The trolls the Internet are people who want to provoke and
annoy others on the web for their own pleasure. This is how you can identify
and handle the signals of someone who is a troll.
internet trolls
Being an Internet user, it is likely that at some point
during your navigation you have encountered a troll.
An internet troll is someone who makes deliberately
provocative, rude, or frustrating statements online to elicit strong emotional
responses from people, or to lead a conversation in a chat room, comment, or
forum with a different address, taking people away from the topic of
discussion. Trolling can manifest itself in many ways. Most trolls do it for
their own pleasure, but other forms of trolling are used for specific purposes.
Trolling sites
The Trolling is different from other forms of cyberbullying
or harassment. Typically, he does not address a single person, but a mass of
people who pay attention to his tricks, easily losing his temper. Trolls need
this. Your main task is to provoke as many people as possible. Trolling exists
on many online platforms , from small private group chats to the largest social
networks. A list of places on the Internet where trolls can be found online is
displayed:
• Anonymous
online forums, websites . Sites like Reddit, Telegram and other anonymous
sites, messaging forums, of which the latter are the main sites for online
trolls. Since it is impossible to track who they are, trolls can post highly
provocative material without consequences. This is especially true if the forum
or site has weak or inactive moderation.
• Twitter .
Twitter can also be anonymous and has become a breeding ground for internet
trolls. Among the most common methods of trolling on Twitter are the use of
popular hashtags and the mention of popular personalities on Twitter to attract
the attention of subscribers.
• Comment
sections . Comment sections on sites like YouTube and news pages are also
popular feeding areas for trolls. A lot of obvious trolls will be encountered,
often eliciting a lot of reactions from annoying readers or viewers.
Trolls can be found anywhere on the web, including Facebook
and online dating sites. Sadly, trolls are quite prevalent.
Trolling signals
Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between
a troll and those who just want to argue about one topic. But here are some
signs that someone is actively trolling someone.
• Comments
off topic : a comment or publication totally outside the topic of the post,
article, news or other writing. This is done in order to annoy and disturb the
integrity of other comments. The troll's main task is to keep the audience off
the subject.
• Denial of
Evidence : Even when they are presented with cold and hard facts, they ignore
them and pretend they have never seen them, they still resist, showing that the
facts are not convincing.
• Boring
and condescending tone - One of the first signs of a troll may be a question to
another web user (eg in comments or forum / chat messages): "Why are you
angry, bro?" . This is done in order to provoke someone even more, and is
also a great way to completely reject someone's argument.
• Use of
unlinked images or memes : instead of commenting, they leave memes, images and
gifs that are not part of the main topic of discussion or article / news. A
sure sign of a troll is their very long text response to a post, article, or
comment.
• Apparent
oblivion : they seem to be unaware that most people do not agree with them.
Also, trolls rarely get angry or provoked.
The above list is by no means definitive. There are many
other ways to determine if someone is trolling. As a rule of thumb, if someone
is thought to be insincere, not interested in a real discussion, and
deliberately provocative, they are most likely an internet troll.
How to handle trolling
A classic trolling proverb says: Don't feed the trolls .
Trolls look for emotional reactions, often successfully carrying out
provocations on the web. So replying to their messages or trying to discuss
something with them will only make them troll even more. It is best to
completely ignore these people on the net. The troll will probably end up
disappointed and go somewhere else on the internet.
Every effort should be made not to take the words of the
trolls seriously. No matter how bad they behave, it must be remembered that
these people spend countless unproductive hours on the Internet trying to drive
people crazy. They do not deserve attention, nor nerves.
If a troll becomes a spammer or starts to obstruct a thread
in a forum, comment feed, chat, etc., it can also be reported to the team of
moderators of the site.
