"Online Trolls are Everyday Sadists"

[mainer]

Something I've always suspected:

(CNN) -- If you've ever complained that the trolls junking up online comment sections are a bunch of sadistic psychopaths, you might be onto something.

An online survey by a group of Canadian researchers suggests that Internet trolls are more likely than others to show signs of sadism, psychopathy and "Machiavellianism": a disregard for morality and tendency to manipulate or exploit others.

"It was sadism, however, that had the most robust associations with trolling of any of the personality measures," says an article by psychologists from the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg and University of British Columbia. "In fact, the associations between sadism and ... scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists."

Sadism is a tendency to take pleasure in other people's pain or discomfort.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/11/tech/web/online-trolls-sadists/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

[seabeyond]

1. very interesting. i think i am seeing an example right at this moment, lol.

interesting, thanks.

[RKP5637]

2. I think this is quite valid looking at the comments on some websites particularly

comments on major newspaper sites.

[Scuba]

9. Yep, the Milwaukee Urinal/Sentinel site is infested beyond hope.

[Faux pas]

3. Oh Bingo!!!

Thanks for posting this. We should save and use the link to use on the trolls here!

[arely staircase]

4. I like youtube comments

where else will you learn that the Nazis were actually the good guys in WWII?

[bemildred]

5. Trolls just want attention, and it makes them feel less impotent.

And the paid ones just want to waste your time any way they can.

[1000words]

6. Something about the "anonymity" of the web ...

that encourages folks to communicate things they wouldn't dare face-to-face.

[Rex]

7. No doubt.

Only somebody that sick would pay to troll a website or return after being shown the door X amount of times. Which would also seem to suggest they are masochists as well.

[mainer]

8. Having just read "Trial by Fury," I have no doubt this is true

Shocking look at the behavior of people online.

http://www.amazon.com/Trial-By-Fury-Internet-Savagery-ebook/dp/B00CDU1H98/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

[polly7]

10. I can't even stomach reading the comments on YouTube, or

any media channel anymore. I accidentally scrolled down the other night on a Canadian news channel's Olympic coverage. So much hate and bigotry, it was hard to imagine a human being was actually writing those things.

[el_bryanto]

11. There's obviously a difference between disagreeing with someone and trolling though

While I don't doubt that some people are trolling just to stir the shit (so to speak), and that's not good behavior, it's also easy enough to determine that someone who disagrees with you and doesn't seem to want to change their mind even after you've explained how they are wrong is just a troll. Because if they are just a troll you don't have to deal with the discomfort of a good intelligent person who has come to different position than yourself.

Bryant

[Fumesucker]

12. There's also a difference between trolling and being a troll

Trolling is something a lot of posters do from time to time, put up something not entirely seriously to make a point or even a joke.

Look at the OP I wrote this reply to and how many posters got totally sucked into it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4447442

Then there's being a Troll.

I, Troll.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3430503

[chrisa]

13. What I really hate is the overreaction to trolls.

Examples include not allowing anonymous user names (which can be faked anyways), or having "report" features to tell on people when they aren't necessary (while it's necessary to maintain a discussion on DU, on sites like YouTube it's just stupid and I doubt they actually look at any of them. They just count the number if reports they get and ban you at a threshold, which is even worse).

We don't need to be babysat to avoid Neo-Nazis, sexists, racists, etc. It's pretty silly. Just don't respond to the trolls and they don't get what they want.

What will Google do next? Demand a valid credit card and compare names? It's silly.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. "Machiavellianism": An almost scientific-sounding word, made up by a giant media corporation.

Apparently the Vice President in Charge of Irony's office was on vacation.

[TheMathieu]

15. Anonymity has as many detrimental effects as positive ones. nt

[redgreenandblue]

16. A troll used to be someone ...

... who signed on at a network security board under the name "l33t hax0r NeO Teh Chosen One" and asked for advice on cracking email accounts. Usually the person doing so was a regular on said board who did this as a form of prank.

This new epedemic of online harassment has little to do with trolling.

[woo me with science]

18. Now, we deal with orchestrated political propaganda and harassment designed to disrupt dissent.

Last edited Wed Feb 12, 2014, 12:01 PM - Edit history (1)

We are not talking about "trolls" out for personal shits and giggles. We are talking about hired harassment within online gathering places that serves the same purpose as pepper spray at Occupy rallies. Hired posters dispense corporate talking points and disinformation, divert from discussion of important issues, and harass and smear efforts to organize against what is being done by corporatists to this country.

States that turn authoritarian always create a propaganda machine to gradually take the place of the free press they systematically dismantle.

What we are observing in this country right now is nothing short of chilling. From the implementation of a spying infrastructure whose capabilities dwarf that of any totalitarian government the world has yet known, to the systematic assaults on whistleblowers and the attempted criminalization of investigative journalism itself, we are living in very scary times.

And now we also get to see, for perhaps the first time in its full flowering, the scope and depth and relentlessness of the propaganda machine they are building. It is omnipresent, down to discussion boards on the internet.

It is difficult to recognize America anymore. I hope it is still possible to save it.

Governments that turn authoritarian find people by the hundreds who do not hesitate to sell their morality and human decency in order to shill for policies that exploit, imprison, impoverish, or murder human beings by the millions for the profit and power of a few.

Some may eventually find their conscience and regret their complicity. In general, though, I suspect that this line of work attracts those who rarely struggle with such internal voices in the first place.

[geek tragedy]

23. "This whole who-is-the-paid-shill witch hunt is disruptive nonsense.

It betrays an utter lack of creativity on the part of the people making the accusation. They are so convinced that they are right that they cannot imagine someone else might hold a different point of view in good faith. Either that or they are incapable of advocating for their own point of view on the merits."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1259&pid=2716

[woo me with science]

24. Denial of the flatly obvious.

How often we are propagandized to disbelieve what is blatantly in front of us.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Drone murders are Legal, Ethical, and Wise.
Health Care is Affordable.
Obama put Social Security Cuts in his Budget, because he Opposes Them.
Edward Snowden is the Traitor.
There is no Spying on Americans.
And There is no Corporate Propaganda Influx.

The influx of corporate propaganda-spouting posters is blatant and unnatural.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3189367

And the influx will continue until this board looks like Corporate Defense Underground. A pattern is evident.

We are not talking last-century MSM propaganda on TV and radio. We are talking highly targeted and interactive propaganda across the internet, such that people who believe they are merely having political discussions with others online are immediately and relentlessly countered with corporate talking points and social manipulation/mocking/bullying when they challenge the corporate party line. There is a great deal of theater going on to create the illusion that Americans support what is being done to us and have contempt for those who don't.

DU has a history and an identity that is well-known to those of us who have been here since near its beginning. The flavor of its membership was generally steady during the early years. What is happening to it now is, quite frankly, not natural. It is particularly not natural on a liberal board, given the political climate and the general distrust across the country of our government.

The number of corporatism-celebrating personas, and the ratio of them to traditional Democrats on DU, is constantly, gradually, and unnaturally increasing. The number of expected recs for a post blatantly supporting antidemocratic, anti-Constitutional, corporate (often Bush II) policies used to be in the single digits. It is gradually increasing in a way too steady to be accidental, to the point that such posts now routinely garner 50+ recs. The influx of low-count posters coming in spouting the corporate line is constant and unrealistic.

And this marked change in the quality of the participation on the board is not unique to DU. This is happening all over the internet, on all the major political boards. The corporate forces that have taken control of our government have very deep pockets. Also keep in mind that the primary goal of any state turning to authoritarianism is to manage public opinion and public response so as to reduce the likelihood of pushback and revolt. Millions of us are being pushed into poverty, and our Constitutional protections are being stripped. Of course great attention and money will be poured into managing public opinion and creating the illusion that the people support what is being done to them. And how utterly absurd to suggest that deep pockets will NOT be used to attempt to manage public response in this way.

One of the great unresearched and untold stories in the media right now, I am convinced, is the growth of the new Propaganda State alongside the Surveillance State. Governments and their corporate appendages use propaganda, and the more authoritarian and corporate governments become, the more they will rely on such "advertising" and stealth manipulation of public opinion. The level of cash and technology available now makes today's propaganda unlike any we have seen in the the past in terms of its relentlessness and interactivity.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Drone murders are Legal, Ethical, and Wise.
Health Care is Affordable.
Obama put Social Security Cuts in his Budget, because he Opposes Them.
Edward Snowden is the Traitor.
There is no Spying on Americans.
And There is no Corporate Propaganda Influx.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

-Upton Sinclair

States that build surveillance machines also build propaganda machines:

The government figured out sockpuppet managment but not "persona management."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023358242

The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies (spooks, feds, etc.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4159454

Seventeen techniques for truth suppression.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4249741

Just do some Googling on astroturfing - big organizations have some sophisticated tools.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1208351

The influx will continue
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4216987

[geek tragedy]

25. repeating the same loony-tunes conspiracy theory whackadoodle nonsense

over and over, via linking to your own posts, doesn't make that loony-tunes conspiracy theory whackadoodle nonsense any less absurd or more credible.

There's more evidence that Obama was born in Kenya than there is that there's a concerted effort to push corporate propaganda at DU via compensated posters.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

27. Hard to believe some don't think this is happening. My brother sent me a link a couple of years ago

to a listing, I believe it was on Freelancer.com, for exactly that. He actually didn't look carefully at what it was, but knew I'd done some freelance writing and just thought it might be a way for me to pick up a few extra bucks. I wish I'd saved a screen shot. This is a different one, but similar:

http://politicalomnivore.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-do-i-get-paid-to-be-on-line-troll.html

[JaneyVee]

17. The sadism is why they vote against their own best interests.

[woo me with science]

19. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024482715#post18

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. I put them on ignore. Done. Have never used ignore but, Life is too short

to debate converse with Libertarians trolls.

[bemildred]

22. Yep. The bullshit is optional. Push the little X and away goes the bullshit. nt

[okaawhatever]

21. I can see the sadism in trolls. It takes a sad, pathetic, angry person to spend their time

attempting to cause others discomfort. I also see a lot of trolls on DU. I hope this study makes them feel as impotent as they really are.

[Marr]

26. Wait a minute. This was an online survey.

It seems to me that the relevant question is whether their online behavior signified anything about their real life behavior/personality.

Using an online survey to determine that internet trolls like to frustrate people is like going to a crack house to take a survey on the popularity of crack.

[RobertEarl]

28. Kick

Trolls can GFT.

[zappaman]

29. Kick

I like the ones who say silly things on the environment or other issues close to Democratic hearts just to make Democrats look bad.