14 September 2011 Last updated at 17:58

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Trolling: Who does it and why?

By Tom de Castella and Virginia Brown BBC News Magazine

Celebrities are often targets for abuse

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An internet "troll" has been jailed for mocking dead teenagers on various websites. Public figures, including Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart, have also been victims of trolling. So what is it and why do people do it?

For some the word derives from a fishing term for towing bait behind a boat, for others it comes from the Norse monsters. But today trolling is more likely to involve a keyboard and mouse than a trawler, and if not a monster, it is a very modern menace.

Opponents might characterise it as the internet equivalent of road rage, vandalising a grave, or kicking a man when he's down.

Trolling is a phenomenon that has swept across websites in recent years. Online forums, Facebook pages and newspaper comment forms are bombarded with insults, provocations or threats. Supporters argue it's about humour, mischief and freedom of speech. But for many the ferocity and personal nature of the abuse verges on hate speech.

In its most extreme form it is a criminal offence. On Tuesday Sean Duffy was jailed for 18 weeks after posting offensive messages and videos on tribute pages about young people who had died. One of those he targeted was 15-year-old Natasha MacBryde, who had been killed by a train. "I fell asleep on the track lolz" was one of the messages he left on a Facebook page set up by her family.

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High-profile cases

• Natasha MacBryde - Sean Duffy was jailed for 18 weeks for posts on social networking sites about the 15-year-old after she took her own life
• Hayley Bates - MP Karen Bradley raised trolling in Parliament after a Facebook page was set up mocking the 17-year-old's death in a car crash
• Jade Goody - Colm Coss was jailed for 18 weeks after posting obscene messages on Facebook sites set up in memory of the Big Brother star and several other dead people

Duffy is the second person to be jailed for trolling in the UK. Last year Colm Coss was imprisoned for posting obscene messages on Facebook tribute sites, including that of Jade Goody.

Trolling appears to be part of an international phenomenon that includes cyberbullying. One of the first high-profile cases emerged in the US state of Missouri in 2006, when 13-year-old Megan Meier killed herself after being bullied online. The bully, Lori Drew, was a middle-aged neighbour who had set up a MySpace account to win - and later betray - her trust. Drew was acquitted of unauthorised computer use in 2009 due to concerns that a conviction would criminalise false online identities.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects free speech and makes it difficult to punish people who post offensive messages. But concern over internet vitriol is growing.

Facebook's former marketing director Randi Zuckerberg and Google head Eric Schmidt have both suggested anonymous posting should be phased out.

One of the difficulties is that trolling is a broad term, taking in everything from a cheeky provocation to violent threats. And why people do it continues to baffle the experts.

"Online people feel anonymous and disinhibited," says Prof Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University. "They lower their emotional guard and in the heat of the moment may troll either reactively or proactively."

It is usually carried out by young adult males for amusement, boredom and revenge, he adds.

Arthur Cassidy, a social media psychologist, says young people's determination to create an online identity makes them vulnerable to trolling. Secrecy is jettisoned in favour of self-publicity on Facebook, opening the way for ridicule, jealousy and betrayal.

And the need to define themselves through their allegiance to certain celebrities creates a world in which the rich and famous become targets for personal abuse. As a result trolling is "virtually uncontrollable" until the government forces websites to clamp down, he says.

But it's not just young people. Scan any football, music or fan site and there are people of all ages taking part in the most vituperative attacks. But many of the theories that have been put forward as to why people do it don't stand up, says Tom Postnes, professor of social psychology at Groningen University in the Netherlands.

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View from the internet forums

Will Brooks on setting up Myfootballclub.co.uk

It was £35 to join MyFC so I don't think anyone joined with the intention of trolling. But disagreements on the forum all too easily turned to abuse. Finding out that respected professionals in their mid-fifties could post in that way was an eye opener. I've since discovered that forums have a habit of turning sour as it only takes a minority to skew them. As a format they've lost their innocence.

After researching "flaming" - the term for trolling in the early days of the internet - he rejects the idea that people "lose it" when online. If anything they become more attuned to social convention, albeit the specific conventions of the web. Provoking people appears to be the norm in some online communities, he says.

Most trolling is not criminal - it's about having a laugh, says Rob Manuel, co-founder of the website B3ta, which specialises in altering photographs for comic effect. "Trolling taps into people's desire to poke fun, make trouble and cause annoyance," he says.

He first became aware of the phenomenon in the 90s when a friend cross-posted on fan sites for Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, asking: "Who'd win in a fight - the Emperor or Gandalf?" Manuel says his friend sat back and laughed like some "mad scientist looking at insects in a jar" as hundreds of passionate posts followed.

'No guilt'

We're all capable of becoming a troll, says Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist in the US and author of You Are Not A Gadget. Lanier admits he has sometimes behaved badly online and believes the cloak of anonymity can encourage people to react in extreme ways.

"The temptation is there and we can get caught up in impulses. If someone reacts, it's emotional and it can be hard to get out of. We can all become trolls."

Former Facebook executive Zuckerberg says anonymous posting should be phased out

Twitter has given the public direct access to celebrities. And stars, including Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart, have temporarily left the website after coming under fire. Internet experts say the key is not to "feed the troll" by offering them a response. Comedian Dom Joly takes a different approach.

He describes himself as "troll slayer" and takes pleasure in tracking down the culprits and exposing them to public shame, especially from close family.

"There's something about a bully that really annoys me," he says. "They'll say something online that they'd never dare to say to your face."

The deviousness is "freaky". He discovered that one of those who'd threatened him was a 14-year-old girl with nine different online identities. They aren't always very intelligent about how they do it, he says.

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The law

• The Communications Act 2003 governs the internet, email, mobile phone calls and text messaging
• Under section 127 of the act it is an offence to send messages that are "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"
• The offence occurs whether those targeted actually receive the message or not

• Communications Act 2003 - Section 127

"One guy tweeted from his work account that he hoped my kids die of cancer. I let the MD of the firm know and the guy was fired. I felt no guilt, he should have gone to prison."

Some think regulation is needed, but trolling is not the internet's fault, says Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts. "The internet does not create special threats. It's a public square where people will be saying all sorts of things, some of them offensive."

The answer is for newspaper websites and online forums to employ sufficient moderators to prevent the comments spiralling into petty vendettas, he says. To ban online anonymity in order to prevent trolling would be to remove the right of whistleblowers and dissidents to get their message across, he adds.

Manuel agrees. "People are saying nasty, stupid things. So deal with it. Shutting down free speech and stamping on people's civil liberties is not a price worth paying."

Interesting follow up on the whole issue of Trolling

First of all any racist, sexist, bullying, or harassing people must be reported. You can do this by clicking on the “flag” link at the bottom of their post on the group page. The message will appear that you have flagged this person and that you can also report them. Click on “report” and from the dropdown menu select “attacks individual or group”. This will notify Facebook that this person is acting outside of Facebook rules, which expressly state:

1. You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
2. You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
3. You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.

Facebook themselves suggest how best to deal with trolls

Simply put, Formspringing is a one-dimensional social network that allows anyone to ask anyone absolutely anything.  That’s all you do. You get asked a question, and you answer it. Or, you post a question, sit back, and watch the anonymous (and mostly crude) answers pile up.

This is a fantastic overview of Formspring (last year) from one of the best commentators around.

Bullying

A further incident of suicide apparently prompted by bullying on Formspring was the untimely death of 15-year old Natasha MacBryde, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, United Kingdom. The Coroner's enquiry heard that she received anonymous personal abuse via the website on 13 February 2011; this appears to have compounded bullying and teenage anxiety into a level where, having researched suicide methods, Natasha took her own life on the 14th February, 2011.^{[19][dubious – discuss]}

the Wikipedia entry calls it a "question-and-answer-based social website" but it has recently seen a reduction in users and could be considered as past it's prime.

Natasha MacBryde, who threw herself under a train, was the victim of internet ‘trolls’ who posted a picture of her on a tribute site under the banner: ‘I caught the train to heaven LOL.’

Tragedy: Natasha MacBryde killed herself on railway lines near Bromsgrove on Valentines day

A video called ‘Tasha The Tank Engine’ was also removed from YouTube.

The 15-year-old had received a threatening message through the social networking site Formspring days before she died.

It read: ‘You’re a f***ing slut hiding under all your make-up. You think you’re pretty and that all the guys like you.

‘Start acting nice to people or you will lose everyone.’

The teenager had used the internet to research suicide methods an hour before her death on February 12.

She was found on the line in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the following day.

A pupil at the £10,000-a-year Royal Grammar School in Upper Tything, Worcester, she was bullied by a group of girls who called themselves ‘The Ten’.

‘She came home from school in floods of tears and said she wanted to leave,’ her mother Catherine MacBryde, 43, said.

Worcestershire Coroner Geraint Williams said one of the online bullies – a male – had been identified and dealt with.

‘I anticipate that none of you have heard of a thing called “trolling”,’ he told a jury. ‘It appears to be a fairly violent, disgusting habit.

‘They set up websites after the death of a person and post foul and disgusting comments.’

The jury to took 40 minutes to rule her death a suicide.

The anonymous postings on the Formspring site had been a ‘significant contributor’ in Natasha’s death, her family said afterwards.

‘We seek to understand the motivation of those who choose to send spiteful and vindictive messages to their peers,’ they added.

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Some background to the sad death of Natasha MacBryde and the roll that formspring played

Kids’ nontrivial interests

But here’s what I think all these sites (and parents) need to consider: Kids – being the interesting, complex human beings that they are – have at least three interests when socializing online….

1. They want to have fun by their own individual definition of “fun,” so these sites need to have a lot of features kids love – a variety of means for self-expression, socializing, media-sharing, individual and collaborative producing, and civic engagement, etc. (that last because many kids express themselves through creating, leading, and joining causes, e.g., saving an endangered species or meeting a local need).
2. They want to breathe easy and be safe – express themselves freely without having to think of the implications all the time (like all of us). Even though it’s vital that we teach them alert, mindful use of social media, they’ll want to be on a site like Togetherville or Whatswhat as well as Facebook.
3. They want to be a part of it all (partly because it’s cool but not only because of that). We need more research on this, but I think that’s a big reason why they want to be on Facebook, because “everybody’s” on FB – and not just “everybody” in their school’s 5th or 6th grade (Facebook is a platform and tool for global social change now, e.g. what happened in Egypt last winter). That desire won’t change, whether or not something replaces FB some day. It shouldn’t change, and there is a growing need for all of us to figure out how to close the “participation gap” for kids under 13 (see what USC Prof. Henry Jenkins means by that). Because the unprecedented thing about digital media, which children understand, is how these new media allow anybody to participate and make a difference now – on a global stage (see Clay Shirky’s talk on this). This has tremendous promise for, among other things, our children’s formal and informal learning in, after, and beyond school.

For many of us our children experience a lot of peer pressure to join FB and other social networks under 13. Follow the link to get the whole article, but there are alternatives and it is worth understanding the motivations.

Unless you stay off Facebook entirely, you can’t stop others from finding your profile or seeing photos of you. But in a few minutes, you can at least make it harder for them to search you out.

3 useful tips:
- protect your personal profile
- keep your name out of photos
- check your visibility

Facebook has recently rolled out a new feature which means that if you're a member of this very popular social networking website you could find yourself being "tagged" in a lot more photos from now on. 

The site is starting to use facial recognition technology - meaning it can recognise your face in photos - and in a controversial move, it's not letting people know about it . 

This means that when people upload photos, Facebook automatically "reads" them, and can detect whether or not you're in that photo.  Your Facebook contacts can then "tag" you, meaning the photo appears on your profile page and is linked to your account.  Facebook have posted an informative official blog entry saying that this makes things more convenient for its users but many have criticised the company, saying it raises concerns around privacy.

If you're worried about this and wish to turn the feature off, here's how to do it:

1. On the top right hand side of your Facebook homepage (when logged in) click "Account" and then "Privacy Settings"
2. Under the list of options in the centre of the screen, click on the small blue text link named "Customise settings" - this has a pencil symbol next to it
3. Scroll to the second section on that page - under "Things others share", click the grey "Edit settings" button next to the words "Suggest photos of me to friends"
4. A box will pop up on your screen, with photos of your friends. Under this,you'll see "Suggest photos of me to friends" again, and the grey button next to it which says "Enabled"
5. Click on this button, select "Disabled" and then save this option and close the box by clicking "OK"

 

You can find out more on the following (non-BBC) websites:

• The Register - Facebook quietly switches on facial recognition tech
• Wired.co.uk - Facebook silently rolls out face recognition technology to the world
• Reuters - Facebook facial recognition technology sparks renewed concerns
• The Telegraph - Facebook facial recognition system criticised
• The Facebook Blog - Making photo tagging easier

BBC News Technology have just covered this story too - you can find their article here.

In case you're not familar with Facebook, we have an article explaining what it is - and a blog entry, which you can find here.

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helpful stuff

QUESTION: What five things would you tell parents that they must explain to their kids about cyberspace?

MARY KAY HOAL: Picking just five things is hard, but here goes:

1. Think before you post because you own what you post. We tell this to kids in Yoursphere as well because it really holds a lot of weight.
2. Nothing on the Internet is private. Whether it’s a message or a photo, it lives somewhere, even after you think you’ve deleted it.
3. Refrain from sharing personally identifiable information, also known as PII. This is a great acronym for kids to remember. Often, our kids don’t know that putting their first and last names, birthday, home address, school name, or phone/cell number can have serious consequences. Parents must explain why it’s not necessary for kids to share this information online.
4. Understand that there are real world consequences to your online actions. Engaging in acts like cyberbullying or sexting can land kids in serious trouble nowadays. Since “you own what you post,” there will always be a trail leading back to your actions, whether you’re the bully or the victim.
5. Treat others the way you want to be treated. The age-old Golden Rule is probably one of the best rules for Internet use. Simply put, if you don’t want to be made fun of, don’t make fun of others.

Allan Pratt interviewed Mary Kay Hoal (@marykayhoal) and I wanted to share her top 5 things to explain to your children because they are great. Of course there is a lot of other stuff to share/understand but these 5 are a fantastic start.

A teen whose "sweet 16" turned quite sour when the Facebook invite to her party resulted in 1,600 strangers showing up at her house says she feels "terrible" about what happened, and now is reluctant "to go outside because I feel so ashamed and worried.

don't forget to make your invites private