Thank you, Ela Özcan, for such a topical question! Online trolling is a tricky issue, and your question needs to be analysed carefully for a proper answer.
We need to start by defining exactly what we mean by trolling. Many use the term just to describe aggressive behavior online: trolls, here, are people who tend to insult, deride and even threaten others in the comment section of a social media post. When two people’s worldviews severely clash, and when through a newsfeed all one knows about the other is their opinion and profile picture, it is easy to downplay them as morons and rub it in their faces. The perceived distance from the other in the digital world and the absence of immediate consequences of aggressive behavior also contribute to incivility towards those we disagree with.
However, there is another way to define trolling. On this understanding, trolling is not just being aggressive online; it also consists of a specific attitude, in insulting and threatening someone online not because of a strong disagreement, but with the precise aim of upsetting as many people as possible and to actively cause emotional harm and as much overreaction and self-righteousness in other people as possible.
I will now try to answer the question: Why do trolls troll? There are no doubt many reasons: boredom, defiance, an assholish sense of humour – to name but a few. However, trolling in this sense has a specific aim: to challenge common sense morality and to upset as many people as possible while challenging their standards of what is harmful, what is acceptable and what is funny (that is, their sense of humour). By triggering you, trolls aim to have you “get off your high horse”. In other words, trolls challenge their target by overturning the latter’s moral and social values, causing people to fight over these values; the troll revels in everyone’s rage and gains visibility online – that, for a troll, is success.
Trolling is also characterized by a form of intellectualistic arrogance, as trolls desire to show their intellectual superiority to their targets. In fact, playing dirty to show intellectual superiority is no stranger to Western philosophy. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer insisted that in order to win an argument, dirty tricks are fundamental: provoke your opponent into losing their patience and berate them when it happens; distort and exaggerate your opponent’s argument; aim to win no matter what it takes. Even Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, annoyed people by asking them questions about their values, letting them talk while professing his ignorance on the matter, then proceeding to turn their argument upside down and berate them for a lack of reflection; only then, after chastising and making fun of his opponent’s presumed knowledge, would he reveal his own opinion as the objective one. In this sense, trolling can be seen, paradoxically, as a philosophical enterprise – a truly immoral one.
These reasons for trolling should still be taken with a pinch of salt, especially considering more recent years. Due to its effectiveness and the speed with which people can react on social media, trolling has also been used as a political strategy to create divisiveness and perceived polarization among citizens online, thus damaging democratic debate. It has been shown, for instance, that russian-based trolls between 2016 and 2018 infested the USA Twitter landscape with the aim of polarizing public opinion through aggressive behavior and by sowing discord and misinformation. Trolling, then, can also have a strictly political aim, close to the ‘philosophical’ one: to create chaos and radicalize citizens for a political gain.
What do you think? Why do people troll? Let us know in the comments.
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I did my BA in Rome, Università La Sapienza, where I graduated with a thesis about the contemporary debate on personal identity. I am now doing my Research Master’s in Philosophy of Mind at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. I am specifically researching how digital environments (and especially social networking sites) influence our understanding of the world and of others. I like Wittgenstein and theories of extended cognition, which argue that items external to the brain can constitute cognitive processes. I am fascinated by the idea of the cyborg and how the digital revolution is changing our understanding of the world.