Alex Chrum spends much of her day dealing with sexists, racists, homophobes and bigots. No, Chrum doesn't work in a prison, with gangs or with generally horrible and unaccepting folk. The twenty-five-year-old is a content specialist for Debate.org, a platform that encourages users to engage in discussions around controversial topics.
Her job entails moderating online commentary and sifting through the malice-laden musings of Internet trolls. As part of the Web site's mandate, Chrum has to disregard any posts that do not genuinely promote engaging and thought-provoking debate. Chrum estimates she deletes roughly 50% of comments based on these criteria.
While research into this phenomenon is still in its infancy, some studies have described Internet trolls as "prototypical everyday sadists", who embrace the level of anonymity and identity loss the Internet provides by doing and saying things that go against social conventions. The same studies cited trolling as a narcissistic, "status-enhancing activity" whereby the individual relishes the opportunity to be contentious by attracting the attention of others and upsetting people.
And upset people they do.
Haters gonna hate
In July last year, instead of relishing in the joy of winning Wimbledon and being at the pinnacle of her professional tennis career, Marion Bartoli had to fend off a disturbingly significant amount of Web-based insults about her appearance. The vicious attacks saw Twitter users branding her "fat", "manly" and declaring she was simply too ugly to win the prestigious sporting title. Who knew good looks were a prerequisite for being a professional athlete.
Just a month later, Caroline Criado-Perez successfully petitioned the Bank of England to keep women of merit on the nation's banknotes. Some took umbrage at her efforts, littering the Web with promises to rape, torture and even kill her.
In February this year, we witnessed pregnant ANC MP Thandile Sunduza making what many deemed a bad fashion choice at the state of the nation address in Cape Town, which apparently gave the social media world the right to make a series of harsh comments about her body.
Also in February, former model and Australian TV star Charlotte Dawson committed suicide after being inundated with vicious rhetoric from Twitter trolls. As early as 2012, the Australia's Next Top Model host had an array of charming social media users calling on her to hang herself after she actively campaigned against cyberbullying. Similarly, and equally as awful, in August this year in the wake of the apparent suicide of her father, Robin Williams' daughter Zelda abandoned her Twitter and Instagram accounts following a flurry of abuse. She was sent messages blaming her for her father's death and Photoshopped images of her father's dead body.
Just last week, the leading girl wizard in the Harry Potter films, Emma Watson, had trolls threatening to leak private, naked images of her online after she gave a speech as a United Nations Women Goodwill ambassador. Watson was encouraging those with a Y-chromosome to get behind the HeForShe campaign, which aims to foster solidarity in efforts to bring about gender equality. Although the nude snaps turned out to be a hoax, Watson's 13-minute address caused some Internet users to threaten the young actress for having the audacity to openly champion feminist rhetoric and gender issues.
And this all occurred while the video game industry became caught up in an unpleasant debate under the hashtag #Gamergate. While women in the gaming industry are no stranger to insults from online trolls, #Gamergate birthed a level of Internet sleaze that became so malicious that two women actually fled their homes because they feared for their safety.
I could go on but I think you get the picture.
#Gamergate birthed a level of Internet sleaze that became so malicious that two women actually fled their homes because they feared for their safety.
What the likes of Watson, Dawson and Criado-Perez have done is made a decision to actively participate in public life and voice their opinions on controversial topics and in doing so have become embroiled in a rather disturbing online backlash.
And as these individuals increasingly embrace the ugly and slow-witted characteristics of their folklore namesakes, many Web sites have had to put measures in place to curb this nasty behaviour. At a conference in Boston last year, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington announced the site was rescinding comment anonymity because of the increasingly aggressive nature of some of the comments being posted on the site.
While those in the media industry will have heard people advise that you should never read the comments, the fact that this is a reality of online engagement is actually a rather sad indictment on society and humanity in general. It seems people who make rape threats, call people dreadful names and actively encourage individuals to kill themselves have become an unfortunate reality of our ever-connected world.
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