Trolling the Web?
Written by Shawn Ruest on 07/02/12
Photo by jernvotten on Flickr
So, you’re surfing the Internet like usual, checking Facebook, browsing the latest celebrity or sport gossip, checking into your gaming accounts, etc. A few clicks later you come across a video or story about a tragedy, maybe someone got into an accident or something along those lines. You scroll down to the comments section at the end of the article to see that someone is making fun of the story. You, my friend, have found an Internet troll…
“Internet Trolling” is a nickname for a trend that describes Internet users that post nasty, mean and insulting comments on videos, pictures, news articles and other web pages. Some users even go as far as creating their own Internet content and web pages dedicated to making fun of other people. And, you want to know what the worst part is? Half the time, these trolls don’t even know who they are making fun of! They are just saying awful things for the sake of causing arguments.
So you may be asking yourself, what can we do about this? People make fun of each other all the time and they don’t always get into trouble. Well luckily, some Internet trolls aren’t getting away with their antics so easily. In the UK, a young man was arrested after he made fun of youth who died in tragic accidents. He even cyberbullied someone to the point where they actually inflicted harm on themselves, and he was eventually charged with sending ‘harmful communications’ (BBC News). And as we have talked about in the past, some students have gotten into trouble with the law for cyberbullying their teachers, so Internet trolls aren’t likely to be successful hiding out in Canada.
How can you help with trolling issues? There is a Safer Internet Day website by ‘insafe’ that was created in 2004 that has information that you can use to promote and create a safer Internet environment. This year’s theme is ‘Connecting Generations’, and insafe encourages us to use our tech savvy skills to teach adults how to use the Internet. Once they get the hang of it, they can help us out with coming up with ideas on how to get rid of trolling from cyberspace. To stop trolls in their tracks, you can report any mean comments, pictures, videos and Internet pages to a website owner. Most popular websites have a reporting function, such as Facebook, that will let you file a complaint if something offensive is posted. If a webpage doesn’t have a reporting tool, you should show the trolling message to a trusted adult, like a teacher or police officer.
Let’s spread the word about Safer Internet Day, and remind each other to resist becoming a troll!
Links
BBC News – Sean Duffy case highlights murky world of trolling
CBC News – The Internet Troll: Not a fairytale monster
DEAL.org – Hey, kids, leave that teacher alone!
Insafe – Safer Internet Day
Canada Centre for Child Protection – Safer Internet Day
4 Reader Comments:
TrollermctrolltrollFebruary 10th
COOL STORY BRO! But your message is more pointless than every single goody-goody who actually has the gall to report a troll. Therefore, your argument is invalid.
Jojo!February 13th
Cool Beans!
jesusFebruary 21st
DONT FEED THE TROLLS
Shawn RuestFebruary 24th
Thanks for your comments so far. It’s definitely a very hard process to report every single trolling comment you come across, since every website technically has control of its own comments.
However, as said in the BBC News article above, bigger websites and videos can be ordered to be taken down if they are dedicated entirely to trolling a single person. Something else to keep in mind is that it’s one troll to many if a person takes their life because of it.