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Why people Troll

What is a Troll, why do they start tTrolling and how can you deal with them if you become a victim?

By Spencer HawkenPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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Why people Troll
Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Until about 6 months ago, I honestly believed that trolling was something that happened to the youth. At 47 years old I’d travelled my life without harassment or bullying, but then out of the blue a hate campaign began, and it took me completely by surprise

My trolling incident began last summer; in my spare time I run film festivals and what started as an innocent enough looking submission went bizarrely wrong. Having ran festivals for almost 20 years in different capacities, each year hundreds sometimes thousands of films get submitted, some you select, some you don’t. This 2020 submission also happened to come from people I knew vaguely. Like all decent festivals you have a judging panel, and the judge adjudicator, in this scenario I coordinate the votes and notify the filmmaker whether you’ll show their film or not. This particular film had a universal score from our judges of 1 out of 10, meaning it was very bad, all the judges had a similar mindset as a result the film was not selected.

The festival came and went without much issue, one of the people involved in the film even turned up at the festival. I glanced out at one point and saw them taking photos on the red carpet which is a fairly standard thing for any festival attendee, I thought nothing of it. But a few days later I saw some social media posts that implied the filmmaker had shown their film at the festival that had been deemed un-showable by our judges. IMDB (Internet Movie Database) seemed to echo this view, because IMDB is a user contribution portal, it means that pretty much anyone can update the database. Sure enough in this case, posts indicated that this film had shown at my festival, but also another festival that I was a judge on and a further festival I knew the organisers on. Given that I did not like false information to be touted about me or my festival, I had the post removed, but this was the start of me entering… The Troll zone.

At first the trolling was subtle, minor changes, derogatory comments, claims of conversations with me that never happened. But then it became more out there, major changes and very blunt comments, all written in exactly the same immature way, a way that directly reflected the text and dialogue of one of the filmmakers Twitter accounts, a major similarity was a ridiculous spelling of certain words, words that even a 6-year-old might get right, this person misspelled them on both IMDB and his Twitter account and also used the same tone in the dialogue of the tweets. Over the six-month period the conflict grew and the abuse with it, on two occasions the Troll showed their cards and messed up by using their own social media channel to make digs related to comments they had made on IMDB.

The thing with Trolls is that the best way to deal with them is ignore them and when it comes to social media in general the best thing you can do is to block them so you cannot be affected by them. The trouble when they are abusing you via sites like IMDB is that ignoring them means they can just wreck you, your career or your reputation. So in my case each day I had to screengrab and remove all these comments and each day, the troll returned, things got worse until the person made enough damage to make it a criminal offence and when they crossed that boundary I reported it to the police. A few days later the trolling stopped and while I don’t know whether the police have spoken to the individuals or not, I know they are very much aware the police are coming and that alone may have been enough.

By Austin Distel on Unsplash

So why do people troll? A recent report by Dr Mark Griffith’s a behavioural addiction professor from Nottingham Trent University believes that any of us have the ability to become a troll. The key sources of trolling start with jealousy, revenge, attention seeking or simple boredom. And while all of these are likely possibilities, the most likely source is jealousy. “People lash out at others who are happy and successful, because they are not” and despite bravado, they know they are a loser.

When I trained with Instagram one of the sections was on social media bullying and harassment, one of the most common traits of a Troll was they were so sad at their existence, they were prepared to buy followers. Sure enough both the connected Trolls in my case had bought followers and likes, having done some statistical analysis I noted that less than 10% of their following was from genuine accounts, and only 5% of their likes were from genuine accounts. Their Instagram accounts, in my case were a testimony to their shame, but looking at their IMDB accounts, they had even created false castings of themselves in movies, literally adding fake credits to their account to seem like they were bigger in the industry than they were.

The study highlights that people who Troll are likely to be incredibly insecure, with a thirst to be seen to be successful. Their inflated online ego would more often than not have given them temporary highs to get over their insecurities. But when they see others who have achieved the same results genuinely or figures near those and clearly genuinely, this can act as a trigger for someone to go from being insecure to becoming a troll.

Trolling is psychologically damaging for all, for the person receiving the trolling, and for the Troll. Often the victim of a Troll receives negative or adverse comments about reality, or complete untruths. For the Troll the temporary elation pushes the “positive” endorphins within them to continue and increase the flow of abuse due to the temporary high it gives them, as thus a cycle begins that can become almost unstoppable. And fighting back against a Troll creates a weird trigger in the Trolls head that moves them from being successor to victim, damaged by retaliation they will step up to bring you down but this time feel perfectly justified in doing so.

So what should you do if you are being Trolled. If it’s on social media report them to the platform and block them, the Troll will continuously set up new accounts to try and get to you, but in the process creating a noticeable habit that will force the platform to ultimately terminate the aggressors accounts, especially if followed up by legal enforcement. Try not to respond, it’s hard to ignore them, but showing that they are getting to you will only fuel things. Never tell the world you are being Trolled, even if you think you have blocked the Troll they often work in pack mentality and more often than not have an “inside man” who is giving them access to your social media after you have blocked them.

If Trolling is in places beyond social media, screengrab all signs of Trolling, then contact the website operator with your issues, make sure you mention that you are being Trolled, Bullied and that you are preparing a dossier for law enforcement. You should then of course report them to law enforcement, the difference with Social Media abuse is that it does not always become something illegal, if however you mention something untrue in a blog, or a website (in my case IMDB) it can become unlawful and prosecutable by the legal system. Trolling is becoming a new first world problem, people who Troll are commonly known to be excluded from schools, universities and even sacked from employment if the employer wants to be seen as a responsible employer after legal processes begin against the Troll.

According to UK government data arrests for Trolling increased 75% in 2019 from the previous year, while prosecutions rose to show that successful prosecutions took place in over 78% of cases that were considered unlawful, even those hiding behind VPN’s cannot escape data caches, or hidden portions of their browser knowledge or storage. With rates inflating at such large levels, its highly likely that when 2020’s statistics are revealed this will have risen dramatically, especially given our web dependence due to the global pandemic. The key however, is not to let a troll win against you, but dealing with it responsibly enough to bring about its end.

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About the Creator

Spencer Hawken

I'm a fiftysomething guy with a passion for films, travel and gluten free food. I work in property management, have a history in television presentation and am a multi award wining filmmaker, even though my films are/were all trash.

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