Where in Scandinavia did Trolls Come From? And should we let them come to dinner?
Wherever it was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll) and if John Bauer the artist imagined them correctly they are sort of pleasantly plump funny but grubby, with curious eyes and, apparently with mischievous natures that like to disturb the status quo. And eat good guys. Their mother told them where to look! She was likely anxious to get them to go out and play somewhere ELSE!
They found us!
They found us on the “other side of the moon” where we were expressing ourselves, yes, the beautiful ones and also the less gorgeous, on the internet with our hearts on our sleeves and our convictions laid out open and our fingers busy at keyboards.
In the olden days we used to have to wait until the next edition to read passionate “letters to the editor” about things trolls found in newspapers and other publications. Until then, we thought our thoughts and talked about it around the table: the war, the weather, the economy, the best products, and such. Hopefully we didn’t have family wars about it all.
But now! We simply stay tuned after someone says something online and there they come, very soon after…the trolls have a great time making us human beings squirm and weep and get out our armies of damning data and cross-hate.
The trolls LOVE IT. They eat this stuff up!
Why didn’t they stay on the other side of the moon?
I think it’s more fun for trolls here. Nothing exciting over there, probably. Bored mischief makers will do anything to stir up excitement. They incriminate, they mock, the conduct smear campaigns, they call people names and tell gross stories about them. Given just a crumb of food, the Troll will blow it up into a rotten stinking pile of garbage. This is what they LOVE. They never tire of trouble-making.
What do we do about it? We tell the authorities that it isn’t fair. Does it do any good — telling on them?
We make Terms of Service against it. Does that do any good — making rules?
We block the Trolls by using filters. Does that help?76 — a little, but they change their names and come back.
Could the internet platform monitor and kill crassness and cruelty ? It could but — they would have to hire a building full of employees full time to read each of a million posts, or tweets, or comments to weed out the rubbish. The traffic is terrific!
Trolls love this because it is entertainment for them! They have been unemployed until they got into this business and now they are having a wonderful time inventing ways around the law, the TOS, the filters, and even whole masses of people being incensed and bringing suits against each other. Lawyers’ heaven!
One wonders. Might someone be bribing someone to allow this perversion on their platform? It’s good for business after all, this brawling. People can’t resist looking at the donnybrook. There are good profits and good looking numbers on The Street when a “service” has this much traffic.
Who is paying to allow slander and libel thrive on the internet, I am asking?
Surely not the Trolls’ Mother. Or?
Well — who is rich and powerful enough to bribe the internet businesses who thrive on argumentative chatter? And who would like everyone to get involved? I mean if EVERYONE got involved in the fray, all kinds of other mischief would go unnoticed.
Just asking.
Susan G Holland©2017
