Of Internet Anonymity and Trolls

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” — John Wooden

The above quote summarizes one of the most fundamental aspects of human nature: that all of us, without exception, behave differently when alone. Anonymity frees us from a perceived obligation to act in accordance with certain social norms. For example, most people refrain from picking their nose in public, but dig with abandon when alone. By itself, this isn’t a surprising revelation. Fear of judgment is an innately powerful motivator, and has been well documented by psychologists for decades.

In 1981, Leon Mann published a study documenting the phenomenon of suicide baiting. After studying the circumstances surrounding 21 public suicide attempts, Mann observed that in 10 cases victims were jeered and baited to, “jump!” Yes, you read that right. There were bystanders who were actually heckling a person who was attempting to take his own life. He identified several contributing factors to this rather unusual anti-social behavior, such as membership in a large crowd, the cover of night, and relative distance from the victim — all hallmarks of anonymity. The irony here is that while a focused set of watchful eyes keeps us in check, the distracted eyes of many don’t.

When it comes to honest and unfiltered opinion, anonymity makes all the difference. It is the reason most votes are cast via secret ballot. It is the reason most corporations request feedback from customers and employees alike. It is also the reason that the internet has become a populist tool that has become synonymous with free speech. Sadly, a lot of people seem to believe that the safety of the internet is a license for them to expose their worst side. Anyone who’s been active on the web long enough can clearly see how internet anonymity plays out across social media, chat rooms and comment sections. While mostly just a nuisance, anonymous troublemakers, known as trolls, can be dangerous when they go after the vulnerable. The threat posed by these trolls can be further exacerbated when there is a lack of strong moderation on the forums in question. RIP trolls have been known to deface Facebook memorial pages for dead children. The Gamergate scandal is particularly infamous for the rather violent expressions of sexism directed towards certain indivuals. The story of William Moreno is an example of what happens when individual trolling is taken to an inexcusable and even criminal extreme.

Instances such as these make one wonder just why some people are insistent on going this far to rail against someone they’ve never even met, and likely will never meet, in their lives.

Most psychologists believe that the behavior of internet trolls can be attributed to what they call the Online Disinhibition Effect. This is also commonly known as the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Simply put, this theory states that in the absence of social restrictions and inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal face-to-face interaction, some people will slightly ignore or even outright abandon their usual norms of common human decency.

Note that I have said “some” people. Researchers have found that, unsurprisingly, not everyone turns into a foul-mouthed degenerate behind the anonymity of their screens. In fact, chances are higher that most people will go in the opposite direction: becoming more affectionate, more willing to open up to others and less guarded about emotions. This type of behavior is known as benign disinhibition and is mostly an attempt to achieve emotional catharsis, something that is probably more important than ever in this age of heightened stress and anxiety.

But then what about the trolls, or those who indulge in what psychologists call toxic disinhibition? The same need of emotional catharsis applies to their behavior as well, though in their case it is more often combined with a complete lack of fear about any meaningful kind of reprisal. With the lack of strong cyber-bullying laws and the knowledge that the worst that could happen would be a ban from the forum in question (which can be easily circumvented by creating a new account), there really isn’t much incentive for trolls to cut back on their behavior.

Which begs the question: how do we go about controlling the population of these subterranean dwellers?

One way would be to create a scenario of heightened observation. In this article, Sander van der Linden talks about how the mere illusion of being observed can motivate a person to perform better. A study performed at Newcastle University (UK) involved a donation box being set up near the coffee machine in their break room. Participants were asked to pay for their beverages by dropping money into the “Honesty Box”, and the entire thing was set up on the honor system, i.e., no one was present to personally supervise whether the people were paying for their drinks or not. However, the researchers regularly changed the photo pinned on the coffee machine, alternating between pictures of inanimate objects (such as flowers) and a pair of human eyes. It was found that the collections of the Honesty Box were almost 3 times greater when a photo of human eyes was used when compared to photos of inanimate objects.

In other words, we don’t need to actually increase supervision. We can just concentrate on increasing the illusion of supervision.

Another solution would be to lead by example and monitor our own online behavior. Instead of spending all our time bemoaning the steadily multiplying population of ill-tempered keyboard-wielding troglodytes, we can follow the age-old adage of practicing what we preach. Since supervising our own actions is always easier than attempting to do that for others, we can simply focus our attention on regulating ourselves. We can state our opinions neutrally, maintain our silence when we don’t have anything particularly nice to say and generally agree to respectfully disagree with one another.

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” — Thomas Jefferson

As popular Medium writer Jon Westenberg mentioned in one of his recent articles, it’s really simple as learning to be human. Before you get ready to post that extremely patronizing 1000-word essay on how Superman would always win against Batman or how a few well-placed nukes would permanently solve the ISIS problem, step back and take a moment to consider if this will truly serve any purpose apart from bolstering your own ego. Ask yourself if you would consider saying or writing this if the recipient were sitting right in front of you. Better yet, put yourself in the shoes of the person on the other end and think about how you would feel if you received such a caustic response to what could easily be a comment made in jest.

There are things we can do. Small things we can do every day. Things that are free. We can be a little nicer to each other, a little more polite, a little more tolerant, a little more understanding, a little more empathetic.

We can be decent.