In any one
minute over 100,000 tweets are sent across the globe but some of those are
posted with malicious intent. Nicola Shepherd investigates the rise
of the vicious Internet ‘Troll’ and what’s being done to silence them.
In fairytales, Trolls are monstrous, unintelligent giants
with a taste for humans. In the
real world they prey on the vulnerable through social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
They also go by the names ‘cyber bully’, ‘flamer’ and ‘hater’. Recently there has been an influx of
stories in the media with new victims sharing their experiences with ‘trollers’. “The idea of Internet trolling has been
around ever since we’ve had the Internet, it’s nothing new at all”, explains
Cyberpsychologist Monica Whitty.
“Maybe the media has highlighted it more because of celebrity
targets. Media will often pay
attention to celebrity”.
In the late 1990s, trolls spent their time commenting on
forums or discussion boards, hoping to provoke a response from the group. Now, with the explosion of social media
it has become far easier for them to torment individuals. Official figures were recently released
showing that the number of people convicted under section 127 of the
Communication Act 2003 had more than doubled in the past five years. “Given the massive growth in the
Internet and other media like Twitter and Facebook, it is hardly surprising
that there has been such an increase in harassment convictions over the
electronic media,” Labour MP, Andrew Gwynne told Yahoo News. Gwynne has since called for Internet
guidelines to deter future online harassment. While there has been an increase in the
number of convictions, in the past 12 months there has been a fall in the
number of complaints being made to the Police. “The number of officers being called out for communication
offences has fallen in the last 12 months, due to the way jobs are being handled
and the teams that they are being given to”, explains Surrey Police Support
Officer, Dave Towner.
How we are going to police the ever-growing troll
epidemic has become a tricky and somewhat cloudy discussion. In the UK, we are entitled to freedom
of speech, which not only allows us to voice the good things about people but
also the bad. There’s a fine line
between free speech and freedom to abuse.
Social networking has given us a new platform to communicate on and the
“rules of net etiquette are still being defined” believes Whitty. By interacting online, trolls can
separate themselves and feel less responsible for their actions, as they cannot
see the physical repercussions.
“They harp on more because the lack of social presence”. Recently, the Police have been seen to
get involved in more cases of trolling and ensure that any complaint will be
dealt with. “Surrey Police take
all complaints by the public seriously, however that complaint reaches us. Anyone reporting a offence will get to
see an officer at a time and place that’s suitable to them”, explains Support
Officer Towner. The Police are
wising up, creating dedicated teams to deal with cyber bullying grievances. “We have a scheduled response unit,
which equates up to 12 appointments per day. These appointments typically deal with people making
complaints about posts on Facebook and other social media”. The number of communications offences
reported in the last year that Towner has dealt with has been minor cases, with
the majority stemming from arguments that “spill out of school”, rather than
the malicious cases we’ve recently seen in the media.
There are many different variations of trolls. There’s those that find it a
“hilarious” pastime and then there’s also the more serious ‘RIP Trollers’, who
target Facebook pages or profiles that are created in memory of a fallen loved
one. Colm Coss was one of the
first to be prosecuted under section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act, after
he posted grossly offensive comments on memorial pages in 2010. Coss’ comments have since been removed
from the Internet, but the messages left held claims that he had committed
necrophiliac acts upon their bodies.
He was later sentenced to 18 weeks, the longest any convicted cyber
bully has received. As recently as
October this year, three more people have been convicted of sending indecent
and offensive messages under section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act. Inspired by website ‘Sickipedia’,
Matthew Woods posted sexually explicit comments and derogatory ‘jokes’ about
missing five-year-old April Jones.
Woods faced sentencing just 24 hours after sending the message. “I woke up this morning in the back of
a transit van with two beautiful little girls, I found April in a hopeless
place”. Woods received a 12-week
sentence in a young offenders institution. Laura Higgins, a helpline manager at Safer Internet, an
organisation that helps support the general public against online hate,
believes the media should offer advice but not sensationalise the problem. “We are feeding into the hands of
attention seeking trolls by selling their story”.
“Trolls have the powers to regenerate even if hacked
apart”. While this may be part of
the mythical definition of a troll, it is the same the Internet species. An Internet troll has many identities,
like Michael Brutsch, a 49-year-old software programmer from Texas, whose known
online as ‘Violentacrez’. A self
confessed serial troller, Brutsch claims to get a “thrill” from setting up
forums on Reddit, an online community where users vote on content, titled
‘rapebait’, ‘picsofdeadkids’ and ‘chokeabitch’. As well as leaving offensive messages, Violentacrez also
encourages others to post voyeuristic pictures of women and girls captured
without their knowing, also known as ‘creepshots’. A New York journalist recently “unmasked” Brutsch calling
him the “biggest troll on the web”.
Since his unmasking, Brutsch lost his job but has continued posting on
the Reddit forum under a far less subtle pseudonym ‘MBrutsch’. In an interview with CNN, Brutsch tried
to explain why he did it. “There
are hot button topics that you can make a comment about and just enrage people. Sadly for me I enjoyed doing that.”
When it comes to Internet trolls, no one is safe. The weightlifter from South-East
London, Zoe Smith, was looking forward to “inspiring a generation”, but before
she even took the Olympic stage she was attacked on Twitter. Branded a “lesbian” and a “bloke” by
her troll, Smith explains she wasn’t shocked by the comments. “I was more angry
than hurt. I didn’t find it
particularly shocking but at the same time it wasn’t pleasant”. Unlike some,
Smith didn’t just sit back and take the abuse, instead she fought back. “When you’re in the public eye, there’s
always going to be that one person who has to make a comment even though
they’re not qualified to”. Smith
wasn’t alone; Rebecca Adlington also faced an online hater in the lead up to
the games. “You shark fin nosed
derkhead, you belong in that pool you f****** whale”. Tom Daley was hit after competing in the Men’s Syncronised
10m Platform with diving partner Pete Waterfield. Daley’s attacker, also known on Twitter as @Rileyy_69,
tweeted about his late father who died in May 2011. “You let your dad down I hope you know that”. He then proceeded to torment Daley’s
followers, after they jumped up to his defense. “Come on then you c*** I’ll stick a knife down your f******
throat now comeback and stop hiding from me,” said @Rileyy69 to one
defender. After a number of
complaints, the Police got involved with Daley’s case and arrested the
17-year-old behind the malicious tweets.
The same can’t be said for a victim out of the public eye explains
Higgins. “There is no
consistency. Some police forces
are more active than others”. Surrey
Police Support Officer, Dave Towner disagrees and believes that the public
should take action. “I feel that
people need to take more responsibility.
If you’re experiencing trouble on social networking, stop using social
networking”. It’s a tale as old as
time, if you ignore someone they will eventually disappear, but what happens
when you’re unaware that you’re even being trolled?
Earlier this year, TV presenter Richard Bacon admitted to
have being trolled himself in his BBC Three programme, ‘The Anti-Social
Network’. After Googling his name,
Bacon came across a website where the owner had a vendetta against him. “This fella was fantasising about my
death, daydreaming about me dying in a plane crash and expressing his hope that
my body would be mangled in a car wreck”.
Whilst looking for his own troll, Bacon met another hater who tried to
justify his actions. “It gets
addictive when you get people going crazy at you”, explains serial troller
Damon Evans. “It all started when
I was drunk. I was on Facebook, It
was just a bit of fun”. Evans said
that he was no longer trolling but on closer inspection of his YouTube account,
this is not the case.
While we are ready to point the finger at popular social
networks such as Facebook and Twitter, more and more trolls are “hiding” behind
anonymous sites are causing trouble.
Little Gossip is a website where you can post anonymous ‘gossip’ about a
fellow university peer or work colleague.
What was supposed to be harmless soon became a place for trolls to
attack individuals. Upon visiting
the site, you’re greeted with the most recent ‘gossip’, which included one
statement made about a girl from Selby College. “Go jump in frunt of a bus or train! No one will care! GO
D1E!” The Guardian contacted Little Gossip but has received no further comment
from the site. Another popular
anonymous site, Ask.Fm, allows users to post questions to each other but what
seems like innocent fun can become far more dangerous, explains Higgins. “A very sad example I saw of this
recently was where someone posted a comment saying, ‘why don’t you drink bleach
and kill yourself like Amanda Todd?’”
Amanda Todd was only 15 when she took her own life, after being cyber stalked
by a 32-year-old man for three years. Both of these websites rely on self-censorship,
claiming that they do not monitor what is being posted.
Incidentally, there are those who believe that what these
trolls do isn’t worth being arrested over. To them, police should be working on ‘real’ cases. Sunny Hundal, editor of the weblog
‘Liberal Conspiracy’, believes it’s ludicrous to arrest someone for expressing
his or her opinion online. "It’s incredibly worrying that people are being
arrested for merely voicing opinions on the Internet, however offensive others
may find it. This isn’t stalking
or harassment but the censorship of political speech and we should all worry
about how prevalent it is becoming”. Hundal also blames social networking sites
for not standing up for their users when they are arrested. “We are now in a situation where the
police are prosecuting people who use social media to voice their opinions,
merely because Facebook or Twitter are unlikely to complain if their users are
arrested”. While Hundal may
believe that trolls are voicing opinion, others disagree. “They enjoy antagonising people and
seeing the kind of response they get back”, argues Whitty. Even Michael Brutsch, the Reddit troll,
admitted he likes the “thrill” of trolling. “I just like riling people up in my spare time”.
Both fairytale and Internet trolls have one thing in
common, they both like to hide behind something. It’s time for them to return back where they belong, under
the bridge.
