http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29678989
I wonder, in light of the story that detention sentences for online trolls have been considered in the UK, what way you would define internet trolls and trolling?
I recall the first time I discovered there was such a term, it was only one of a whole battery of definitions of online behaviour which are now forgotten but which were considered of equivalent importance by internet users at the time, such as "big dawg" and "me too" and "handgrenades".
At the time trolling as defined as emotional manipulation, usually seeking to provoke, coerce or compell responses.
Just recently I read another book about psychology and the internet which was written in 1999, it was a different time, although not that long ago, but it defined trolling as the action of members of an in-group seeking to exploit outsiders ignorance of group norms, group dynamics and in-group knowledge, so someone would post phony discussions or debates seeking to lure outsiders into disputing a topic which the in-group are aware is phony and a ploy, other members of the in-group may play along until a point at which someone posts something with the YHBT tagline (you have been trolled). This all seems a hell of a lot more innoxious and harmless than the earlier, simpler definition.
The definitions of behaviour which are being used for trolls with reference to the custodial sentence are much more serious, and I wonder if they are that widespread, but connected with cases such as one from the UK in which a young male was enticed through deception to provide naked images of themselves which were then used in protracted torment which ended with his death by suicide. Which makes me think that either this is a law which could be introduced but seldom used or the legislators are anticipating the possibility of this disgusting behaviour becoming more wisespread.
What are your views on this topic and your definitions of internet trolls and trolling?
I wonder, in light of the story that detention sentences for online trolls have been considered in the UK, what way you would define internet trolls and trolling?
I recall the first time I discovered there was such a term, it was only one of a whole battery of definitions of online behaviour which are now forgotten but which were considered of equivalent importance by internet users at the time, such as "big dawg" and "me too" and "handgrenades".
At the time trolling as defined as emotional manipulation, usually seeking to provoke, coerce or compell responses.
Just recently I read another book about psychology and the internet which was written in 1999, it was a different time, although not that long ago, but it defined trolling as the action of members of an in-group seeking to exploit outsiders ignorance of group norms, group dynamics and in-group knowledge, so someone would post phony discussions or debates seeking to lure outsiders into disputing a topic which the in-group are aware is phony and a ploy, other members of the in-group may play along until a point at which someone posts something with the YHBT tagline (you have been trolled). This all seems a hell of a lot more innoxious and harmless than the earlier, simpler definition.
The definitions of behaviour which are being used for trolls with reference to the custodial sentence are much more serious, and I wonder if they are that widespread, but connected with cases such as one from the UK in which a young male was enticed through deception to provide naked images of themselves which were then used in protracted torment which ended with his death by suicide. Which makes me think that either this is a law which could be introduced but seldom used or the legislators are anticipating the possibility of this disgusting behaviour becoming more wisespread.
What are your views on this topic and your definitions of internet trolls and trolling?
