Buzz
For some individuals, "the more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt." In the digital realm, such individuals are likely trolls.
This antisocial behavior traces back to the "hacktivist" group "Anonymous," and it seems to drive the actions of internet trolls, who employ various methods to disrupt the online world. There's a common perception that trolls are just regular people whose negative traits are heightened by the unique environment of the Internet. Yet, the 2014 study "Trolls just want to have fun," published in Personality and Individual Differences, suggests that the situation might be more complex than it appears.
The True Troll
The term "trolling" is often misused or perhaps has simply been co-opted. Media outlets use it to describe various forms of digital harassment, from students posting insults about their professors to disturbing individuals sending rape and death threats to those who support England's Jane Austen-themed currency. The former example better represents "flaming," an online tantrum aimed at an individual, while the latter is cyberharassment—the adult form of cyberbullying.
Trolls may be ruthless and harmful, but their goal isn't to instill fear. It's all about causing chaos.
The inflammatory remarks trolls intentionally make, designed to disrupt conversations and derail serious discussions, led Popular Science to disable commenting on its articles in 2013.
In 2012, it appears a troll stumbled upon a Facebook post about car problems and convinced the poster to deflate her tires to reset the flux capacitor—then instructed her to tell a mechanic that the flux capacitor required more gigawatts.
In 2011, the worst kind of troll posted, "Help me mummy, it's hot in hell," on the Facebook memorial page for a 14-year-old girl, on Mother's Day.
Trolls are essentially malicious pranksters hunting for ways to stir up trouble online. It's their form of entertainment. The behavior is deeply antisocial, and scientists have been researching it for years—a challenging task, given that the subculture revolves around manipulating people. Media-studies expert Whitney Phillips interviewed self-identified trolls about their motives for her book on the topic, and told the L.A. Times' Patt Morrison, "If they agreed to answer the question, there was a high likelihood they were trolling me."
In many ways, trolls are like the kids who throw spitballs at their classmates. Most experts agree they crave attention, admiration, and a sense of significance, which they likely don't receive in their everyday lives.
Feeding the Trolls
In the 2015 study "Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities," researchers Drs. Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec examined trolls' posting patterns to help moderators identify them more effectively. They discovered that trolls' commenting behavior within a community evolves over time, driven by negative attention.
"When users receive negative feedback (like down-votes) ... they post more," Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil explained in an email interview. Cheng added that as trolls continue participating in a community, they "gradually worsen their behavior until a moderator steps in and bans them."
This is unlikely to lead to behavioral change. Dr. Delroy Paulhus, co-author of "Trolls just want to have fun," mentioned in an email that trolls "tend to feel self-righteous" about their actions.
Dr. Paul Trapnell, co-author with Paulhus, offers insight into this part of the subculture. "A significant number of committed trolls probably view their actions as moral cleansing, such as deflating arrogance, exposing dishonesty and hypocrisy, or punishing those who violate key values within the trolling community. It's not simply cruelty for cruelty's sake," Trapnell explains.
Undoubtedly, anonymity plays a crucial role in enabling this behavior. It creates a temporary loss of identity known as deindividuation, freeing trolls from social norms, much like what happens in a mob. Some have linked the phenomenon of trolling almost entirely to the disinhibiting effect of anonymity.
However, many find this explanation difficult to accept. The average person doesn't derive enjoyment from upsetting others, no matter how anonymous they may be.
The "Trolls just want to have fun" study reinforced the suspicion that trolls are not typical individuals. The research found that trolls possess distinct personality traits that differentiate them from the general population.
A Dark Mind
Authors Paulhus, Trapnell, and Dr. Erin Buckels surveyed over 1,200 internet users to identify trolls by how strongly they agreed with statements like "I enjoy trolling people in forums or website comment sections" and "The more beautiful and pure something is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt," as well as by whether they selected "trolling other users" as their favorite activity on comment-based sites.
The remaining questions focused on personality traits, specifically looking for signs of the "Dark Tetrad," a set of four traits linked to bullying behavior. These traits include narcissism (excessive self-focus), psychopathy (lack of conscience and empathy), Machiavellianism (readiness to harm others for personal gain), and sadism (enjoyment from others' suffering). The findings, while not unexpected, were clear and definitive.
With the exception of narcissism, trolls scored notably higher than non-trolls on the Dark Tetrad traits. The connection between trolling and sadism was the strongest — "so strong," the authors stated, "that it could be said online trolls are the quintessential everyday sadists."
This does not, however, question the role of anonymity in trolling. When asked how trolling would change if anonymity were impossible, Paulhus remarked, "I believe it would decrease by 90 percent."
However, the findings do challenge the notion that trolls are simply ordinary people influenced by anonymity.
According to Trapnell, much of trolling is "simply deriving pleasure from the suffering of others."
Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec created an algorithm to detect trolls, with funding from Google. This tool can accurately identify a troll in as few as five posts with 80 percent precision.
