If you've ever scrolled down on a Youtube video, you may have seen mean, hateful comments on popular videos. Here is an example of what many refer to as "trolling" on the internet.
Trolling is a type of interpersonal aggression. Interpersonal aggression is an act of aggression toward another individual. Interpersonal aggression can manifest as either instrumental aggression, which is a systematic act of aggression that leads to rewards for the aggressor, or hostile aggression, an immediate emotional response to a stimulus.
Because interpersonal aggression often comes from people who enjoy making others feel bad, the Internet presents a place for sadists to hurt the feelings of vulnerable people through trolling. Often sadists, or people who use aggression for pleasure, may anonymously hate on people without fear of any retribution due to the anonymity.
Based on the psychosocial principles of interpersonal aggression, online bullying may occur because posts online may represent a threat to a bully's self esteem. When people do not have healthy coping mechanisms to deal with threats to their self esteem, they often lash out in an effort to cope with the threat. This results in interpersonal aggression against the individual who created the initial threat.
Learning that most online trolls tend to be sadists, I started thinking about how we may use this information to make our communities safer. If trolls online are also trolls in real life, perhaps these comments should be monitored. It could be true that people commenting hateful things are also creating trouble out in the real world and hurting people in real life.
Unfortunately, people deserve privacy when commenting or using the internet in any way for that matter, and monitoring comments for signs of sadism would be an absolute violation of privacy.
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