I read an interesting article. Aibu to ask you to read it and tell me what you think?

[Oceanbliss]

I enjoy Mumsnet and especially love the support network, people caring and helping one another. However, there are also those who like to derail threads, post nasty insults and seem to want to hurt other people’s feelings. The following article really got me thinking about how to view these types of people. What do you think?

Internet Trolls Are Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Sadists
Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.

In this month's issue of Personality and Individual Differences, a study was published that confirms what we all suspected: Internet trolls are horrible people.

Let's start by getting our definitions straight: An Internet troll is someone who comes into a discussion and posts comments designed to upset or disrupt the conversation. Often, in fact, it seems like there is no real purpose behind their comments except to upset everyone else involved. Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.

What kind of person would do this? Some Canadian researchers decided to find out.
They conducted two online studies with over 1,200 people, giving personality tests to each subject along with a survey about their Internet commenting behavior. They were looking for evidence that linked trolling with the "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism.

They found that Dark Tetrad scores were highest among people who said trolling was their favorite Internet activity. To get an idea of how much more prevalent these traits were among Internet trolls, one can refer to tables from the paper showing low Dark Tetrad scores for everyone in the study . . . except the trolls. Their scores for all four traits soar on the chart. The relationship between trolling and the Dark Tetrad is so significant that the authors write in their paper:

"... the associations between sadism and GAIT (Global Assessment of Internet Trolling) scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists." [emphasis added]

Trolls truly enjoy making you feel bad. To quote the authors once more (because this is a truly quotable article): "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun. . . and the Internet is their playground!"

The next time you encounter a troll online, remember:

1. These trolls are some truly difficult people.
2. It is your suffering that brings them pleasure, so the best thing you can do is ignore them.

References
Buckels, Erin E., Paul D. Trapnell, and Delroy L. Paulhus. "Trolls just want to have fun." Personality and Individual Differences67 (2014): 97-102.

www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists%3famp

The trouble is they asked people who would describe trolling as their “favourite internet activity”. I think most mean comments are made because someone is in a bad mood, feeling spiteful or just occasionally fancies it, rather than gleefully dedicating free time to being nasty.

I disagree with the idea that “trolls” are a faceless force of evil who hide behind the computer all day to attack people. They’re just normal people who sometimes make controversial comments - which is arguably scarier, I don’t know.

Of course you do get the odd weirdo who is actually some psychopath setting aside time to verbally abuse people online, but I think it’s rare

I had people like this in my life so I know the type very, very well... there are a few people on here who I would say fit the description. I would say to anyone on here, but particularly people who have/had an abusive partner or parents: t's very easy when you get get thread full of nuanced supportive replies and one absolutely horrible one, to zone in on the horrible one and want to answer it. Don't. Look at the other ones. Someone who goes straight in with the character assassination does not have your best interests at heart, and you're not going to be able to talk them into seeing things from your point of view.

I feel very reassured knowing that there is a Global Assessment of Internet Trolling.

Not sure that they are all sadists or all conform to one label.

They will all have different situation. Some will be in great pain not understand that causing other people pain doesn't help in the long run, some looking for attention even if it's negative, some enjoy the drama of imaging the other person getting worked up.

There's the people who lie for different reasons. Piss poor and decide to scam people is the only way out regular scammers. People who want people to talk to them but think they aren't interesting enough without making stuff up. People who do it just to see how many people they can fool. Or do it and drop info, that hints they are lying so that when some points out it doesn't make sense they lead the charge on bullying the person who can clearly see the big lies. These people enjoy bullying others and enjoy getting others to bully for them. They set it up so they have a reason to bully and play victim and have others to do their dirty work.

Some will be sadist.

What ever the reason, I do agree with the advice. Feeding it, doesn't help. But included in that, we all have a responsibility to not feed them. If you are a person that always jumps on board with the bullying of someone who points out inconsistencies then you are also feeding the trolls.

People who jump in to offer financial and practical support and the 'I will dm you hun' crowd are feeding the trolls. Obviously people are supporting because they think the person is genuine. But often they haven't even considered the person might not be and not thought critically about it and are, inadvertently, making the issue worse and having the troll what they want.

And those people will have different personality types or motivations.

I don't think it's as simple as saying the trolls issue is sadism.

I think from the responses that we all have varying definitions of what trolling is. Personally, I think there are different kinds of trolling such as making things up, creating threads or responding to threads in an outlandish or humorous way for entertainment. But I think the study defined trolling within the parameters of repeatedly posting nasty, hurtful, abusive comments aiming at one or a few other posters; deliberately derailing conversations, threatening people, inciting hatred etc.

I don’t think that they simply sought out people who enjoy trolling the internet, I think it was one of the many questions in the survey. Then they saw a correlation between people who answered yes I like trolling the internet and them also scoring high on the personality test designed to identify low to high scores on the dark tetrad personality traits.

Those who typically scored low on the scale within the personality test typically answered no to the question in the survey that asked if you like trolling people on the internet. And people who scored high on the scale within the personality test typically answered yes.

This is what led to the conclusion that people who typically engage in trolling the internet have sadistic traits in line with the personality traits of the dark tetrad.

Hekatestorch
These people enjoy bullying others and enjoy getting others to bully for them. They set it up so they have a reason to bully and play victim and have others to do their dirty work.

@Hekatestorch isn’t that a sadistic trait to enjoy causing or witnessing someone’s distress or hurt or pain?

How did they select their sample?

@Jux I only read this article and one other article about the study, not the actual study itself. So, I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting. Especially in light of a few other news articles in the past few years about trolling and online bullying. A few tragic cases of teens and a child who were being incessantly trolled on social media to the point that they took their own life. So, in light of these tragic cases I think that it is worth learning more about trolling, what it is, what sort of people engage in it and ways of dealing with it.

Also, I read an article about how online trolling isn’t just limited to the internet but also has real life implications such as doxing, people’s personal information being shared including their address, harassment etc. Another article that I read (I would have to find it) where an investigative journalist discovered that groups of online trolls who work together and are incredibly organised targeting specific people to harass and even harm them.

So, considering how this affects the society that we are raising our children in, their internet safety, I wondered what people on Mumsnet thought. However, there hasn’t been much of a response for discussion. Oh well.

www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/10767690

Internet trolls are not who I thought — they're even scarier
By Ginger Gorman
Posted Fri 1 Feb 2019 at 7:00pm

Myth 1: Trolls are alone in their mothers' basements

With one exception, the trolls I investigated did not troll alone.

Many of them operated in well-organised international syndicates. Trolling has its own culture, language, "lore" and history — most of which is incredibly hard to grasp from the outside.

Some of the syndicates even have presidents and vice presidents, much like the way bikie gangs operate.

They all know each other and occasionally swap syndicates and allegiances. Sometimes the syndicates work together to achieve a certain aim — like targeting a specific victim.

@Oceanbliss

Hekatestorch These people enjoy bullying others and enjoy getting others to bully for them. They set it up so they have a reason to bully and play victim and have others to do their dirty work.

@Hekatestorch isn’t that a sadistic trait to enjoy causing or witnessing someone’s distress or hurt or pain?

Yes it is. I gave different examples of people who are trolling..and said some of them are sadists.

Yes, that group would be the group that are sadists.

However, they aren't the only type of troll.

I do think everyone knows trolls can impact people's real lives.

The thing is though I think your only going to answer yes to I like trolling if you are a sadist/psychopath/narcissist. Plenty of people will troll and not answer yes to that question

I think tbh a lot of the mean comments on MN just come from people who just live sad lives and want to dig the boot in to someone else so they feel better about themselves. I don't think it's necessarily a personality disorder and I don't think they would say they like trolling

Fantasy threads could be some sort of narcissism but again I don't know if these people would say they like trolling the internet

OceanBliss, I agree that who the trolls are in rl is an interesting question. The article is not so informative as we have no idea who the population is that is represented in that study - if it's Uni students who were handed a questionnaire and could fill it in if they felt it, then it doesn't tell us a great deal. I suspect that most trolls won't admit to being trolls!

I'm not criticising you, but given that the article doesn't shed that much light on the question, it's quite hard to discuss.

It's a phenomenon which needs far more research, certainly agree on that, as do so many aspects of societal change since the internet exploded.

CarrotSticks23
The thing is though I think your only going to answer yes to I like trolling if you are a sadist/psychopath/narcissist. Plenty of people will troll and not answer yes to that question

@CarrotSticks23 That’s a fair point.

@Jux I do get where you are coming from. Perhaps, I should know more about the study considering that the article is written about it.

However, if you were genuinely interested in knowing more about the actual study you could click on the link to the article which does provide references below it. If you wanted to look at the study you could do a search for it.

I’ve since had a quick look because I was interested in the demographic too. It says there was a mix of university students and adults online.

I haven’t read the full study because I haven’t had time. I posted on Mumsnet because I was interested in people’s personal opinions about the article from their own online experiences rather than a discussion examining and critiquing the study.

You know, this sounds awfully like you wrote the study and want to create interest in it for some reason.

Is a large dose of scepticism about anything people say on the internet, particularly when their writing voice sounds incredibly stilted counted as trolling?

@NeverDropYourMooncup No I did not write the study nor did I write the article. I only found it on the day I posted it.

The study is dated 2014. That’s quite a few years ago. It’s not exactly new and I googled it and found that back then it did generate a lot of interest amongst psychologists, scientists and journalists.

I just thought it was interesting.