What are Trolls?
Internet is a strange place! Originally the word troll was part of the Norse Mythology, describing gigantic humanoid creatures living in the mountains. They were rarely described as nice to humans and typically there is some serious animosity between to two 'species'. Fast forward to modern times of the internet, and the word 'troll' has a different meaning all together.
A troll is someone who deliberately posts inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content online.
Troll or trolls (as they sometimes work as a group may employ a variety of co-ordinated methods.
- Insults and personal attacks: Targeting individuals with abusive language.
- Provocative statements: Making outrageous claims to spark arguments.
- Off-topic posts: Deliberately derailing conversations.
- Spamming: Flooding a platform with irrelevant or repetitive messages.
Trolls typically proliferate on all social networks. Sometimes they are individuals, and sometimes, especially during the days of technological advancement in social networks, they could be bots, even AI enhanced bots. For todays discussions, we will keep of human trolls.
Since hive is a social networks, trolls are abundant here. Especially important fact that here you post for rewards, and potential rewards are given and taken away based on upvotes and downvotes, which many people have issues with. So here we get a lot of disgruntled ones. On top of that I play the play2earn game Splinterlands, which has a discord channel, like many games and projects on hive. Oh there are major trolling that goes on there. Especially towards me, because I am outspoken and typically call spade a spade, and a lot of wallflowers do not like that, and a small amount of them sometimes resort to trolling. Here are some examples:
Use of a stupid emoji to deflect! Thank you Hewitt!
In this particular case, the featured individual was a friend of fine but his expectation of profit from this ecosystem did not match mine. When I repeated that this ecosystem is not a profit-making institution and there is nobody out there who can respond and act towards his complain, he couldn't understand. He, like many is used to the feature, that when you go to a restaurant and want your steak medium-rare, and they bring a well done steak, you complain to the server and then to the manager. At hive or at Splinterlands there is no such thing. Sigh! I can't help you Hewitt! This is called decentralization, its hard and its is not perfect, and it is not something that I enjoy all the time either, but I have decided to live with it. If you do not like it you can choose to do something better with your time!
Here is Nick John. He is mostly harmless. While he is a troll, but I do not think we means any harm. He just likes to repeat same old question where he knows the answer, and he just asks it to annoy people. While I do not enjoy his behavior, I do not think he is toxic.
Here is a more toxic example. Cyberblock is not only toxic, but in fact dangerous. Given opportunity, I probably should consider him to report to relevant authorities. Trouble is what do I mean by 'authorities'. There is no such thing. Our own president and his right hand man, Elon, are both trolls. Elon can give any troll a run for the money he is that good. So in this environment who do you report, what do you report and how? Trouble is that this environment normalizes all toxic actions.
Even the "big old Zuk" is now referring to mainstream media as "legacy media" and calling the recent election result as "cultural tipping point". How moronic and balant can you be? He accepts that social media will now be toxic and that is okay! He says that we will get rid of fact checkers, saying that they are 'politically biased' without giving any evidence. Also he failed to mention that the factcheckers do not enforce or dictate facebook corporate policies, HE DOES! When he is changing company policies, it is on him and him alone. Never mind he likes to make his personal life better by reading the current right wing line, so be it, just man up and say what you are doing! Well, never expected anything better from him. Stopped my facebook account in 2008, before many of you even started. Another good thing I have done!
How to handle trolls
I do not have a cookbook that will fit all size and shape. Your personal situation and thickness of your skin matters a lot. However, this is what I do:
- I block the trolls on discord
- I block the trolls on hive
- I monitor their action when I have time, but I do not have notification on discord
- I do not have notification on hive
Trolls are attention bitches! Thank you @neopch. I learned this new term recently and I am glad I can use it immediately and effectively. So trolls are attentional bitches, so it is important to NOT give then attention. If you block them, and do not interact with them they get tired.
Although some are resourceful and resilient. They even talk to themselves, sometimes with their alts on twitter about me, and how terrible I am and doing so much damage! Yes, trolls typically have a lot of time on their hands.
The only thing that is a net uplift about the current insanity is how we consume news is probably the comedians. This is how I consume of my news now. For example, I have learned now from my president, that we are buying/invading Greenland! Or we are changing the name of Gulf of Mexico!
and finally what Zuk just said!
I am telling you Desi Lydic is absolutely amazing! She is number one source of my current affairs!
PS. A recent edit to enhance this post.
A recent example pops-in so I feel like I need to record this. This is a different kind of trolling: the passive-aggressive type. If you do not play the Splinterlands game, it is difficult to get it, so I will provide a bit of explanation, but first the images:
This is about proposal#198 which I never felt particularly important or something I care for one way of the other, but others felt differently, like @goldmatters. So when I voted in favor of it, I found a post on twitter:
Here, he is basically lobbying against the proposal, which is totally legit, and focusing the comment of a player, who like many people at this ecosystem try and do, showing that he is about to leave the game because certain decision is not going as he likes it.
I typically do not feel concerned by this behavior at all, whoever wants to leave, whether posing/posturing or not should be able to leave. However, others do care. They get concerned! So whatever happened, the vote outcome became differed about 8 hours back:
Now, the outcome is what @goldmatters wanted! So clearly he is ecstatic as he usually his. So Alex likes to weigh in and troll (I use that phrase a lot), and boy goldmatters is laughing out loud!
There you have it @bravetofu; you don't troll, but others do, and sometimes at your expense! This is a fun place, don't you think?
I get a kick out of ignoring them and blocking them sad they are exactly at you day, attention bitches that thrive on any attention that goes their way.
When they don't get it they usually go bananas 😃😃
The last stop before Blurt.
Totally is. I guess it would have to be as you would have to be bananas to join 🤣🤣
Oh yeah! The number of attention bitches here is less compared to Facebook for sure. Even normalized numbers I mean. But here the ones we had in the past are rather memorable! Remember Lucy!?
I can't forget Lucy, the absolute bulge he used to spout. It was funny. Everything always came been to the Nazis with him 😜😃😃
and "winter is coming" :)
Hahaha, oh man, that's right!
I believe he quit Blurt a while ago. Just an oldster not cut out for this internet life :OD
Amen!
Trolls are the worse, I didn't really experience much of it until my YouTube channel started doing well. At first I would banter, argue, exchange insults with them, but later realized it is just better to delete their comments and move on. Or leave them and let others debate, shame, argue with them haha. But deleting is probably the best option.
Yes, in forums like YouTube you have the power to delete comments at your personal content. Hive being decentralized and censorship proof you can’t, but you can downvote which typically solves the problem.
I don’t know how I didn’t see the post early; it’s an interesting topic. I had thought that there weren't many in Hive, but a while ago I did see several
My little experience on that was when the internet arrived in Cuba, I remember there was a movement that supported people who were being trolled (for me is more easier to block the troll and move on).
Back then, trolls were somewhat intelligent people; now they’re just bored, frustrated individuals with a bit of envy, I must say. I’ve never had a situation like that, but a friend of mine who works as an influencer on Instagram did experience it a lot back in that days, and it affected her quite a bit. She had to see a psychologist, but she learned to just ignore those comments and focus on her work. Although it’s true that social media does very little to prevent these things, they do a lot for other issues—hypocrisy
Well there aren’t many people at hive at all :) there’s that.
Trolls do exist here and always have. Proportionally they are less compared to mainstream social networks and they do have the same effects as you describe.
I typically identify them and shine a light on them, they typically scatter just like a deer in the headlight :)
Musk doesn't just accept it... this behavior is encouraged because it attracts more attention than happy, fluffy stuff.
Even I enjoy a good bit of trolling. It can be a fun experience when done in the right way. Just don't let the trolls get in your head!
Oh yes! Elon is the flag bearer!
Zuk is the rat who likes to understand which ship is sinking first so that he can jump into the other one :)
Yes, keyword:
I like it when people troll Apple. I hate that its company is built around peer pressure and exclusivity all under the guise of security.
Trolls used to be clever, but now they are just sad. Most have no originality nor the mental capacity to understand the nuances of situations. They are pretty pathetic these days. The Troll renaissance has been and gone.
What is with the word renaissance today! I rarely use it and yet I used it today and I see you use again! :)
Yes, these trolls are pathetic to be honest. They need to training, I can offer an online school :)
I listen in through the wiretap. ;D
A lot of Trolls are also bots. I guess that statistically there is 60% of internet traffic is actually bots but might be wrong :) It is shocking. Glad you like my term :D use it wisely.
Yes, I think you are probably correct, and that 60% number might be a conservative estimate.
Sure. I think it is even more than that :D
My oh my, @azircon. What to say about this?
I was born and grew up on the bottom end of an uneven universe. I spent a lot of time being angry about that when I was young. What a waste of time. Nobody cares if I am angry with them, not unless I have a big wallop to inflict, which I never have had.
I learned to work, quietly and diligently for what I wanted, what I needed. I learned especially not to look around at what other people had.
Consider at the world we live in. That man lives surrounded by gold. Has a private plane. Is immune to the justice of the courts. I could think about that a lot, and it could infuriate me. But no. I speak my piece, accept that nothing is fair in the world, and hope I escape notice of bad actors.
You do your best to equalize things in your universe. I do my best in my smaller universe. And then, humility tells me to go on, and live with what I am and what I have.
Zuckerberg is contemptible. With all his money and all his influence, he has less freedom than you and I do. We do not genuflect before the gold-topped figure who leads our nation. He does. He bows publicly and conspicuously. What has his money bought him, if he feels so afraid that he gives up his dignity?
Hope those trolls never visit me. If they do, I hope there is a mute button somewhere.
Have a most happy, wonderful day with your family. The trolls can't touch that unless we let them :)
Well, I grew up in Calcutta, India (I still use the old British name, on purpose!) I grew up in a rough neighborhood and went to a rough school. A very rough school :) A school where sometimes local people were afraid to pass by, and this is no exaggeration :) I finished that school and had a great time there, everyone loved me, again I kid you not, but that is a long story. But please believe me, I know how to handle trolls and roughness :) I can teach people a thing or two about it :)
I went to college, then University, and another one and then another one, moved to US as a student. Went to University of Oklahoma, studied, taught, did research :) Yes, did field work in rural Oklahoma as a brown immigrant student at the heart of the bible belt. No, I was never threatened, and never treated poorly. In fact my whole 25 years in the United States, I was never been racially discriminated on my face! Ever! And I have travelled all over the country, urban-rural, studied-taught did everything! You can probably tell where the love for my country comes from.
To tell you the truth, I have been racially discriminated only in India! LOL! My home country. Did I tell you and we can be very racist and don't even know that we are? Yes we are so.
People said to me if I feel like half-Indian and half-American. I said and I really believe this: that I am 100% Indian and 100% American.
That is probably a lot more than you wanted to know, but there you have it. None of this is secrect as I have discussed this openly many time here at hive.
PS: my wife who was born in wealth, always went to exclusive private schools (LOL) said something very similar to what you said when I get angry, and I will always remember this; she said: "you can only control your own emotion you can't control others"! We went to University together, nearly 30 years back now!
I want to hear all of it. Thank you!
One of my good friends--we were in a writing group together--was from Bengal. She spoke of the race issues in India. She didn't address castes, but skin tone, which amazed me. Also, I have read a great deal about Rabindranath Tagore. I even wrote a small children's book about him. I wanted to introduce Western children to this remarkable person they probably would never learn about.
Nobody ever read that book :)))
Lucky you. Thirty years....
So the racism in India has many layers, and its very complex and difficult to understand for outsiders. The most common form is provincialism.
I don't think I have seen that word used commonly here, but it is like people from NY looking down on people from Alabama, although they are both white. I remember the famous movie Mississippi Burning!
In India, my home state, West Bengal, (where Tagore is from, and my people are very proud of him), Bengalis look down on people from say Punjab (western Indian state) and say Sikhs are 'dumb' while Sikh or Punjabi people are very fond of Bengalis and lived in Calcutta for generations!
Bengali's (now they are called bongs, as rest of the India has caught up with our superiority complex!) looks down on our neighboring state Bihar (before it was Jharkhand and Bihar) and Orissa; and call them derogatory words 'bihari' and 'ures'; as they are un-smart and bit subhuman, while they are rather respectful of us Bengalis.
You see what I mean? All these superiority complex comes from the old fact that Calcutta was the British Capital and got educated in western education better than the rest of India, which were 'back waters'. Totally untrue by the way, but that was the perception. It served us well, as we lived in the past and rest of the India caught on and left us behind in education, industrialization, and standard of living. Yet Tagore's land still think about the days of Bengal Renaissance.
There you have it, Bengalis are traditionally self-critical too. This is the most honest review you can get :)
😇
I learned that not to focus on the negative people irl or via net. It's waste of my time and energy doing that. Saying kind words to other people is free.
Yes. I have learned the same.
Mostly I ignore but sometimes I do give them their own medicine :)
Blocking trolls is probably the best course of action. Elon is a huge troll indeed and unfortunately he seems to be set to become richer and more powerful under the incoming administration...
Yeah, who knows what he can accomplish in 4 years but certainly a lot. They will all get presidential pardon and enough money to buy Sweden I expect!
Thanks to the one who made the 'block' and 'ignore' functions happen 😁yeah, they're not worth it, but it's not always clear they're trolls, especially when you're not reading Discord for example every day like me.
In fact, I like to stay away from Discord, I get depressed fast there 🤨
Yes discord can get tiring, I have taken long breaks from it in the past. It should be used in moderation
It is a shame that not all trolls are as cool and harmless as the ones in Witcher 3.
There is a good Norwegian movie with the same title, it was a low budget decent movie
that's well said, I usually don't get, but if I get, then simply ignore. They come back again and again, but gets tired as you said.
Yes, as you probably know I have a lot on experience on this topic :)
Trolls thrive on attention, so ignoring or blocking them is the way to go. Saves time and energy!
Does
Sometimes trolls don't even realize they are trolls, they are just dumb people posting dumb things. I am not sure they are even intelligent enough to realize they are doing something semi cohesive.
Well in this cases that I mentioned, they are quite deliberate.
Yes, that does appear to be the case!
Great content! Thanks for sharing it on Hive.
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Interesting
There is a point I feel is missed that needs to be addressed here, the fact that the vast majority of users on social media networks are soft pussies.
Comments that regular people up to the extreme of degenerate trolls can be “normalish” albeit strange, would cause extreme outrage against people on the lower end deviation from regular. And these unintentional comments make a festering breeding ground for trolls.
And using your own political views within this exact post against Russel and such was edging peak hypocrisy. But all in all, it was a decent word wall and that’s my two cents.
I do not know you. I do not know Russell. I am clueless what are you talking about. This is my personal blog and this has nothing to do with Russel. Unless you read something you have no way to respond to what you read. Anyways if I can't make sense to what you are saying I should follow my own advice and block you.
That’s the easy way out, thanks for attempting to digest constructive criticism.
You are welcome
You see what happens to attention bitches? 😂
One more comment please