What It Looks Like On The Dark Side of the Web

Talking troll culture, online harassment and the state of the media with media studies scholar Whitney Phillips

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Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Mercer University, is one of the leading experts on trolls, web culture and ambivalent online behaviors. She has written two books on the topic of trolls, their motivations, and effects.
In this interview, Whitney talks about the origins of trolling, what we can do about it and why our culture is part of the problem.

Whitney, the entire last year has been quite big in terms of online harassment, hate speech and tech companies taking different measures to tackle these problems. The internet seems to have become a hostile place. What do you think about how we ended up here?

I recently worked on a paper where I talk about all of the current issues in terms of coastal redwoods’ root systems. Bear with me (laughs). Coastal Redwoods are interesting because their roots provide nutrients and even structural support to the other redwood trees in the grove. Older trees basically raise the young trees…