Trolling Online
Trolling now Is defined differently as It may have been in the early years of our country’s history. As we have developed as a country technology has become very prevalent In our every day lives. As we continue to move forward technologically trolling is showing no signs of stopping or slowing down any time soon.
Two things I gathered from the readings assigned to us this week were the original Intentions of trolling. It often starts with someone stating a message that is intentionally incorrect, but not overly controversial . After this tho Is when the trolling Is Initiated with someone else commenting on the other persons “idiotic” statement with profanity and obscenity, also known as flaming (conversation). Another Interesting thing that was brought to my attention was the consequences that online trollers have to be faced with after they troll someone. They have to find and determine the fine line between protecting anonymity and enforcing consequences for abusive behavior that people are bringing to online discussions (Pew Research Center).
Personally, I see harassment online very often through memes and and just friends that are trying to poke fun. So this type of trolling would be considered to be non-offensive to me, and lean more to the side of just having fun. That’s why I say It’s so hard to decipher the difference between trying to have fun and strictly being offensive to someone for a comment they were unaware of the validity of. My recommendations to avoid being harassed over social media or just the internet In general would to just be not to post anything. If you don’t post anything people will have nothing to “flame” you about.
One social media platform I use often that has enabled lots of trolling in Its history Is instagram. I say this because of the absurd amounts of meme accounts on instagram that strictly make fun of people and their beliefs that have hundreds of thousands of followers that condone the behavior of the accounts content. Also because of the lack of restrictions they have to stop trolling from occurring. The only thing I could find online about limiting trolling was the fact that they have a block button, which every other social media platform has, and should have. The website I found this on claims they have found new ways to “silence the trolls” but only provided this one answer was the fact that they can now block people and nothing else. (https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/05/instagram-launches-some-new-ways-to-silence-trolls-and-cyberbullies.html#:~:text=By%20tapping%20on%20%E2%80%9CMore%20Options,clicking%20on%20the%20dotted%20icon)
