This is not how I use the word troll or trolling. What this article describes I would simply call 'bullying' or anonymous bullying or in extreme cases harassment.
True trolling is about, among other things, plausible deniability. The troll identifies a pressure point in the collective unconscious of an online community, and then subtly attacks it. Depending on how skilled the troll is, what follows is a lot of attention and a large degree of over-reaction. The troll can then take the moral highground and pretend to be perplexed at these harsh responses, which of courses only provokes even more enraged responses. The cycle can be quite amusing. It can also generate/provoke lots of debate that a community would otherwise not be inclined to start.
Always summed it up perfectly for me when trying to describe it simply. It's a subtle sentence, it begs to be corrected, and it's sure to incite replies... once someone "takes the bait" it's just a matter of working whatever their weakest point is to incite maximum rage. It's basically a form of social engineering when you boil it down to the basics.
"trolling is AN art"
"yeah, that's what I just said stupid..."
"well I'm not the idiot making simple grammatical erors."
"erors... you sure about that? Listen I went to Harvard for English studies... I think I know when to use A vs AN, it's not like I don't have an degree or something..."
... and the cycle continues ...
p.s. I might enjoy trolling more than the average bear.
> This is not how I use the word troll or trolling. What this article describes I would simply call 'bullying' or anonymous bullying or in extreme cases harassment.
They literally ask people to self-identify as trolling. And their items sound darn like trolling to me:
> We also included four items relevant to trolling that were interspersed in the other measures: ‘‘I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz’’, ‘‘I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites’’, ‘‘I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games’’, and ‘‘The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt’’
I mean, come on. There might be things to criticize about this study, but the measure of trolling definitely has 'face validity', as the psych types say.
A good troll often expresses no view, and simply asks questions for which no good answer is provided. This is my favorite trolling question: "what evidence, if any, would convince you your theory is wrong?"
"what evidence, if any, would convince you your theory is wrong?"
This reminded me of a great article[1] that I read recently. It's not related to trolling, but trolls often engage in the type of discussion mentioned in this article. One of the parents gave an excellent example (the one with the "an degree" joke).
Whether it's about personal attacks or not is irrelevant. The definition of trolling you describe is selfish, immature, sadistic, and borderline psychopathic behavior. The troll specifically tries to piss people off for no other reason than he derives pleasure from it, basically the definition of sadism. At the very least the troll is wasting everyone's time including his own. Fuck trolls
Agree, I've never considered the typical internet troll to have either of those traits. They always seemed equivalent to immature people in real life, only, trolling being anonymous allows people who'd otherwise be intelligent enough to know how to act to not be considered immature, to be so.
I think the latter group are the ones you speak of, and yes, they are often strikingly funny.
As for the traits the study focuses on, those are what I myself often indulge in, yet I haven't trolled anywhere, ever, except maybe 4chan in my younger days, and despite having been an internet dweller for the last ten years at least.
same goes for quite a few behaviour perceived as negative in our skewed view of political correctness:
I've held the door to a female coworker and being told off by management for potential _sexual harassment_ ..... I've asked my friend how her female flatmate is doing these days and I am being called a _stalker_ ....
This is going way too far. This Anglo-saxon view of what is correct and what is not, feels like a psychological defense mechanism for people that cannot or do not want to deal with those situation. Protection a less able person is something, but hiding behind such rules feels like plain cowardice.
It's not easy for me to put myself in the mind of an Internet troll, but I have to imagine I'd also be the kind of person who would enjoy trolling researchers by filling out their personality tests in the most shocking way possible. No idea if the study accounts for this possibility.
Many years ago in high school, we had to fill out some kind of "drug" survey. It was long and tedious and I was very square. The questionnaire had pages of naive questions that I patiently responded to.....
....but around the 13th of round of questions like "How many PCP-laced cigarettes do you smoke per week? A. One, B. Two, C. Three., D. Four, E. Five, F. Six to Ten G. Eleven to Twenty, H. Twenty-one or more," something switched inside of me and I started filling in the questions as if I were the most depraved abuser of every substance from the kitchen sink to highway overpass.
It is notable how little about the actual study this article actually reveals (the study itself is behind a paywall). I'd say the author of the article is just trolling...
it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet.
correlation doesn't mean causation. May be Dark Tetrad traits develop as result of the trolling. May be you still have time to stop and save your soul :)
Pretty sure online interaction is not a good substitute for real-world interaction, and the latter is necessary for developing social skills and a balanced viewpoint of human relationships.
Chatting to people online is like having all your conversations through a crack in the wall. Except that even the tone of voice is filtered out.
This is what people always say. And not to deny it completely, it's just that it's obviously kind of self-serving. If something pisses you off you can just write it off as trolling from a person who is messed-up in all the ways listed in the article. But moreover, any time spent thinking about the narcissism of others is time not spent thinking about one's own.
> Can self-confessed trolls really be trusted to give honest answers on personality surveys?
If they're narcissists, then yes, because a narcissist is perfect, and each of his traits is a gift to humanity, so he wouldn't hesitate to describe how he sees himself, in gory detail. This obviously argues with the meaning of "honest answer", unless we accept that an honest answer is anything a person believes to be true.
If they're narcissists, then yes, because a narcissist is perfect, and each of his traits is a gift to humanity
Yes, but some trolling is a genuine gift to humanity. I've seen (and executed) some truly celestial-- even operatic-- trolls.
By the way, I can't stand online bullies. Those assholes ruined trolling IMO. Trolling was awesome when what happened online, stayed online and no one ever tried to fuck with another's "IRL" existence. The problem is that, while the skilled trolls tended to stay white/gray hat-- shit, some have said that I'm an extremely-white-hat troll-- the unskilled trolls had nothing other than evil to distinguish themselves. Eventually it became repulsive.
I'm not really into trolling but I will admit it's funny too see somebody who takes themselves way too seriously getting strung along. Particularly if I find their opinions disagreeable.
I don't really find it that interesting when people just try to troll and cause havoc for absolutely no reason at all other than their own amusement. There should be an appropriate target who has been flapping their gums and needs to be brought down a peg.
My most epic troll remains stringing two strident Christians along for a few days by letting them believe they had converted me. I lost them when I explained God's will for me was writing a new book in the Bible. Didn't even get a response after that one. :( I may have short-circuited their doctrine.
Pretty sure I managed to do the whole thing without explicitly lying, either.
Nowadays people see something they don't like on Twitter and call the police, it's insane. Of course it's on the cops themselves too for wasting their time and taxpayer's money on it. The correct response is as it always have been, drop 'em in a killfile and move on with your life.
Actually using the word "killfile" probably puts you on a terrorist watchlist.
Yeah, but how many people conducting surveys are actually practicing this level of scientific rigor? Unless a study specifically points out what they did to ensure the validity of their results, I assumed none of these additional checks were performed.
Getting effective sampling in case-control studies when it comes to the structure they seem to have put together is complex, with pitfalls. With the numbers they have and descriptions provided, we have little reason to believe this study was structured this way, let alone in a useful manner.
Knocking down the paywall would help, but most pop-study coverage usually is great for research funding, but not often an indicator of great research. I did a case-control study showing this at some point and it got published to an open journal somewhere.
Originally it was "dark triad". It refers to 3 seemingly genetic personality traits (narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism) that, although extremely undesirable, are in our genome because they provided a reproductive advantage, especially in men.
Slate's summary is woefully unconvincing, however.
In fact, some of the described methods they used to identify trolls seemed very inadequate. Something a jolly prankster would latch onto for the sake of humor.
Since it hasn't been mentioned, here is Torkel Franzen's Internet Trolling Guide (I prefer to call it this; the actual title is How to make a nuisance of yourself in news):
Internet trolls and trolls in general are absolutely not horrible people. They're in fact miserable individuals who choose to be reviled by everyone else in the world, cause at least it means being acknowledged (if negatively) rather than being ignored. Nothing but a coping mechanism.
My boyfriend is actually someone I met 10+ years ago online through a video game. At the time, I did not like him as he was considered a pretty nasty troll. Now that I know him intimately, I am not entirely convinced the teasing/bullying aspect of his personality isn't entirely just his own choice. He doesn't seem very miserable (go me!) but I can't help but think his behavior extends well past him trying to make up for something.
My experience is somewhat similar. I've met a few people that I have known online as "trolls" for years and they have almost all turned out to be perfectly pleasant and well adjusted people. Now, maybe they are psychopaths who care to hid their sadistic tendencies "in real life" and have fooled me, but I really don't think so.
I think that a large portion of the people who troll online are actually just people with different senses of humor or different priorities. In 'meatspace' the differences are noticed for what they are as you get to know and appreciate the other person, but online the differences are assumed to be the result of malicious intent.
In my experience there's a good chance that the person who is griefing you in CS:S is the same sort of person who brings a squirt gun to the family gathering or makes a snow-man^Wpenis on his grandmothers lawn. Not sadists, just goofs.
Well we share a ton of interests, have an extremely long common history, his humor isn't too terribly far from my own (I laugh more than he does, but then he'll surprise me and enjoy some extremely low-brow stuff), and most of all we put up with each other's quirks/bullshit without too much hassle.
Damn dude that's pretty depressing. Maybe her boyfriend was just PLAYING ONLINE GAMES?? I mean the point of most games is to virtually kill other players, playing some pranks seems pretty mild in comparison
There's a spectrum for sure. Past a certain point, when you're constantly bullying one person repeatedly and stalking them, it becomes harassment, even if it's in-game.
The real question is, are you generally trolling cause it's hilarious, or are you trying to bully individual people? It's tough to tell.
So article basically claims that trolling is modern sadism. We knew that already, in every large enough society there will be people who enjoy discomfort of others.
Real question is: does trolling on the internet help mitigate real life tendencies?
trolling can describe also people like zedshaw or theo de raat even linus torvalds. People that have strong opinions often a tinge of humour, and sometimes are right against everybody.
I think being confident in your claim even if it goes against the majority can be called narcisism
I guess making a point without using the manipulation of feelings based on logic can be called psychopathy (vs empathy/fallacies)
I guess also that they speak because they care when they feel a wrong idea is spreading ...
I guess we can hardly make a distinction between a troll and someone that is disruptive (innovative)
We should tolerate trolls and love them because in the minority of this population maybe master troll bringing up new ideas.
The fact I am a troll does not mean I am a genius, nor that I have any interest lobbying for the usefullness of trolls :) But I think the non troll way of discussing is creating trolls: using fallacies, not accepting strong logical criticizes that can enforce an idea, the ad hominem based on authority rather than the construction of arguments, the lack of passion and sometimes humor that comes with.
So my point is trolling is beneficial to every communities, and it should stay fun.
I wonder if these people are indeed being themselves or playing the role of a troll. Or to put it another way, would they behave the same way "in the real world"?
Everyday trolling comes in the format of intelligent people using said intelligence to justify their positions, even if their position is weak or wrong.
It's the result of being too mentally lazy to take the time to see another sides point of view but smart enough to justify their point in a way that's hard to argue against.
I started out as a gray hat troll and became more white-hat over time. We have nothing in common with the black hat trolls and the bullies. Online bullies are (like all bullies) horrible people, but trolling is a different thing entirely. It can be done in a way that doesn't hurt people. The first rule of a decent troll: don't fuck with peoples' IRL.
Can you define what you mean by a "white-", "gray-" and "black-hat" troll?
The obvious parallel with security hacking doesn't seem to quite work for me if I think of "white-hat trolling" as a kind of human pentesting because humans who know they are being trolled are unlikely to get trolled by definition.
My personal version of white-hat trolling involves stepping into threads and redirecting someone's attention onto me by provoking them. It (mostly) doesn't work on a forum like HN with heavy threading, but on a vBulletin-style forum, you can hijack the conversation away from going somewhere nasty or reveal snake oil of whatever brand.
It's a vigilante kind of outlaw justice, and is especially useful when the mods are stuck in a gray area and can't act authoritatively. (Accusations of censorship or favoritism, for instance.) Done well, it helps prune back the negative elements of a community. It's insanely easy for such a thing to get out of control, though, which makes the "vigilante" analogy apt: same community, I was both thanked by the mods for steerage and given warnings for lashing out too much. (I was also offered a mod position, but turned it down.)
It's like any other kind of trolling; the difference is wholly in your target choice. It is not the mark of a good person.
I disagree. Actors openly (it's their calling or career, after all) play a role. It's also set in a controlled environment, and everyone knows that.
"Trolls" (I use troll as a synonym for bully) are different in that aspect. They employ anonymity to attack someone. They chose their role as someone's tormentor, which is very real as opposed to two actors on set, who each know what their roles are.
Actors play roles in (fictional and/or other) universes; trolls play roles in ours, which renders all their actions real, and they are aware of it.
P.S: not sure if you were being funny by posting a controversial comment :P
"In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
"Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively impose domination over others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying
Trolling is about provoking your enemy into revealing himself. It's not just walking up to someone and saying something rude or stupid. But that's about the most the majority of people can handle.
True trolling is about, among other things, plausible deniability. The troll identifies a pressure point in the collective unconscious of an online community, and then subtly attacks it. Depending on how skilled the troll is, what follows is a lot of attention and a large degree of over-reaction. The troll can then take the moral highground and pretend to be perplexed at these harsh responses, which of courses only provokes even more enraged responses. The cycle can be quite amusing. It can also generate/provoke lots of debate that a community would otherwise not be inclined to start.
It's not about personal attacks.