I was an internet troll. And it came back to haunt me.
“Someone is impersonating you and he just sent me a vulgar photo,” my friend Sarah messaged me on Facebook.
“Here we go again,” I groaned, wondering what I’d done to make this man so mad. He was creating duplicate accounts of my profile and harassing my friends and other users. Candidly, I didn’t know who he was but I suspect he was someone I’d blocked, and it was the final straw to him going nuclear. He was intent of harming my friendships and came close to doing so.
No, I didn’t come into this writing journey ignorant of what would come. Spending thousands of hours on democratized platforms, where any user can comment, was bound to occasionally knock ajar the door to hell. What surprised me was the ferocity and vindictiveness of a few of them. They kept coming back, finding ways to cause trouble even after I’d blocked them and taken every step to keep them away. And the sad part? I don’t even write within political or controversial topics.
Yes, I sometimes lost sleep over the above user. I stared at the ceiling and wondered what could have possibly gone wrong in his life to warrant this aggression? I reported each account and they were banned in turn. But it became a game of whack-a-mole and one that I was infinitely exhausted by.
Eventually, it fizzled out. Either he ran out of motivation, or the platform figured out a way to squash his behavior. By the end, he’d made more than 200 Sean Kernan accounts over four months.
I know I’m not alone on this journey. A 2022 study by the Pew Research Center, found that 40% of people have experienced online harassment. This is significant given many people don’t even have social media, and even many that do just lurk. A full 73% of internet users have witnessed someone being harassed, or intentionally embarrassed by others online.
I remember the first few negative comments that rolled in as I began writing publicly. In the beginning, I found myself reasoning with them, lathering them with friendliness in hopes of converting them to a flowery field where we can all hold hands.
But, within a few months, I implemented a rule of not going back and forth with people on the internet. I reserved serious political discussions for in-person, and with reasonable people I already knew. This was especially true as the noise-to-feedback ratio degraded, which tends to happen when content moderation budgets are cut.
Trolls have a particularly toxic effect on a platform’s culture. One study of 15,000 Reddit users, led by Dr. Rafal Urbaniak, revealed that harassment tends to drive out friendly users, increasing the ratio of toxic users to non-toxic. I will note — some of the worst harassment I’ve ever faced was on Reddit.
I got caught in the trap of arguing with a young lady, who was particularly nasty, insulting my opinions and using demeaning language, despite every attempt I made to be friendly. Then, I decided to click on her profile and saw pictures of anime, and posts about surviving middle school. I realized, I’d literally been arguing with a middle schooler, despite being in my 30s.
One study by social psychologist, Dr. Chris Barlett, showed that the key predictors of cyberbullying are:
- Being male (though bullying is very common with females too).
- Being aged 12–15.
- Being a frequent and competent internet user.
Unsurprisingly, anonymity plays a huge factor too. Another study found that 53% of anonymous comments were negative versus only 29% with non-anonymous. Remember this next time you get harassed.
As a general rule, I prefer interacting with users who are transparent about who they are and who use their real name. I don’t mind pseudonyms so long as users play nice in the sandbox. If it’s a cutting, borderline mean-spirited comment, I tend to block them much quicker and move on with my day.
In another instance, earlier in my career, I was writing a long reply to a comment, attempting to refute their points— which were overtly hostile. Then, I realized, “By sending this reply, all I’m doing is signing up for an app notification that will do anything but make me happy.” So I blocked them and moved on.
There is an enormous empathy gap with many internet users. I try to remind myself of that before letting them exert control over my emotions and attention without any real consequence.
When I was 8-years-old, I was playing with a young girl on the playground and we were throwing a ball back and forth and she kept dropping it. I casually, and with the unintentional bluntness of a child, said, “You are bad at sports.”
Her face immediately went sour and she was on the verge of tears. I felt horrible and said, “I’m sorry. You aren’t bad at sports.” It was one of those early, but formative lessons in empathy — which sometimes requires you to see someone sad reaction. Seeing the hurt teaches you and that visual is glaringly absent online.
When you are angry, try to remind yourself that there’s a person on the other side of your screen. One of the other predictors of trolling is that people disassociate this very fact. They begin to feel they’re in a text battle, like it’s a game with a villainous cartoon rather than a vulnerable human being.
When I was 13, and when the internet was new, I used to troll people while being oblivious to this fact. The internet was young and unmoderated. Specifically, I went on forums and made inane comments that went roughly like this: “Studies show that men who wear glasses are seen as nerds and less desirable.” Then, I would laugh with glee as the angry comments rolled in. An intoxicating feeling of power coursed through me as I saw adults getting worked up over my comment. And, of course, karma came knocking: I began needing glasses shortly thereafter, and was harassed to the moon and back by trolls many years later.
The internet doesn’t lend itself to kindness. You know this. But remember to visualize someone else on the other side of your screen. Know that quite often, hostile users are deeply unhappy people. Or, they are exhibiting the online disinhibition effect, where they feel free within anonymity to harass people. They can do so without punishment and without seeing the sad reactions they’ve inflicted. Remember that there’s also a good chance you are dealing with an adolescent whose brain isn’t fully developed.
I live by the rule of kind. So long as people are friendly, and stay constructive, they are welcome additions to my life. If you can stay kind, even when the conditions are least ripe for it, life still tends to be better than on the alternative path. The internet is a bizarre paradise for many groups. But as a user, you have the power to curate which groups you interact with. Don’t forget that. And whatever you do, don’t ever feed the trolls — if you can help it.
