They come in all shapes, forms, manners of caps lock, and misspelled profanity, but one thing’s certain: no one likes an internet troll.
Internet trolls are the thorn in the side of most people who dare to express an opinion on the internet. Trolls are the people completely disinterested in honest debate, but love to hit and run. They comment on blog posts, news articles, Facebook posts and anywhere else the internet provides a forum for their psychosis to be displayed in all its demented glory.
Here are a few types of common blog trolls:
Regular Troll – This guy is openly 180-degrees opposed to the purpose and/or ideological orientation of the blog. Whatever you’re for, he’s against, and vice-versa…. False-Flag Troll – This guy pretends to be on your side, but he’s really not. Claiming to be a conservative, he inevitably advances messages that are anti-conservative. His purpose is to sow confusion, discord and demoralization. Concern Troll – A subspecies of false-flag troll. The Obama campaign deployed a swarm of concern trolls in fall 2008. They were recognizable by the 3-point argument that went something like this: (1) I’m a committed conservative/lifelong Republican, but (2) I’m concernedabout [something the Republicans had said or done], and therefore (3) I’m thinking I might vote for Obama on Election Day…. Agent Provocateur Troll – Another false-flag subspecies, who aims to elicit unsavory or disreputable comments from other commenters, which can then be quoted to discredit the blog.
Then there are other internet trolls, like those who spend all their waking hours tweeting and emailing people.
Or, sending you an all caps lock laded tweet telling you to “WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!”, showing up unsolicited to tell you just how wrong you are, in brutal terms but offering no reasons other than “because your dumb [sic]“, and in many cases, all out harassing you just because they have nothing better to do from their mother’s basement, internet trolls are an unfortunate byproduct of technological progress. But I guess we can thank Al Gore’s invention of the internet for that.
Researchers in Canada decided to explore what types of people make up the majority of the internets trolls.