Troll Menace : How to handle Trolls online

The opponent team had been wiped out and Jo’s team was winning with a 32 to 8 kill ratio. There was 4 minutes and 23 seconds to the end of the round and then they would have victory. With sweaty palms, Jo held on to his mouse, camping in his favoured location, waiting to snipe his next target when he notices a message that pops up on the side of his screen.

“Stop cmping noob”

He frowns when he places the sender of the message to be from the rival team but continues looking through his scope. He snipes one more person and in no time another message pops up on the side. This time he’s taken aback at the wordings used , swear words and curses used in a haphazard manner to convey a hate filled message. With all his will , he ignores it and turns his focus back to the game . From then on, the messages pour in one after the other , all from the same person , each crueller than the one before until Jo can no longer stand it . He barks out replies in hopes to scald his assailant the same way he was hurt but he knows his comebacks are not clever enough to counter those being served to him. He feels beaten , even though his team had won the round. It was his first encounter with a troll , and certainly not his last.

Trolls are everywhere on the internet. Be it on YouTube , leaving behind racist comments to pick a fight for fun , right to multiplayer games , passing cynical remarks to irritate and frustrate other players for entertainment. These insolent pricks know no boundaries and cross any and every limit in order to tick you off and exert their dominance because it makes them feel a bit better about themselves. Be it an experienced internet surfer , gamer or even an innocent bystander everyone should know how to handle trolls . Here are a few handy tips that I have found to be best for handling trolls :-

1)           Respond with silence

Upon encountering a troll, people often mistake that giving a good comeback or hurling insults back at the troll is the certain way of winning. That is absolutely wrong. In fact, trolls thrive on agitated replies. So even if you do manage to think up a creative reply, it’d be best if you kept it to yourself. Instead of getting fussed up and replying, stay calm and quiet. When the troll realizes that his/her insults seem to have no effect on you whatsoever, he will stop insulting you immediately. Remember, silence works best.

2)           Report the troll

While I would suggest you to ignore the trolls as much as possible, I must myself accept that in a lot of cases, as in when the insults involve your nationality, community, social status or in worst cases, your family members , then the best course of action would be to remain quiet ( never loose your cool , remember – that’s what they want) and to report the troll’s account. Many a times , trolls act out not only verbally but also resort to intentional actions - such as friendly fire or feeding the opponent team - that could make his/her team lose the game.  You see , no game developer likes or supports the actions of trolls , because trolls do nothing but discourage players from wanting to play online games again and hence almost every game has a report feature that lets you report trolls.

Not just games , but almost any website that allows some level of social interaction allows users to report or at least block other users that may be spoiling their experience in any way.

3)           Be nice

Now I know I’ve been constantly badgering you to keep quiet and not lose your cool but what happens if there are others in your team that fall into the troll’s trap , or if the troll just doesn’t seem to shut up no matter how much you ignore him. Well then you speak , and you speak nicely. Be kind , gentle and politely request him/her to stop being so rude. Accept any fault pointed out by the troll and gently inform him that you appreciate him pointing it out. This could have two outcomes – both undoubtedly in your favour. Either the troll himself becomes friendly , in order to not look like a sadist who lives to only insult others and enjoy watching them suffer , or he gets completely infuriated himself as a troll expects you to rage and lash out on his comments and definitely does not expect you to reply to them nicely. It’s a win-win situation.

4) The fourth and most important point in combatting trolls – don’t become one yourself. Trolls are not born with their attitude, they develop it over time. The more you rage out at trolls , the more you sharpen your tongue , the more you get involved withthem , the more and more you become like them. In the end you would have become the very thing you hate.

Trolls have become a major pest to the internet community. Trolling can be aptly considered a severe form of cyber bullying , that has led to several cases of depression and suicides around the world – and needs to be quickly recognized as a dangerous issue by organizations responsible for regulating the internet and needs to be addressed seriously. In the meantime, we can only do our small bit and protect ourselves from the cold verbal lashes of thousands of strangers around the world who live to watch the world burn .

Pranav Nair is a 17 year old whose passion is writing reviews and articles on technology and gaming. His gaming tag is Fleet Admiral. You can check out his tech vlog at: www.youtube.com/user/pranavnairtech or contact him at pranavnairtech@gmail.com