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'The word “troll” — what does it mean these days? We use it so broadly, in online and offline life, it almost ceases to have any solid meaning. The only thing we can safely say is that it probably refers to someone needling another person. Yet the truth is that even powerful trolls themselves don’t agree on this (and I’ve spoken to many of them).
Through a long and strange process, I’ve become a cyber-hate expert. Differences of opinion or winding another person up are not the circumstances that targets of sustained online harassment describe to me. Instead, they talk about the wholesale destruction of their lives: threats so extreme they’ve had to move house; being fired from their job or multiple jobs as a result of cyber-hate; becoming unemployable after having their reputation wrecked online; taking their perpetrators to court at great cost; hiring security guards and installing alarm systems in their homes; being stalked online and offline; considering or attempting suicide; needing medication and therapy for PTSD.
Journalist Sherele Moody, founder of the Red Heart Campaign, is a constant target for hordes of trolls because of her campaign against gender-based violence.
She pays a steep price. In 2017, someone poisoned her dog with acid. He barely survived. Last year Moody received an anonymous message threatening her horse, which was found dead in a nearby paddock. (Incidentally, research from British think tank Demos shows women in the media are attacked three times more than their male counterparts.)
We need to be clear here. The block and mute buttons will not stop this problem.
It’s ignorant to think they will. These dangers do not stay online. One way or another, the physical, psychological and economic harms against victims stack up.
This is why, in my book Troll Hunting, I define “predator trolling” or “cyber-hate” as “repeated, sustained threats or attacks on an individual through the use of electronic devices that result in real-life harm to the target.
These harms may be physical and/or psychological. The attacks may be perpetrated by one or more individuals.
People who choose to speak out about their experiences of being attacked online — such as Moody — are commonly labelled “snowflakes”. The implication is that the impacts on you, as an individual, aren’t serious. And instead of whining about people being “mean” you, the victim, should toughen up.
The implication is so wrong. And I set out to prove it. I commissioned The Australia Institute to do nationally representative polling mapping the incidence and cost of cyber-hate. TAI’s survey last year of 1557 people found 44 per cent of women and 34 per cent of men have experienced one or more forms of online harassment. That’s 8.8 million Australians.
Perhaps even more alarming is the financial cost to the community. Taking into account medical costs and loss of income, the institute estimates cyber-hate has cost Australians $3.7 billion, not including the burden on courts and policing costs. Or the expenses for victims who must move or take additional security measures.
But why do trolls do it? What motivates them?
I’ve spent years talking to trolls and have formed strange and enduring relationships with them. But there are no easy answers.
No two trolls I met and developed relationships with were the same. Some had political or social aims. Others just wanted to hurt other people and took pleasure in this. Research from the University of British Columbia and the University of Manitoba has found that internet trolling correlates strongly with three of the four so-called “dark” personality traits: psychopathy, Machiavellianism and sadism.
Sadism, deriving pleasure from inflicting pain and humiliation on others, has the strongest link. This means predator trolls set out to hurt you and enjoy it when they succeed.
The predator troll I’ve met who most strongly fits this bill is “Mark”, a vicious and committed online harasser. He’s a member of an international online syndicate that tries to harm other people and wreck their lives. They document all their exploits on a wiki. At one stage he told me about predator-trolling rape victims and the families of people who had died by suicide. He says trolling gives him “Entertainment. Not pleasure.”
When we first spoke a few years ago, Mark spent up to 14 hours a week trolling people. Two years later he tells me it’s more like 30. He says he is a psychopath and that his psychopathic tendencies are getting worse as he gets older.
While all this can seem terrifying and hopeless, it’s not.
Yes, this is a complex issue and it needs a multi-pronged approach, but let’s start with expecting a whole lot more from law enforcement and social media companies. The internet is a public space and, like all town squares, we need to be safe there.
Having said that, it’s not the internet that’s the problem. It’s the people. Misogyny, racism, homophobia and hatred didn’t start online. If these attitudes didn’t exist in the community, they wouldn’t proliferate online.
Trolls weren’t born that way. They are products of our community. Frequently, these kids are from damaged, violent and neglectful homes. They are left alone on the internet from a young age, consuming torrents of hate and bigotry in chat rooms. As you’d expect, they then grow up to be angry young men who want to hurt others. Had they been raised with love and care, the story would be very different."
For anyone interested, Ginger Gorman’s book Troll Hunting has just been published by Hardie Grant.
CallMeIshmael 