
Why People Become Internet Trolls - Gedxx
https://dradambell.com/why-people-become-internet-trolls/
======
zadkey
I'll be honest. I really enjoy Ken M's work as an internet troll.

If you haven't seen what he does, here are some of my favorites:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/2oy2nb/chef_boyardee/](https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/2oy2nb/chef_boyardee/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/4e888v/ken_m_on_pampe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/4e888v/ken_m_on_pampers/)

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/39/3a/7e/393a7e7d56c65bc9afd0...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/39/3a/7e/393a7e7d56c65bc9afd0b72fa0c6e601.jpg)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/8ptb4r/kenm_on_kissin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/8ptb4r/kenm_on_kissing/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/8n25qu/first_post_her...](https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/comments/8n25qu/first_post_here_but_i_made_it_a_reality/)

~~~
system2
He is more on the comedy side. Trolling usually harms, he doesn't.

~~~
mdonahoe
He’s a benevolent troll, like 3YearLetterman.

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pipologist
What would constitute trolling?

I personally wouldn’t consider suicide baiting to be trolling. Passing
outright personal insults, or engaging in character assasination is also not
trolling.

These exhibit psycopathic behavior.

Also responding to insults with insults doesn’t mean the other side had just
become a troll as the cited study seems to imply.

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dragontamer
> The more accountable we are for our behavior, the less potential we have of
> becoming trolls. Employing less anonymity may help, but this raises privacy
> concerns for many. Anonymity can also be a good thing. Benign disinhibition
> — the friendly sibling of toxic disinhibition — is where users freely
> discuss their deepest insecurities and concerns with other users. This can
> be very therapeutic and shouldn’t be discouraged. But by using anonymity
> only where it is necessary, we reduce the likelihood of toxic disinhibition.

This seems highly unlikely to me.

Consider Twitter, Blue-checkmarks, as well as Facebook. There are countless
trolls with verified identities. Indeed, "troll behavior" has permeated into
our political system and very public figures are openly using anti-social
language... to the benefit of their political movements.

From a Machiavellian perspective: people become trolls because it works. Its
an effective strategy for gathering like-minded followers, and to demonstrate
a "leadership" quality, one that demonstrates ambitious behavior.

Some political leaders are incredibly similar to trolls. Robespierre, Lenin,
Hitler. Yeah, we look down upon them decades later, but these figures were
hugely influential during their times and got a lot of things accomplished.

This article assumes that troll-behavior is not beneficial to the troll.
That's a horrible miscalculation. Troll-behavior certainly hurts the victim,
but it seems to benefit the troll in my experience. At a minimum, it benefits
them with followers (other trolls who want to help the greater cause).

\--------

So lets circle back to the top. Why do people become trolls?

Answer: Because its an effective strategy.

The important followup question: How do we build a world (or if not the
world... then at least a community) where trolling becomes an ineffective, or
counter-productive strategy?

~~~
mikelyons
We have to increase the general level of consciousness of the average citizen.
High-consciousness individuals do not seek to troll, and see through the
troll's bullshit and do not engage with it.

~~~
dragontamer
> High-consciousness individuals do not seek to troll

This seems naive to me. If trolling is an effective strategy, then high-
consciousness individuals will seek to troll to further their own gains.

> and see through the troll's bullshit and do not engage with it

Are you certain that this strategy stops trolls? Or does this only give trolls
more room to spew their ideology, growing their political power?

~~~
mikelyons
There's a spectrum of course, but at high levels of consciousness selfish
gains are not priority goals. The goals tend to be selfless, loving and
holistic.

If the level of consciousness in the general population is high enough,
trolling will be a behavior of the past, like human sacrifice.

Your interpretation is a spiral dynamics stage orange criticism of green and
turquoise. The spiral dynamics model of psycho/social development is really
good for analyzing and explaining these types of problems, like being able to
predict human behavior and understand why certain humans behave the ways that
they do.

~~~
dragontamer
Who ever said anything about selfishness?

The worst trolls are the ones with ideology, who believe themselves to be
working on behalf of a greater power. To take a relatively innocent example:
Tesla Trolls will harass, dox, and even SWAT "Tesla Shorts", in defense of
their beloved company.

So lets circle back again: Why are these Tesla trolls trolling the internet?
Because they're fighting to support their company, and it seems to be an
effective tactic for intimidating and silencing critics.

Same things happen with Apple Fanboys, XBox fanboys, etc. etc. Trolls "fight"
on behalf of the powers they've given their allegiance to. And of course,
Democrats and Republicans are big ones too... but also subgroups: Antifa,
Black Lives Matter, Proud Boys, etc. etc. They all have trolls, they all will
harass and demean you if you disagree with them online.

Any "serious" internet discussion will devolve into troll tactics these days.
Why? Because its effective. Apple vs Epic Games is just the latest bit, and
we're certainly going to see internet trolls start to weaponize forums to
bring people to their side.

~~~
mikelyons
> _further their own gains_

That was what made me think you were refering to selfishness.

High consciousness by definition resists ideology. Ideology is a limitation of
consciousness.

Trolls that are harassing, doxing, and SWATing, are doing it for selfish
reasons, even if their excuse is something external.

Intimidating and silencing critics, classic stage red, sound like any
presidents you know?

I don't disagree that trolling is effective, the majority of the population is
somewhere in stage red/blue/orange, very few of us are green or above.

I understand what you're explaining, I think having an overview of the model
will help you understand what I am pointing to.

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mike741
The article equates "trolling" with phishing and harassment. It states
"Trolling is a hard concept to define" and uses this as a convenient excuse to
make false equivalences. The term "troll" is actually easy to define:
"antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted creatures which make life difficult
for travelers." Its the literal interpretation from norse folklore. The troll
doesn't follow you around, build a following, or encourage suicide. The troll
sits under a bridge and charges you a "toll" (time, monetary, or emotional) as
you pass by it.

One could argue that this author is trolling their audience with obfuscatory
language.

~~~
mdonahoe
I prefer the urbandictionary definition:

“Trolling on-line forums as described above is actually analogous to the
fishing technique of “trolling”, where colorful baits and lures are pulled
behind a slow moving boat.”

~~~
mike741
I think that definition has too much overlap with the already popularized
coinage "Phishing" where a user is baited into giving up something.

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Smithalicious
The article seems to just use fancy words to say "because they're assholes".

~~~
dragontamer
That's a bit of a simplification, isn't it?

Here's the first major point of the article

> The human brain was primarily designed for face-to-face interaction. It
> hasn’t had time to adapt to communication over the internet.

> If you say something mean to my face and make me cry, you will probably
> start to feel uncomfortable. Unless you’re especially mean or psychopathic,
> my distress will trigger an empathic response and lead you to have mercy. If
> you tweet something mean and make me cry, no amount of emojis can convey
> what the sight of a grown man weeping can. If there is no social cue to
> elicit an empathic response, you might continue your tirade of meanness.

> The absence of nonverbal feedback leads to an “empathy deficit,” and this is
> what sociopaths suffer from.

\-----------

So the first point made by the article is about the lack of instinctive
empathy offered by the online environment. Without a face to see how the other
person is reacting, we're blind to the subtle clues about their emotion.

~~~
Udik
> The human brain was primarily designed for face-to-face interaction

In fairness this seems vague and simplistic. I would argue that people have
always behaved like this when they were anonymous (and therefore free from the
consequences of their actions). This Fellini movie clip (I Vitelloni) predates
the internet by several decades and yet shows an egregious example of
trolling:

[https://youtu.be/nVQV3WEoQDU](https://youtu.be/nVQV3WEoQDU)

(the initial line is simply "workeeers! Prrrr")

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tabtab
I've been accused of being a troll multiple times. It typically happens when I
spot vague but powerful claims from somebody who claimed to be highly
educated.

For example, somebody may claim that a programming or software technique is
"clearly better". I ask for clear-cut objective evidence, and they either
cannot provide it, or make unproven assumptions about the thought process of
the programmer's mind.

The bottom line is that programming productivity is largely something that
happens inside the human mind; it's not about machines nor pure logic. They
didn't seem to understand this, trying to turn it into a "purist" argument
about math and logic alone. Sorry, it's not, you have to consider the poorly-
mapped human mind in the end.

Also, high-end academics tend not to understand business. They may say
parsimony (least code) is the best, for example. I'll then point out that many
coders find highly compact code hard to read or debug. They may reply "then
get better programmers". That's usually not practical from a business
standpoint for various reason I don't have room for. Their alternatives
usually have a lot of holes, not knowing how business works.

I admit I took pleasure in rubbing their nose in these facts and gaps because
they made smug claims. There's a certain wonderful satisfaction in making smug
people trip on their own logic, reminding me of a show where a corporate
polluter ultimately dies by falling into their own pollution pile. Maybe I'm a
bit narcissistic, I don't know. But it's worthy criticism that hopefully wakes
them up regardless. Being logically whipped by a "troll" can be fruitful
education.

I also rip into interpretations of terminology like "best practices",
definition of OOP, "types", "intent", and many others. Somebody will claim it
clear cut and settled, but it's not, and I poke holes in all their defenses.

There are different kinds of trolls. Some just want to agitate for agitation
alone. But I instead beat people up with their own logic, rather than use
tricks and personal digs. I have been accused of "word play", but vague words
are fair game for word play in order to demonstrate they are vague. They
wouldn't be "playable" if they weren't vague. People tend to assume their own
interpretation of words is universal. It's usually not; but they are reluctant
to admit it.

Being in dozens of vocab debates, I'm pretty skilled at picking apart
vagueness, and the other side realizes they are out-gunned and go bonkers on
the way down, smoking. I don't claim to be smarter, I just selected a few
areas where I perfect the art of "trolling" via experience alone.

And sometimes I am actually wrong and learn something along the way. Good
debates do that.

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danmg
Very lazy analysis. Arm chair e-diagnosing everyone who doesn't exclusively
use the internet to send cat pictures and pictures of their lunch as having a
dark triad personality disorder is just as abusive as the 'trolling' he hopes
to prevent.

~~~
jmull
The article seems quite different than what you are describing.

~~~
mdonahoe
He’s trolling you

