Troublemakers on the net

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The most important facts in brief:

Internet trolls can be really annoying: they are nasty, hard to shake off and are happy when you respond to their provocations. Because then they really turn up the heat. Thomas Feibel is one of the leading media experts in the German-speaking world. He describes what lies behind hate speech and how to deal with it.

Rule number 1: Never respond to a troll!

You can read more tips on how to deal with systematic insults on the Internet and how parents can protect their children in the following article.

A classic goes like this: A WhatsApp group is set up at primary school so that pupils can help and inform each other. But it doesn't usually take long before one child starts to annoy, bully and insult the others in the chat. Friendly admonishments from classmates are of no use - they only incite the tormentor even more. And if someone tries to stand up to him, the situation escalates completely. In the end, parents and teachers have to intervene rigorously.

Insults as bait

Nevertheless, this example shows a rather harmless variant of digital pests. There is usually no malice behind such infantile attacks, just a clumsy attempt to attract attention. What's more, a troublemaker can be called to account quite quickly as everyone in the class chat knows the person. This distinguishes a troublemaker significantly from a so-called troll, whose identity always remains hidden.

A little troll history

Trolls are people on the internet who, under the protection of anonymity, insult, provoke, humiliate, mock, incite and torment other users. They prefer to spray their hateful venom in chats, forums, blogs, games, social media or directly in the comment columns of YouTube and other providers. Their malicious behaviour is known as «flaming», the incendiary version of cyberbullying. Insults and verbal abuse are just as much a part of it as spreading fake news - more on this later.

To this day, the advice is to only allow children to join chat groups that are moderated. Supervisors can intervene to guide them.

The term troll goes back to «trolling the bait», a special fishing technique used to lure in a particularly large number of fish. Symbolically, trolls lay out their provocations and insults like a lure on the web so that as many people as possible react to them. Nevertheless, we tend to associate the term internet troll with the mystical mythical creature from the world of Nordic legends. On the one hand, this gnome is regarded as treacherous and difficult to assess, but on the other hand, it gives the invisible tormentor a face. Even in the early days of the Internet, some children and young people had unpleasant experiences with trolls.

In the age of Whatsapp and social media, the number of special chat sites for children has fallen rapidly, but for a long time they served as their first attempts at digital communication. There, children and young people tried out flowery pseudonyms, changed their gender at whim and pretended to be older than they were in order to chat away with other strangers, most of whom weren't too particular about the truth either.

Serious arguments with the troll are not worthwhile.

This was done effortlessly and much more anonymously than today, because in this crazy role-playing game only names and dialogues were sufficient. However, this also attracted trolls who made a joke out of stirring up those present in the chat. The more upset the participants got, the more ranting the troll became. In the end, all users had no choice but to leave the chat in frustration and exasperation. This is why the advice still applies today to only allow children to join chat groups that are moderated. Supervisors can then intervene, first warn the troll and then ban them from the chat. As a rule, this is of little use because the troll returns after just a few minutes under a new fake name and can continue with his malicious behaviour.

But what does he actually get out of it?
What drives the troll?

As nobody knows the troll, it is difficult to characterise him. Experts assume that their behaviour is based on a mixture of boredom, frustration and a need to be offended. This is why trolls seek confrontation and primarily want to provoke. They deliberately offend common decency and therefore prefer to make racist, homophobic or misogynistic comments.

Users of all ages fall for these snubs and mistake them for an opening for discussion. Anyone who responds is immediately personally denigrated and insulted. A serious discussion with the troll is also not worthwhile. It is not possible anyway because they have no interest in arguments and do not even have to be convinced of their own infamous claims. Experts therefore advise simply ignoring trolls. This is difficult, especially when a political dimension is added.

Ignore instead of firing back

The political troll is not acting out of personal frustration, but is firmly convinced that he has an important mission. He distrusts the political system as well as the supposedly synchronised media, which he believes are constantly lying to the people. He uses conspiracy theories and fake news to supposedly clear things up.

This troll finds his information on dubious sites and forums. His sources include Russian troll factories, which make up a strategically important part of digital warfare. Entire social media armies are actively involved in this in order to tirelessly drive forward the subversion of public opinion in other countries.

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They sow doubt, incite hatred and want to divide democratic societies. Without realising it, the troll becomes an instrumentalised drip. That makes them even more dangerous. There is no cure for trolls. We have to accept that we are dealing with another Internet problem for which there is no concrete solution.

Trolls are not interested in arguments. They deliberately offend common decency.

As soon as trolls contaminate the web with their maliciousness, their poison gradually trickles into society as a whole. Including us and our families. Even if we cannot successfully defend ourselves against such activities, it helps to see through these mechanisms and not pay any attention to trolls without a guilty conscience. «Ignoring is not the same as ignorance,» writes the author Margret Atwood, «you have to do something about it.»