‘I hope you die with this Covid.’
Someone showed great sensitivity and empathy with Amitabh Bachchan when tweeting this remark, after the celebrity and his son were hospitalized for displaying Covid 19 symptoms in July. Big B, normally not liable to provocation, retaliated by questioning that person’s parentage and exhorting his fans to ‘Thok do saale ko!’ Actor Sonu Sood—the messiah of migrant labour and students—who has arranged for at least 7 lakh hapless people to reach their homes during the lockdown, has not been spared either. He has been called the ‘biggest scam of 2020.’
Actor Kangana Ranaut is very much in the news nowadays, though not exactly for her acting prowess. She has called fellow actor Urmila Matondkar ‘a soft porn actress’; actors Swara Bhaskar and Taapsee Pannu ‘B-grade starlets’, and has also compared Mumbai to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, something which will not exactly endear her to Mumbaikars. She has taken on Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray as well.
Libtards and andhbhakts—as supporters of the Congress and the BJP are ‘fondly’ known as—go hammer and tongs daily online, flinging accusations and jibes at each other, like mortar shells at the enemy on a battlefield.
Welcome to the world of social media and, as a consequence, the world of online trolling.
Who is a troll? An internet troll is someone who intentionally makes inflammatory, rude statements online to provoke and upset others, or to steer the conversation off-topic. Most trolls do this for their own amusement, but certain forms of trolling are done to push a specific agenda.
Twitter has become a hotbed for internet trolls, its option for its members to remain anonymous making it very attractive. Trolling also happens extensively on sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Facebook gets particularly intense when there are national or international events going on. Arguments are endless in supply, and comments from both sides trying to get a rise out of the other often appear in the threads of a post.
However, please note that just because there is a debate or discussion going on, it doesn’t mean that trolling is taking place. Someone who argues a point isn’t trolling. Someone who makes a wild and unwarranted comment about that person’s mother is. Someone who brings something off-topic into the conversation in order to annoy others is.
Trolling isn’t hard to spot, even if you’re not sure what to look for. Trolls aren’t masters of debate. They just enjoy stirring the pot. They often go completely off-topic from the subject at hand to annoy and disrupt. They refuse to acknowledge evidence, even when presented with cold, hard facts, using a dismissive, condescending tone. They are uninterested in a real discussion. Logic will not convince them. They don’t want to be convinced. Even if they are, they will not admit it publicly; so there will be no closure to a debate.
Most of them do not troll under their real names, secure in their anonymity. Most of them have nothing better to do with their lives.
The comment sections of YouTube, news websites and anonymous online forums like Reddit and 4chan are prime real estate for online trolls. On many comment threads there are users who say something like ‘this video sucks,’ ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about, as@#*%e’--many remarks often characterized by profanity and insults. Sometimes trolling can even escalate to death threats, bullying, and psychologically damaging harassment. Because there’s no way of tracing who that someone is, trolls can post very inflammatory content without repercussion. This is especially true if the forum has lax or inactive moderation.
So how does one handle them? Here are a few suggestions, though I do not claim to be an expert.
The thumb rule regarding trolling is—Do not feed the trolls. Trolls seek to provoke and want an outburst from you. Replying or attempting to debate them will only make them troll more. Just ignore them. That is the last thing trolls want—to be ignored. It is then likely they’ll become frustrated and go somewhere else.
Delete their comments. Block them.
You can also opt to report them to the site’s moderation team. Depending on the website, there’s a chance nothing happens, but you should do your part. If your report is successful, the troll may be temporarily suspended or his account may get banned entirely.
If you cannot resist the urge to respond, do so with humour or sarcasm. That will be effective too and the trolls will realize you’re not one to be messed with. When J.K.Rowling tweeted a few years ago about the plight of refugees, she was trolled with ‘Said the millionaire on her gold iPhone in her mansion’; to which the Harry Potter creator responded with ‘I’d type a longer retort, but these diamond buttons really hurt my fingers.’ When trolls threatened to burn her books and DVDs that were in their possession, she offered to lend her cigarette lighter, since she already had their money.
Model and actor Milind Soman made a dig at the PM on his 70th birthday recently, wishing him good health and ‘a good and proactive opposition, to push you to do better for our great country :)’. The reply from the PM’s Office was, ‘Thank you for your birthday wishes and wishful thinking. :)’ Subtle and witty, I think—an example of soft trolling and a good response.
Trolling is here to stay, I fear. It is as certain as death and taxes.
But to look at the bright side, if there is one, there’s never a dull moment on social media. How can there be, with Kangana around?
Beetashok Chatterjee is the author of Driftwood, a collection of stories about Life at Sea. A ship’s captain by profession, he joined the Merchant Navy at a young age and now misses it, having just retired after completing more than forty years at sea.
His book is available on Amazon. Click here.
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