The Troll: A Dark Shadow on the Internet

Here's an interesting perspective on something that used to be harmless but has now become nothing to sneeze at - Internet trolls. Internet trolls have become popular news fodder in the past few years: Just last week a US activist who found herself on the receiving end of an anti-Semitic hate campaign was the subject of a story here on Newsroom. Within its relatively short history, the figure of the internet troll has cast a progressively darker shadow across public consciousness. Once it was associated with relatively benign, if irritating, pranksterism. For example, tricking newcomers to online communities into answering dumb questions. But now the internet troll has grown into a more threatening and toxic figure – one who provokes outrage and derails debates. And trolling has become more firmly equated with harassment, hate speech and extremism. In a 2012 BBC Panorama documentary Hunting the Internet Bullies , the presenter tracks down and confronts an ...