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64-773: Morozov was born in 1984 in Soligorsk , Belarus . He attended the American University in Bulgaria and lived in Berlin before moving to the United States. Morozov has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University , a fellow at the New America Foundation , and a contributing editor of and blogger for Foreign Policy magazine, for which he wrote the blog Net Effect. He has previously been

128-763: A Yahoo! fellow at Georgetown University 's Walsh School of Foreign Service , a fellow at the Open Society Institute , director of new media at the NGO Transitions Online , and a columnist for the Russian newspaper Akzia . In 2009, he was chosen as a TED Fellow where he spoke about how the Web influences civic engagement and regime stability in authoritarian , closed societies or in countries "in transition". Morozov's writings have appeared in various newspapers and magazines around

192-407: A troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media , a newsgroup , a forum , a chat room , an online video game ) or who performs similar behaviors in real life. The methods and motivations of trolls can range from benign to sadistic. These messages can be inflammatory, insincere , digressive , extraneous , or off-topic , and may have

256-499: A Feminist Forum", point out the difficulty inherent in monitoring trolling and maintaining freedom of speech in online communities: "harassment often arises in spaces known for their freedom, lack of censure, and experimental nature". Free speech may lead to tolerance of trolling behavior, complicating the members' efforts to maintain an open, yet supportive discussion area, especially for sensitive topics such as race, gender, and sexuality. Cyberbullying laws vary by state, as trolling

320-462: A certain cause, while subtly ridiculing it. The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to their declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals , but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt within the group, sometimes by appealing to outrage culture . For example, a person who wishes to shame obese people , but disguises this impulse as concern for

384-518: A concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community : Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroup's or forum's members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging

448-499: A form of deception-serving entertainment and its correlations to aggressive behaviour , katagelasticism , black humor , and the Dark tetrad . Trolling correlates positively with sadism , trait psychopathy , and Machiavellianism (see dark triad ). Trolls take pleasure from causing pain and emotional suffering . Their ability to upset or harm gives them a feeling of power. Psychological researches conducted in

512-462: A poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they – and the troll – understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group. Whitney Phillips observes in This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping

576-431: A series of modem-linked computers. CommuniTree was begun in 1978 but was closed in 1982 when accessed by high school teenagers, becoming a ground for trashing and abuse. Some psychologists have suggested that flaming would be caused by deindividuation or decreased self-evaluation: the anonymity of online postings would lead to disinhibition amongst individuals. Others have suggested that although flaming and trolling

640-604: A single individual, but rather targets multiple members of a discussion. Trolling can be easily identified by its offensive content, intended to provoke an emotional reaction from an audience. Organizations and countries may utilize trolls to manipulate public opinion as part and parcel of an astroturfing initiative. When trolling is sponsored by the government, it is often called state-sponsored Internet propaganda or state-sponsored trolling. Teams of sponsored trolls are sometimes referred to as sockpuppet armies. A 2016 study by Harvard political scientist Gary King reported that

704-486: A troll used in mainland China is pēn zi ( Chinese : 噴子 ; lit. 'sprayer', 'spurter'). In Hebrew the word טרול refers both to internet trolls, who engage in disruptive behavior on social media and online platforms, or to the mythical creatures similar to trolls found in European mythology. The word is also inflected into a verb form, להטריל , which means to engage in trolling behavior on

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768-542: A weekly newsletter and personalized recommendations for its subscribers. It then makes the previously indexed pieces available to subscribers in a searchable archive. In 2023, Morozov published The Santiago Boys , a series of podcasts about the 1970s Chilean social internet project by Salvador Allende and involving British cybernetics consultant Stafford Beer . Salihorsk Salihorsk or Soligorsk ( Belarusian : Салігорск , IPA: [salʲiˈɣorsk] ; Russian : Солигорск , IPA: [səlʲɪˈɡorsk] )

832-560: Is a city in Minsk Region , Belarus . It serves as the administrative center of Salihorsk District . As of 2024, it has a population of 97,818. The city is one of the country's newest settlements; its construction began in 1958. In May 1963 Soligorsk gained city status, and by January 1964, the city already had more than 18,000 inhabitants. In Dec 2002 Soligorsk hosted the Belarusian shooting championships. Salihorsk lies in

896-469: Is a significant predictor of trolling behaviour, alongside trait psychopathy and sadism to be significant positive predictors. Moreover, these studies have shown that people who enjoy trolling online tend to also enjoy hurting other people in everyday life, therefore corroborating a longstanding and persistent pattern of psychopathological sadism. A psychoanalytic and sexologic study on the phenomenon of Internet trolling asserts that anonymity increases

960-447: Is based on the idea that "The good content is already here; it's just not evenly distributed". The Syllabus monitors thousands of video channels, podcasts, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, and other digital repositories, then, machine learning aggregates content based on a score, which an algorithm automatically assigns to each piece. In this way, it collects, analyzes, and classifies relevant information. The Syllabus publishes

1024-537: Is considered a platform of good taste and professionalism, companies searching for personal information by promoting jobs that were not real and fake accounts posting political messages has caught the company off guard. Researcher Ben Radford wrote about the phenomenon of clowns in history and the modern day in his book Bad Clowns , and found that "bad clowns" have evolved into Internet trolls. They do not dress up as traditional clowns but, for their own amusement, they tease and exploit "human foibles" in order to speak

1088-421: Is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time . Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been discussed repeatedly, but new subscribers to

1152-603: Is needed, according to the NATO report, because "they have relatively blind trust in Misplaced Pages sources and are not able to filter information that comes from platforms they consider authoritative." While Russian-language hybrid trolls use the Misplaced Pages troll message design to promote anti-Western sentiment in comments, they "mostly attack aggressively to maintain emotional attachment to issues covered in articles." Discussions about topics other than international sanctions during

1216-453: Is not a crime under U.S. federal law. In an effort to reduce uncivil behavior by increasing accountability, many web sites (e.g. Reuters , Facebook , and Gizmodo ) now require commenters to register their names and e-mail addresses. Trolling itself has become its own form of Internet subculture and has developed its own set of rituals, rules, specialized language, and dedicated spaces of practice. The appeal of trolling primarily comes from

1280-411: Is not always effective. Some argue that trolls may interpret a lack of response as a weakness and escalate their harassment. Reporting the troll to the platform administrators may be necessary in such cases. Most online platforms have guidelines against harassment and abuse, and reporting the troll can lead to their account being suspended or banned. There are competing theories of where and when "troll"

1344-453: Is often unpleasant, it may be a form of normative behavior that expresses the social identity of a certain user group. According to Tom Postmes, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the universities of Exeter, England, and Groningen, The Netherlands, and the author of Individuality and the Group , who has studied online behavior for 20 years, "Trolls aspire to violence, to

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1408-704: Is the same as playing chess with a pigeon : it defecates on the table, drops the pieces and simply flies off, claiming victory." In Thai , the term krian ( เกรียน ) has been adopted to address Internet trolls. According to the Royal Institute of Thailand , the term, which literally refers to a closely cropped hairstyle worn by schoolboys in Thailand, is from the behaviour of these schoolboys who usually gather to play online games and, during which, make annoying, disruptive, impolite, or unreasonable expressions. Early incidents of trolling were considered to be

1472-423: Is true, but the way it is expressed gives it a completely different meaning to its readers." Unlike "classic trolls", Misplaced Pages trolls "have no emotional input, they just supply misinformation " and are one of "the most dangerous" as well as one of "the most effective trolling message designs." Even among people who are "emotionally immune to aggressive messages" and apolitical, "training in critical thinking "

1536-530: The HBO television program The Newsroom , in which a main character encounters harassing persons online and tries to infiltrate their circles by posting negative sexual comments. Application of the term troll is subjective . Some readers may characterize a post as trolling , while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. More potent acts of trolling are blatant harassment or off-topic banter. However,

1600-667: The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence on hybrid warfare notes that the Russo-Ukrainian War "demonstrated how fake identities and accounts were used to disseminate narratives through social media, blogs, and web commentaries in order to manipulate, harass, or deceive opponents." The NATO report describes that a "Misplaced Pages troll" uses a type of message design where a troll does not add "emotional value" to reliable "essentially true" information in re-posts, but presents it "in

1664-476: The male genitalia , where genitalia that is pale white in color represents that someone is young, and thus foolish. Both terms originate from Taiwan , and are also used in Hong Kong and mainland China . Another term, xiǎo bái ( Chinese : 小白 ; lit. 'little white'), is a derogatory term for both bái mù and bái làn that is used on anonymous posting Internet forums. Another common term for

1728-471: The "truth" and gain a reaction. Like clowns in make-up, Internet trolls hide behind "anonymous accounts and fake usernames". In their eyes, they are the trickster and are performing for a nameless audience via the Internet. Studies conducted in the fields of human–computer interaction and cyberpsychology by other researchers have corroborated Radford's analysis on the phenomenon of Internet trolling as

1792-461: The Chinese government's 50 Cent Party creates 440 million pro-government social media posts per year. The report said that government employees were paid to create pro-government posts around the time of national holidays to avoid mass political protests. The Chinese Government ran an editorial in the state-funded Global Times defending censorship and 50 Cent Party trolls. A 2016 study for

1856-513: The Internet has existed. In modern English usage, " trolling " may describe the fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat, whereas trawling describes the generally commercial act of dragging a fishing net. Early non-Internet slang use of "trolling" can be found in the military: by 1972 the term "trolling for MiGs " was documented in use by US Navy pilots in Vietnam . It referred to use of "...decoys, with

1920-586: The Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture that certain behaviors are consistent among different types of trolls. First, trolls of the subcultural variety self-identify as trolls. Trolls are also motivated by what is known as lulz , a type of unsympathetic, ambiguous laughter. The final behavior is the insistent need for anonymity. According to Phillips, anonymity allows trolls to engage in behaviors they would not replicate in professional or public settings, with

1984-986: The Ukrainian crisis "attracted very aggressive trolling" and became polarized, according to the NATO report, which "suggests that in subjects in which there is little potential for re-educating audiences, emotional harm is considered more effective" for pro-Russian Latvian-language trolls. A 2016 study on fluoridation decision-making in Israel coined the term "Uncertainty Bias" to describe the efforts of power in government, public health and media to aggressively advance agendas by misrepresentation of historical and scientific fact. The authors noted that authorities tended to overlook or to deny situations that involve uncertainty while making unscientific arguments and disparaging comments in order to undermine opposing positions. The New York Times reported in late October 2018 that Saudi Arabia used an online army of Twitter trolls to harass

Evgeny Morozov - Misplaced Pages Continue

2048-459: The book Interface Culture , and a paper by Judith Donath in 1999. Donath's paper outlines the ambiguity of identity in a disembodied " virtual community " such as Usenet : In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity. The norm is: one body, one identity ... The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter. Donath provides

2112-470: The controversial views they claim. Farhad Manjoo criticises this view, noting that if the person is trolling, they are more intelligent than their critics would believe. One common strategy for dealing with online trolls is to ignore them. This approach, known as "don't feed the trolls," is based on the idea that trolls seek attention and reactions. By withholding these, the troll may lose interest and stop their disruptive behavior. However, ignoring trolls

2176-415: The effectiveness of trolling often being dependent upon the target's lack of anonymity. This can include the disclosure of real-life attachments, interests, and vulnerabilities of the target. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup or online forum, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the online community. In a group that has become sensitized to trolling – where

2240-425: The eye cannot see, and trolling involves blindly talking nonsense over the Internet, having total disregard to sensitivities or being oblivious to the situation at hand, akin to having eyes without pupils. An alternative term is bái làn ( Chinese : 白爛 ; lit. 'white rot'), which describes a post completely nonsensical and full of folly made to upset others, and derives from a Taiwanese slang term for

2304-405: The fact that you need to exercise more, or you aren't eating healthily enough, they think they are solving the problem. Morozov has been criticized by those who are sympathetic to his broader project for failing to provide evidence for his claims beyond stating anecdotes. In September 2019, Morozov founded The Syllabus. Alluding to William Gibson 's famous expression about the future, The Syllabus

2368-551: The fields of personality psychology and cyberpsychology report that trolling behaviour qualifies as an anti-social behaviour and is strongly correlated to sadistic personality disorder (SPD). Researches have shown that men , compared with women , are more likely to perpetrate trolling behaviour; these gender differences in online anti-social behaviour may be a reflection of gender stereotypes , where agentic characteristics such as competitiveness and dominance are encouraged in men . The results corroborated that gender (male)

2432-464: The goal of promoting democracy through the Web. By 2015, Morozov began to express doubts about the project of technology criticism itself, calling it politically vague and unable to effectuate change. Morozov has also critiqued "Techno-Feudalist" ideas explored by economists such as Mariana Mazzucato and Yanis Varoufakis . In January 2011, Morozov published his first book The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom . In addition to exploring

2496-488: The group would not realize, and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a practice to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a positive contribution. One of the most notorious AFU trollers, David Mikkelson, went on to create the urban folklore website Snopes.com . By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort

2560-515: The health of overweight people, could be considered a concern troll. A verifiable example of concern trolling within politics occurred in 2006 when Tad Furtado, a member of staff for then-Congressman Charles Bass ( R - N.H. ), was caught posing as a "concerned" supporter of Bass's opponent, Democrat Paul Hodes , on several liberal New Hampshire blogs, using the pseudonyms "IndieNH" or "IndyNH". "IndyNH" expressed concern that Democrats might just be wasting their time or money on Hodes, because Bass

2624-514: The impact of the Internet on authoritarian states, the book investigates the intellectual sources of the excitement about the liberating potential of the Internet and links it to the triumphalism that followed the end of the Cold War . Morozov also argues against the ideas of cyber-utopianism (the inability to see the Internet's "darker" side, that is, the capabilities for information control and manipulation of new media space) and Internet-centrism,

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2688-436: The incidence of the trolling behaviour, and that "the internet is becoming a medium to invest our anxieties and not thinking about the repercussions of trolling and affecting the victims mentally and incite a sense of guilt and shame within them". Concern trolls pretend to be sympathetic to a certain point of view which they are actually critical of. A concern troll will often declare an interest in joining or allying with

2752-450: The intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others' perception, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur . The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people. Trolling behaviors involve tactical aggression to incite emotional responses, which can adversely affect

2816-626: The internet or social media. In Icelandic , þurs (a thurs ) or tröll (a troll ) may refer to trolls, the verbs þursa (to troll) or þursast (to be trolling, to troll about) may be used. In Japanese , tsuri ( 釣り ) means "fishing" and refers to intentionally misleading posts whose only purpose is to get the readers to react, i.e. get trolled. Arashi ( 荒らし ) means "laying waste" and can also be used to refer to simple spamming . In Korean , nak-si (낚시) means "fishing" and refers to Internet trolling attempts, as well as purposely misleading post titles. A person who recognizes

2880-564: The issues. Morozov believes that technology should be debated alongside debates about politics, economics, history, and culture. About Internet libertarians, Morozov told The New Yorker : They want to be "open", they want to be "disruptive", they want to "innovate". The open agenda is, in many ways, the opposite of equality and justice. They think anything that helps you to bypass institutions is, by default, empowering or liberating. You might not be able to pay for health care or your insurance, but if you have an app on your phone that alerts you to

2944-503: The late Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other critics of the Saudi government. In October 2018, The Daily Telegraph reported that Facebook "banned hundreds of pages and accounts which it says were fraudulently flooding its site with partisan political content – although they came from the US instead of being associated with Russia." While corporate networking site LinkedIn

3008-435: The level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure." Someone who brings something off topic into the conversation in order to make that person mad is trolling. The practice of trolling has been documented by a number of academics since the 1990s. This included Steven Johnson in 1997 in

3072-651: The mission of drawing...fire away..." The contemporary use of the term is said to have appeared on the Internet in the late 1980s, but the earliest known attestation according to the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1992. The context of the quote cited in the Oxford English Dictionary sets the origin in Usenet in the early 1990s as in the phrase "trolling for newbies", as used in alt.folklore.urban (AFU). Commonly, what

3136-559: The propensity to view all political and social change through the prism of the Internet. In March 2013, Morozov published a second book, To Save Everything, Click Here . Morozov criticizes what he calls "technology solutionism," the idea that, as Tim Wu said, "a little magic dust can fix any problem". However, Wu, whose own work is severely criticized by Morozov, dismisses Morozov's book as "rife with such bullying and unfair attacks that seem mainly designed to build Morozov's particular brand of trollism ", and "a missed opportunity" to discuss

3200-427: The rate of deception is high – many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trolling. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusations are unfounded, being branded a troll may be damaging to one's online reputation. Susan Herring and colleagues, in "Searching for Safety Online: Managing 'Trolling' in

3264-470: The same as flaming , but this has changed with modern usage by the news media to refer to the creation of any content that targets another person. The Internet dictionary, NetLingo, suggests there are four grades of trolling: playtime trolling, tactical trolling, strategic trolling, and domination trolling. The relationship between trolling and flaming was observed in open-access forums in California, on

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3328-546: The south of Minsk Region near Slutsk , around 120 km (75 mi) from Minsk . Salihorsk is the home city of Shakhtyor Soligorsk football club as well as HC Shakhtyor Soligorsk in the Belarusian Extraliga ice hockey league. 52°48′N 27°32′E  /  52.800°N 27.533°E  / 52.800; 27.533 This Belarus location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Internet troll In slang ,

3392-461: The target's well-being. In this context, the noun and the verb forms of "troll" are frequently associated with Internet discourse. Recently, media attention has equated trolling with online harassment . The Courier-Mail and The Today Show have used "troll" to mean "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families". In addition, depictions of trolling have been included in popular fictional works, such as

3456-598: The term Internet troll has also been applied to information warfare, hate speech, and even political activism . The " Trollface " is an image occasionally used to indicate trolling in Internet culture. The word is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to anyone with controversial or differing opinions. Such usage goes against the ordinary meaning of troll in multiple ways. While psychologists have determined that psychopathological sadism , dark triad , and dark tetrad personality traits are common among Internet trolls, some observers claim that trolls do not believe

3520-509: The thrill of how long one can keep the ruse going before getting caught, and exposed as a troll. When understood this way, Internet trolls are less like vulgar, indiscriminate bullies, and closer to countercultural respondents to a (so called) overly sensitive public. The main elements of why people troll are interactions; trolling exists in the interactive communications between Internet users, influencing people's views both from objective and emotional standpoints. Further, trolling does not target

3584-427: The troll after having responded (or, in case of a post title, nak-si , having read the actual post) would often refer to themselves as a caught fish. In Portuguese , more commonly in its Brazilian variant, troll (pronounced [ˈtɾɔw] in most of Brazil as spelling pronunciation ) is the usual term to denote Internet trolls (examples of common derivate terms are trollismo or trollagem , "trolling", and

3648-428: The verb trollar , "to troll", which entered popular use), but an older expression, used by those which want to avoid anglicisms or slangs , is complexo do pombo enxadrista to denote trolling behavior, and pombos enxadristas (literally, "chessplayer pigeons") or simply pombos are the terms used to name the trolls. The terms are explained by an adage or popular saying: "Arguing with fulano (i.e., John Doe )

3712-483: The view held by some, such as Jared Cohen of Google, that the Internet is helping to democratize authoritarian regimes, arguing that it could also be a powerful tool for engaging in mass surveillance , political repression , and spreading nationalist and extremist propaganda . He has also criticized what he calls "The Internet Freedom Agenda" of the US government and finds it naïve and even counterproductive to

3776-399: The word troll to describe those that deliberately harass or provoke other Internet users, similar to the modern sense of the word. In Chinese , trolling is referred to as bái mù ( Chinese : 白目 ; lit. 'white eye'), which can be straightforwardly explained as "eyes without pupils", in the sense that while the pupil of the eye is used for vision, the white section of

3840-596: The world, including The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , Financial Times , The Guardian , The New Yorker , Corriere della Sera , Times Literary Supplement , New Left Review , San Francisco Chronicle , Folha de S.Paulo , and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . As of 2013, Morozov pursued a PhD in the history of science from Harvard , which he obtained in May 2018. He gives guest lectures at cultural centres and has developed teaching and mentorship activities. Morozov expresses skepticism about

3904-458: The wrong context, intending the audience to draw false conclusions." For example, information, without context, from Misplaced Pages about the military history of the United States "becomes value-laden if it is posted in the comment section of an article criticizing Russia for its military actions and interests in Ukraine. The Misplaced Pages troll is 'tricky', because in terms of actual text, the information

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3968-640: Was first used in Internet slang, with numerous unattested accounts of BBS and Usenet origins in the early 1980s or before. The English noun "troll" in the standard sense of ugly dwarf or giant dates to 1610 and originates from the Old Norse word " troll " meaning giant or demon . The word evokes the trolls of Scandinavian folklore and children's tales: antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted creatures which make life difficult for travelers. Trolls have existed in folklore and fantasy literature for centuries, and online trolling has been around for as long as

4032-459: Was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. The noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling – or to the resulting discussion – rather than to the author, though some posts punned on the dual meaning of troll. The August 26, 1997 strip of webcomic Kevin and Kell used

4096-537: Was unbeatable. Hodes eventually won the election. Although the term "concern troll" originated in discussions of online behavior, it now sees increasing use to describe similar offline behaviors. For example, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair accused a conservative New York Daily News columnist of "concern troll" behavior in his efforts to downplay the Mark Foley scandal . Wolcott links what he calls concern trolls to what Saul Alinsky calls "Do-Nothings", giving

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