!

[Adam]

[Zeke]

Well, wait until he cruises by here. You guys can shred up on him.

[70SATMan]

The subject characters in the article have symptoms and early experiences very similar to sociopaths. Pretty sad.

[PorscheGAL]

VINMAN thanks for posting the article. I think all forum readers and posters should be aware of this behavior and who is doing it. The troubling issue around their behavior is how much harm "trolls" do to a forum and, possible, to the business of a forum. For example, if the forum is part of an online business and the trolls constantly argue against business then the business will suffer. It is like the "broken-window theory" in urban areas.

Definition from Wikipedia:
"The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior."

I believe this same event is happening on forums with too many trolls. In fact, it may only be a couple of trolls with multiple sign-in names. These online trolls then set the norms and the site is no longer acceptable to people the forum is trying to attract.

For example:
I raise chickens for eggs and routinely visit chicken raising forums. The forum sites sells chicken supplies. If a troll enters the forum and post negative statements about raising chickens then forum readers visit less often. This is a negative event for the online store. They most likely lose out on sales and their company image is tarnished.

I don't know how to solve the problem of trolls. I do know it is a serious issue to me and the problem causes me to move away from negative forums. I guess if the business doesn't care about their image then they most likely don't care about their product.

[Hugo930]

This is very funny.

Originally Posted by Adam Chaplin

I've been guilty of trolling but most of the time, I am trying to get my point across. I'll be the first one to admit that I'd never behave like I do on PARF in my everyday life, I don't engage in heated political conversations with any of my peers, I also don't associate with people that have extreme views and last but not least, I simply don't care that much about politics nor religion in my real life.

I wonder why I care so much in here...perhaps a long look in the mirror and a drink is in order.

[bivenator]

Chicken forums huh? Guess there is one for every interest. Too bad the trolls don't have a troll forum to congregate. On second thought, has anyone read the yahoo.com comments?

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by Hugo930

This is very funny.



I've been guilty of trolling but most of the time, I am trying to get my point across. I'll be the first one to admit that I'd never behave like I do on PARF in my everyday life, I don't engage in heated political conversations with any of my peers, I also don't associate with people that have extreme views and last but not least, I simply don't care that much about politics nor religion in my real life.

I wonder why I care so much in here...perhaps a long look in the mirror and a drink is in order.

I suspect you do this because in real life no one pays attention to you.

rjp

[Hugo930]

LOL, do you just sit in front of your computer awaiting my next post?

All of this hatred because I made fun of you for liking dick burgers. Dude, get a life...honestly, anything will do just fine.

Your behaviour simply cannot be healthy for you.

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by Hugo930

LOL, do you just sit in front of your computer awaiting my next post?

All of this hatred because I made fun of you for liking dick burgers. Dude, get a life...honestly, anything will do just fine.

Your behaviour simply cannot be healthy for you.

No, don't give yourself that much credit. You're just an easy target.

rjp

[Hugo930]

Ironic that you're doing what you're doing...I guess that you don't understand.

But,

If I'm such an easy target, please show me where you've gotten the best of me.

I can show you were I wiped the floor with you, dickburger boy...you couldn't even answer, just went to a corner and cried like the little boy that you are. But please, show me where you got one on me.

Waiting...

Originally Posted by RANDY P

No, don't give yourself that much credit. You're just an easy target.

rjp

[Zeke]

Hah! The battle of the trolls. We don't need no stinkin' outsiders!