Trolls

I’ve been a part of digital communities since before most people had heard of the Internet (and long before most people accessed it for the first time). Almost from the start, there have been anti-social users known as trolls. Their motivation in most exchanges are to antagonize other users, provoke them, and disrupt the communities they join.

Trolls were recognized as an early hazard to life online but, unlike many of the other early problems, a universal solution hasn’t been developed.

I was listening to a pair of YouTubers give an interview and one of them said that every single content creator they know who stops creating, does so because they get tired of the online harassment. My wife and I follow a couple who post videos about their travels on YouTube. It’s some of the most innocuous content imaginable, but they have a subreddit devoted to bad-mouthing them. A man on TikTok achieved fame for posting about his life as a librarian over the last year, and he’s just announced that he’s shutting down his channel because of mental health issues resulting from online abuse.

Most authors, if they have any sizeable following, have gotten abuse from readers. Tim Ferriss has written about receiving death threats and has received goodbye videos from suicidal followers after they’ve killed themselves. One crazy thing I’ve seen is authors abusing ONE ANOTHER, so even being the target of trolling doesn’t seem to be a deterrent (some targets will turn around and do the same thing to other people).

There’s an old Reddit thread from when Stardew Valley was in development. It’s pretty funny to read the criticisms of what’s become one of the biggest single-developer games of all time. The developer, Eric Barone, responds to some of the nasty comments, acknowledging that they hurt, and trying his best to encourage people to give his game a chance. We’re all lucky that he persevered.

In situations where creators complain about abuse, the standard response is that you need a “thick skin” if you’re going to release creative output. I think this view has gone too far. It’s allowed people to abuse creators and seems to assume that creators must make themselves available as a target for any random person’s vitriol.

Out of all my friends, even the ones who used to read and post on Reddit, all of them have stopped. The nastiness of the community is what they usually give as their reason. One friend came across Reddit searching for the solution to a problem he was having in a video game. He found a post where someone was having the same problem, but all the commenters called the person posting an idiot. My friend was driven away before he’d even joined the community!

I think the first solution is to give up on the idea of massive, anonymous “public squares”. If bad actors can just create a new account and re-enter, it will always be at the mercy of their bad behavior. I don’t think there’s much enthusiasm for verified identities to participate in communities.

A greater rejection of the bad behavior of trolls would help. Nasty comments on Reddit get upvotes. Apparently, people who aren’t the target enjoy the drama. If we want healthier communities, getting the typical participant to denounce trolling is key. The problem with this is that many people equate someone having a different opinion as bad behavior. A greater push against trolls would likely result in echo chambers.

The ultimate solution, in my opinion, is smaller communities. Once there is a small enough group that people recognize one another, there is a greater penalty for bad behavior, which should hopefully end it. This didn’t protect Bulletin Board Communities that I used to be a part of as a teenager, and many small Discord groups are nasty, so perhaps this isn’t enough.

What’s the worst trolling you’ve experienced? Any ideas for fighting trolls?