AIBU - Rise of the Trolls

[Playingchesswithpigeons]

Hi
I've been following/part of mumsnet for over 10 years, with one name change.

I've seen over & over again over the last few years, nasty, horrible trolling comments on other poster's feeds, that either upset me/or enrage me - hormones/alcohol depending!

Luckily for me, other OP's have called the trolls/uncalled for/nasty replies before I have.
I honestly don't know if it's now a common trend?
I believe most of the trolls are parents?
How can people be so wicked and unkind, then read their children a bedtime story/tell their mates they're struggling, make up a food parcel for homeless school project, support a colleague with family illness, trot of to the school gates and discuss what a wonderful weekend they had with family adventures...

They're family & friends are none the wiser of how vicious and unkind they really are!

Wouldn't it be great, to find the real poster, copy their responses & replies from an anonymous forum to their facebook/insta.

Would they be sorry? apologise?

Why would an adult, with family, job, friends, feel the compulsion to repeatedly post vitriol on a family forum?
Is is lack of attention? are they sad/unhappy in their real life? just genuinely nasty?

I believe most of the trolls are parents?
Why would you think that?

That's the only thing you've picked up from the thread?
"mumsnet" - It's the title of the forum!
I'm guessing if we asked Justine & Co, statistically the highest demography of posters would be parents.
Dad's certainly post and so do single people, however I'm pretty sure most posters are parents!
Do you disagree? do you have knowledge I'm wrong? Is that why you've posted?

There’s quite a few absolute cesspits on this website, I’ve been involved in one over the weekend.I feel it may no longer be fit for purpose. I wonder if it affects their advertising revenue. It’s too big, too much of a cross-section, and too uncontrolled. It’s really vulnerable to bad actors. Reddit has much better moderation and doesn’t bring you into contact with bloodsuckers.

Why do you think it's helpful to discuss trolls and give them the oxygen of attention? Just report anything which distresses you or you think might be harmful to the wellbeing of others. All internet spaces have trolls.

I certainly don't think it makes any difference whether or not they're parents.

Online is full of trolls.

It’s everywhere.

Grown adults acting like edgelord teenagers

I think that anyone fantasising about finding out who the trolls are and posting stuff on their social media platforms is a bit over invested.

It’s bots, they stir up conflict and generate engagement

Not necessarily. Lots of different people and groups post on Mumsnet. There are childfree people, women that are mostly here for the feminism board, single men that lurk around the sex section, and a surprisingly large crossover with gossip forums. Some of the nasty posts are from parents (and one in particular that is prolifically spiteful and unpleasant), but many are from the other groups.

although the name mumsnet probably does draw many parents. the plethora of topics and the international 24/7 ability to get replies most likely does attract trolls.
i once read 80% of threads are fake, that being said some topics are more prone to attracting trolls and posters who simply want to stir shit.
you don't see nasty comments on gardening/pets/sen children/secondary schools.
relationships/aibu/sex and oddly religion (most likely too many others to list) seem to attract nasty comments ohhh as do most posts regarding mil and those born 50-60 years ago. the posts that i find upsetting are parents who's teens/young adults have chosen to go low contact/no contact. the parent seems to get shredded to bits, spit out and stomped on.

I mean, wind up merchants are all over the internet, it's not just MN, it's every single social media platform or discussion website.

Report the posters you think are trolling and move on with your day. You can't really implement a system that doxxes people based on an individual's perceived troll behaviour.

Everyone seems to have versions of what a troll is, I see a lot of people on here throw that word at someone who has just disagreed with them or said something they don't like.

There have been trolls on forums since the inception of the internet. It’s not a recent development and there’s nothing new to say about it.

I mean most trolls are men often with a skewed view on masculinity.
Makes sense to me that those types are attracted to a forum comprised mainly of women.
Also society has increasingly emboldened and celebrated offline trolls (MAGA, Andrew Tate, etc.) so why should people act any different online?

There are trolls because people engage with them. In a thread with 50 responses the 48 helpful comments are ignored and the 2 comments that are obviously bait get all the attention. If we all just ignored the idiots and the posts about step children that are obviously just there to start arguments they would eventually stop.

Sure, ask Justine if no men post, if childless people (of either sex) post, if only those aged 30 to 60 post - and she will say that every demographic comes here and posts. However she would not be able to tell you the percentages since posters are anonymous at registration.

This site is also targeted by MRAs and TRAs and they have posted elsewhere stating that they do. This is well known to those on the feminist board. Actually, it's also been infiltrated by one who was an intern who also caused a lot of trouble for this site. I don't think they were a parent either 🤔

You've just given them a whole thread of their own, you're just encouraging them. If you ignore them they don't get the rise they want so move on.

MN allows it though. I asked them the other day to move a SEN subject from AIBU to the SEN boards so the OP could be given good advice, rather than a bunch of trolls slagging off children with severe disabilities and giving useless advice, and they didn't.

Anything that would be blatantly homophobic would be taken down, but slagging off disabled children is far game on here according to MN.

If you can make time to watch it, South Park season 20 explains the motivation behind trolling, especially why otherwise "normal" people (like average parents who have families and a respectable job) get a kick out of it.

Spoiler alert/TLDR:
Basically it's because they find it funny to press people's buttons. The humour is because it generates a chain reaction of outrage. For example person A trolls person B, but person B isn't actually the target. The target is a group of people (C) who get outraged on B's behalf. Then another group (D) over-react to C's defence of B, and it spirals.

There are a lot of bitter and angry people on MN. They get the only joy in their life in trolling. It's hardly surprising that some of the people we interact with online have no life.

There are also so many who use MN to write things they would never say in real life, so they have their dream identity on here, pretending to be clever and strong. Trolling makes them feel important. It's quite sad really, but they're mainly boring.

I agree that I got sucked into that thread. I should have bloody ignored it. Life is hard enough without people being dicks about vulnerable people though.

the problem is that often it's difficult to know if you are interacting with a troll or with an idiot.