In this day and age, everyone is online. The internet is one of the most integral pieces of this current generation. Through social media forums, blogs and chat rooms, the youth have created a culture unique to the current generation. Recently, the act of trolling has come to the forefront of social media.
Trolling is essentially posting offensive or provoking content to intentionally upset someone online. Recently, trolling’s popularity has begun to grow. In a heated conversation, it can be referred to as baiting, and is used for the sole purpose of getting a reaction.
“I repeatedly spammed this kid with, ‘you mad bro?’ on their Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all at once. It was just funny to see their reaction,” said sophomore Brandon Colon.
While trolling can be done in a lighthearted manner, it generally creates distractions from the original content on the websites, and often annoys or upsets others. Most social media forums often have rules prohibiting harassment and bullying. Therefore, rules against trolling have been put into place to prevent it, as they usually create negative experience for the person getting trolled. Usually, an additional rule or policy is a rule against flaming, which is the predecessor to trolling. Flaming involves posting a string of annoying content. They go hand in hand, and a majority of websites have made rules against this, or devised ways to prevent it.
Facebook, for instance, has a policy stating that they will take down any material that defames another person. Instagram also has a rule that prohibits all forms of antagonizing on their site. Other sites with similar rules are often forums, chat rooms, image boards and any site where information and communication can be freely exchanged.
Trolling has become such a prevalent phenomenon that some websites, such as Tumblr, were created in order to give users a friendlier atmosphere. The website has much stricter regulations and rules in terms of trolling that were put into place in order to prevent trolls.
