Sunday, December 18, 2016

Many Trolls Are Not Purely Anonymous

When I was writing the essay on the topic of online anonymity, I realized that when I mentioned trolling and anonymous unruly comments, I had a hard time explaining anonymity.

My definition of anonymity is the state of being unknown to the media on the internet.  That means that you don't have a name displayed next to your comment (except names such as "Guest" or "Anonymous").  Trolls online have many identities, or accounts when they decide to instigate.  For example, go on YouTube and watch popular YouTube channels.  You'll never find troll comments from users that don't have a name; every troll has a name that you may click on to view their channel.

Of course, YouTube is not the only place where cyber conflict takes place.

However, if many trolls have registered accounts on the media, then taking away anonymity shouldn't be the debatable question.  The question is how else can we all deal with trolls, besides ignoring them?

1 comment:

  1. With or without anonymity, a troll will continue to do whatever he/she wants to do. Dealing with a troll can be difficult to do. Aside from completely ignoring the troll, perhaps one could confront the troll without lashing out. Maybe by throwing off the troll, the troll will be uninterested and possibly move on.

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