What are Trolls?
Internet is a strange place! Originally the word troll was part of the Norse Mythology, describing gigantic humanoid creatures living in the mountains. They were rarely described as nice to humans and typically there is some serious animosity between to two 'species'. Fast forward to modern times of the internet, and the word 'troll' has a different meaning all together.
A troll is someone who deliberately posts inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content online.
Troll or trolls (as they sometimes work as a group may employ a variety of co-ordinated methods.
- Insults and personal attacks: Targeting individuals with abusive language.
- Provocative statements: Making outrageous claims to spark arguments.
- Off-topic posts: Deliberately derailing conversations.
- Spamming: Flooding a platform with irrelevant or repetitive messages.
Trolls typically proliferate on all social networks. Sometimes they are individuals, and sometimes, especially during the days of technological advancement in social networks, they could be bots, even AI enhanced bots. For todays discussions, we will keep of human trolls.
Since hive is a social networks, trolls are abundant here. Especially important fact that here you post for rewards, and potential rewards are given and taken away based on upvotes and downvotes, which many people have issues with. So here we get a lot of disgruntled ones. On top of that I play the play2earn game Splinterlands, which has a discord channel, like many games and projects on hive. Oh there are major trolling that goes on there. Especially towards me, because I am outspoken and typically call spade a spade, and a lot of wallflowers do not like that, and a small amount of them sometimes resort to trolling. Here are some examples:
Use of a stupid emoji to deflect! Thank you Hewitt!
In this particular case, the featured individual was a friend of fine but his expectation of profit from this ecosystem did not match mine. When I repeated that this ecosystem is not a profit-making institution and there is nobody out there who can respond and act towards his complain, he couldn't understand. He, like many is used to the feature, that when you go to a restaurant and want your steak medium-rare, and they bring a well done steak, you complain to the server and then to the manager. At hive or at Splinterlands there is no such thing. Sigh! I can't help you Hewitt! This is called decentralization, its hard and its is not perfect, and it is not something that I enjoy all the time either, but I have decided to live with it. If you do not like it you can choose to do something better with your time!
Here is Nick John. He is mostly harmless. While he is a troll, but I do not think we means any harm. He just likes to repeat same old question where he knows the answer, and he just asks it to annoy people. While I do not enjoy his behavior, I do not think he is toxic.
Here is a more toxic example. Cyberblock is not only toxic, but in fact dangerous. Given opportunity, I probably should consider him to report to relevant authorities. Trouble is what do I mean by 'authorities'. There is no such thing. Our own president and his right hand man, Elon, are both trolls. Elon can give any troll a run for the money he is that good. So in this environment who do you report, what do you report and how? Trouble is that this environment normalizes all toxic actions.
Even the "big old Zuk" is now referring to mainstream media as "legacy media" and calling the recent election result as "cultural tipping point". How moronic and balant can you be? He accepts that social media will now be toxic and that is okay! He says that we will get rid of fact checkers, saying that they are 'politically biased' without giving any evidence. Also he failed to mention that the factcheckers do not enforce or dictate facebook corporate policies, HE DOES! When he is changing company policies, it is on him and him alone. Never mind he likes to make his personal life better by reading the current right wing line, so be it, just man up and say what you are doing! Well, never expected anything better from him. Stopped my facebook account in 2008, before many of you even started. Another good thing I have done!
How to handle trolls
I do not have a cookbook that will fit all size and shape. Your personal situation and thickness of your skin matters a lot. However, this is what I do:
- I block the trolls on discord
- I block the trolls on hive
- I monitor their action when I have time, but I do not have notification on discord
- I do not have notification on hive
Trolls are attention bitches! Thank you @neopch. I learned this new term recently and I am glad I can use it immediately and effectively. So trolls are attentional bitches, so it is important to NOT give then attention. If you block them, and do not interact with them they get tired.
Although some are resourceful and resilient. They even talk to themselves, sometimes with their alts on twitter about me, and how terrible I am and doing so much damage! Yes, trolls typically have a lot of time on their hands.
The only thing that is a net uplift about the current insanity is how we consume news is probably the comedians. This is how I consume of my news now. For example, I have learned now from my president, that we are buying/invading Greenland! Or we are changing the name of Gulf of Mexico!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0sFuCuComVw
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WAleVYXuZxQ
and finally what Zuk just said!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9EyOeXHBDJY
I am telling you Desi Lydic is absolutely amazing! She is number one source of my current affairs!
