By John Mokwetsi
I am a latecomer to the Internet slang word, trolling, that describes the prevalent habit of posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
What prompted this blog was a BBC Panorama investigative piece that tracked and exposed online bullies in the UK who hide behind false names on social networks to post racist and abusive comments leading in worst cases to tragic ends like death.
A case in point is that of Thomas Mullaney, 15, from Bournville, in Birmingham,who killed himself in May 2010 after being threatened on Facebook.
His parents Robert and Tracy have called for a new law to specifically target bullying/Internet Trolling.
In an interview BBC Radio 1 and 5 live survey of 1,000 people aged 13 to 19 also showed 52% of them would accept a friend request on Facebook from someone they did not know directly, while 29% thought their reputation had been damaged by something they had said or shared online.
Being a Facebook junkie I have noted with concern the habit of trolling on Zimbabwean social network forum. Okay! Facebook to be more specific.
I cannot place my finger on the reason why we are so angry, so abusive and feel we can replace fact with vulgar words and slander when discussing issues that needs a logical argument only reason can solve.
Trolling has reached unparalleled levels and the amount of hate language on soccer fanpages and well-meaning advisory groups on relationships/education is scary and it gets worse as most Zimbabweans join social networks after the mobile broadband boom.
Politicians like Minister Welshman Ncube and our own PM Morgan Tsvangirai must be discovering with much disappointment that Facebook is not be the platform to engage citizens, not at this moment at least. Often discussions on policy turn into mudslinging before hitting an all time low with trolls asking about sex positions.
Recently browsing local music on Youtube, some of the comments on local music videos was unflattering and unprintable on this blog, prompting one user to ask a question I also have for you all: "Why do we pull each other down so much isusu maZimbo."?
I am not cut to be a troll but I see them on my page once in a while and for that I feel it is time to leave Facebook unless Mark and company promise a radical approach to dealing with these bullies.
interesting article. people have now taken social platforms and other online discussion forums as places where they come to vent, hiding behind pseudo names.Rarely do you get valuable comments on well meaning topics.
ReplyDeleteI find it shocking the amount of snarky unpleasant things that get said on sites like Facebook and Youtube. I've spent a week or two satisfying my curiosity about the age range, and without generalising too much, it does appear to be a the mid to late teen early twenty something (there are of course exceptions) that feels the need to be offensive. The platforms of old would have been groups of kids outside of shops or in parks abusing the odd random stranger walking past and looking vulnerable ... nowadays the platform is the internet and anyone anywhere famous or otherwise can be a victim. I just searched Trolls having looked at some of the comments made about Adele's Skyfall tune on Youtube.
ReplyDeleteIt's all very strange, I feel the urge to rebuff the comments I see and point out that mostly what's being said is pointless, arrogant, stupid or attention seeking (that would appear to me to be the most common type). However being the parent of a teenager I know it's pointless. Their mouths engage before their brains, it's posturing, a way of defining themselves in a time of change. The problem as you have highlighted, is that for every gobshite teenage troll, there is a hapless victim who may take the comment to heart.
Difficult to police, difficult to moderate, but far more interesting for me is how in time these trolls will develop socially in the real world when their ill manners and victimisation go unchecked and those habits formed online start to manifest in the real world.