On Friday, a somber Oprah Winfrey addressed her audience. “Let me read you something that was posted on our message boards from someone who claims to be a member of a known pedophile network,” she said with a careful, measured pace.
“It doesn't forgive. It does not forget. This group has over 9,000 penises, and they're all raping children.” She paused, took a breath, and continued with her warning.
She had taken the bait. She had seen a sarcastic troll's post on her forum and thought it was legitimate. The video shot to the top of Digg.com as the Internet rejoiced.
These users, who exploit others just for laughs, are called trolls. They cruise the Internet, dragging their bait like troublemaking fishermen waiting for the naïve to bite. When someone does, the trolls will exploit them as much as possible, hoping to earn some lulz – laughs at someone else's expense, no matter how cruel.
Publicity like a successful troll of Winfrey only encourages more troublemaking trolls, like the hacker who last week gained access to GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account with only the help of Google and a few minutes of research.
There's only one true way to stop trolls – ignore them. Trolls often unleash relentless harassment and death threats upon victims, but it's all empty talk in hopes of earning a sensationalist response – like the Fox affiliate report calling them “hackers on steroids.”
The person who cleverly gained access to Palin's e-mail wasn't an expert hacker trying to exploit her family or steal anyone's identity. He claims he was looking for any evidence that she had been inappropriately using her personal Yahoo! e-mail account for government business, and when nothing was to be found, he decided to hand out the password and let some Internet hooligans have some fun with it.
The trolls rejoiced. Photos of Palin's family were posted, and prank calls were made to 17-year-old Bristol Palin's cell phone.
Trolls don't target public figures exclusively. When seventh-grader Mitchell Henderson committed suicide in 2006, trolls joked that it was because he lost his iPod, a fact he had noted on his MySpace page. When friends remembering Henderson called him “an hero,” the trolls set to work creating mountains of mocking animations, videos and pictures; they also prank-called Henderson's parents for a year and a half, claiming to be his ghost.
“They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, told the New York Times.
Trolls congregate in various online forums, such as a notorious section of 4Chan.org called /b/. Posts are littered with racial slurs, nude photos and occasional child pornography. Almost all posts on the board are signed “Anonymous.”
Many trolls, including the Palin “hacker,” claim an allegiance to a group called Anonymous. The group claims many of its exploits are for a noble purpose – with a no-nonsense, anarchist-style approach. The flashing images Anonymous members posted on an epilepsy forum, causing seizures? A lesson in taking web-surfing precautions (and also an attack that divided trolls, some saying it went too far). The rampant racial slurs? A lesson in “sticks and stones.” A commenter on Wired.com explained “through satirizing these terms they lose their power.”
The solution to trolls is similar: ignore them and they lose their power. If we learn to be more wary of what we read online, and if we let the trolls' teases and empty threats roll off our backs, they'll run out of options.
The reality is that it's unrealistic to expect our society to readily brush off blatantly insensitive attacks and words that have hurt so many for so long. But it's also reality that it's unrealistic to try to stop trolls like the members of Anonymous. The more publicity the group gets, the more juvenile its attacks will become, and the more its numbers will swell. The publicity from some of its exploits is already causing growing pains within the ranks of the trolls. Veteran posters in /b/ and other forums bemoan the “newfags” – Anonymous' bandwagoners and rookies that have flooded the boards, wanting in on the fun.
Sure, there are dangerous hackers on the Internet – but the majority of trolls are just in it for the juvenile troublemaking, just like the bullies who teased the skinny kid in grade school. The solution to trolls is the same as the solution to the bullies – ignore them and eventually they'll get bored and play another game.
4 comments:
So what Oprah read on TV was not a reall pedophile? OMG...I was so shocked when I watched that show and someone had wrote that. LOL!
Nope, the "over 9,000" part was a reference to a common Internet meme (check out the link that the word "bait" in the third graf points to for the origin).
Everytime I read the word troll all I could think about were those troll dolls
that were popular in the early 90s. lol
I do agree with you Cody. They are only seeking attention they couldn't get
from their mommys and daddys.
Amazingly though the media has certainly become their own worst enemy.
The media has been accused of telling people what to think based
on what is published. People have become amazingly smarter and are now,
without much effort, sort of making the media do what they want.
Really wierd how that works out. Great article. Thanks for your funny comments!
One of the things that columnists develop with readers is a bond, a bond that they are, in fact telling the truth and not making things up.
In this case, the writer (through earlier columns) has earned a certain level of trust, though, ironically, in writing about this topic, it makes the reader a little nervous that the writer is, in fact, doing a fake column.
The column raises lots of issues about use the internet technology to be an electronic vandal, with apparently little too fear - either being discovered or ever punished.
The writer outlines the problems, gives good examples and suggests solutions.
Nicely done.
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