Haters vs Trolls: Protecting Yourself From Online Abuse

Ah, the internet. It’s great, isn’t it? It can make us famous, educate us and help us to connect. It can also completely ruin our lives.

In modern times, it seems that not a day goes by when we don’t hear a story about someone who has suffered a barrage of abuse on the internet – celebrities have to endure it on a daily basis, schoolchildren are bullied through websites like Facebook and Twitter, and bloggers are attacked for broadcasting their attitudes towards certain topics online.

I’m a firm believer in the basic human right of free speech, but I also firmly believe that people take this freedom way too far online. They twist it into a negative practice and instead use it to verbally abuse others and make their lives a misery. Why? Well because they can. Because the internet offers them a ‘safe’ space in which to do this. Because, online, everyone is anonymous.

You may have heard the terms ‘troll’ and ‘hater’ bandied about in recent years, but what do they mean and how can you protect yourself if you become the centre of an abusive online campaign?

Hater versus Troll

There are four types of people that you can meet online:

1. The average internet user: These people visit websites, read blogs and read their newspaper online. If they see something that’s controversial they might get angry about it, but they will usually continue on with their lives. They might discuss it with their friends at a later date, offline.

2. The commenter: If this person sees something that strikes a chord with them, they will reply in a positive or negative manner. The important thing to note is that if they disagree with you, they will have a valid reason as to why they feel this way. They are usually logical and very rarely abusive.

3. The hater: This is a person who just likes to make people miserable. They post mean, abusive comments just because they can. They don’t care about getting a reaction, they just like to hurt people.

4. The Troll: A troll absolutely thrives on confrontation and reaction. They intentionally (and persistently) post rude, offensive, abusive messages online in an attempt to garner a reaction from someone. Once they have their reaction, they kick things up a notch and may start harassing their victim (abusive tweets/emails/texts – the works). For them, the reaction of their target is key.

How to vanquish a Hater or a Troll

Haters will generally disappear of their own accord if you ignore them for long enough, however Trolls are an entirely different breed of people. How do you deal with someone who will just feed on any reaction you might have to their behaviour?

There’s an old saying on the internet: “don’t feed the trolls.’ Because they feed on how you react, it is best to try and ignore them. Yes, they are persistent and the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better, but unfortunately there’s not much else that you can do.

If you start being abusive right back to them, the situation is likely to escalate and 99.9 per cent of the time, it will only make you look bad. Your troll is a sad person who has to get their joy from abusing others, you on the other hand, are a sensible grown up – catch my drift?

Yes, it seems completely unjustified that you have to stay quiet while someone aims a string of abuse at you, but the good news is that the tables are starting to turn.

The veil of online anonymity is lifting

Earlier this month, a woman named Nicola Brooks won backing from a High Court to have the identities of people who were trolling her online made public.

The trolls had latched on to Ms Brooks after she posted a comment about former X-Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza. She was subjected to an endless hate campaign which eventually took a toll on her personal life.

Since this ruling, the English Government has decided to introduce a new Defamation Bill. This new bill will force social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter to reveal the IP address (or unique identity) of users who are posting abusive message towards others.

This is a major step forward for Defamation law and it is believed that other countries are considering following in the footsteps of the English Government.

Have you ever been target of an online Troll? Do you think that the Irish Government should have the power to expose the identities of these people? Let us know what you think!