So those of you who know a little bit about me outside this game  know that my Major is Social Behavioral Science and my Minor is Administrative Justice. 

This probably explains a lot of where my discussion topics come from. 

So this one is about Internet Trolls.  

One resource is this ex professor Dr. Todd Grunde. He has a video explaining the behavioral science behind internet trolling.  He explains the typical profile of the internet troll. 

Interestingly enough there has been studies on this topic and there is positive correlation between internet trolling  and several disturbing behavioral issues including but not limited to antisocial personality. 

I find it kind of sad that he said that 1/3 of the Millennial generation have participated in this behavior. 

Are Internet Trolls Psychopathic? | Sadistic, Narcissistic & Antisocial Personality 
11 minutes and 16 seconds long.

 I would love to a conversation on this if some of you would watch the video so we can have a common ground to start from.

Copy/paste of the  video transcript of  Are Internet Trolls Psychopathic? | Sadistic, Narcissistic & Antisocial Personality

^ for those who do not have YouTube. 

Honestly, I'm not terribly surprised by the number of millenials that have participated in internet trolling. Considering the world we've grown up in, and how shitty it gets by the day, we have to find our pleasures while we can. Also, you know, the impact of this shitty world on our mental health...

I will troll a troll generally, and destroy them where possible, before blocking them when i am have had my fill of fun.  I will occassionally troll an idiot too who hasn't got a clue what they are talking about them or ignore piles of evidence in front of them.   They are not so much trolling, just stuck in their views and won't change  it.     It isn't so much about malice, but there is a level of sadism involved, especially those who have joined the herd via ASCH personalities i find as we see wih how memes spread however false, anti vaxxers, republicans, democrats, brexiteers and remainers are among the biggest groups which attract my attention.   I don't have the introvertedness, depression, shyness or the anger but i did find i did it more when bored with furlough.     I never had to worry about money, when i worked again, i did from home.   

The truth is most people I converse fine and the trolling is selective and rare, but i let people come to my topic I don't go searching for it.  I find when dealing with trolls and idiots, sometimes we can break them down by Herd mentality in general to come to a realization without admitting it, or they block/delete comments when eventually they realise they are seperate from the herd.   I find if 2-3-4 people start backing the same points with different articles, it can turn some or get rid of them, i find it very rare people liking admitting they're wrong.

a lot of trolls i see are just stupid and lazy, their lines are short, they irritation minimal and is easy to reply, see they read and block knowing they can't write back, or watch them work through multiple social media threads, block several accounts. then delete and report the topic so their hours of work trying to troll will never be seen by anyone else.    I bathe in the ambiance of their anger at that time, knowing they wasted hours of their lives as i do something productive as rip them apart e.g audio books, language videos on youtube etc.    I do think some people online are just broken, and i don't generally hide behind the anonymity either when i do it, but is a sense of victory when destroyng such people.


 

Speaking of trolling, any chance we could get some closure on this thread: https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/1463861#240711029 ?

Last we heard, you were researching the Hawthorn Effect - for reasons unknown. The general understanding was that it was for a dissertation, but this was never confirmed nor denied.

So, could you tell us if that thread was indeed for a dissertation, a peer review study perhaps, or if it was just a troll thread to bait the good folks of MafiaReturns?

And to answer your troll conundrum - when I troll, I do it for laughs. Does that make me narccisistic or sadistic? I don't agree that it does. As far as I'm concerned, sometimes in life people need to be properly ridiculed to realise the idiocy of their behaviour; online reductio ad absurdum, if you will.

Well sadly is no different than a lot of games, whether last words, dancing on a corpse on a fps is common, even PVE's like save the world have idiiots on computers who can edit buildings around you so quickly, just to make you fail missions, or slow you down.    Is not just about words, or speech can be gameplay too.     

 I have not read anyone's response yet.

I have been busy in mails with this discussion with another person . Who may or not join the discussion thread I am not really sure yet. 

But in conversation with this person  they brought to my attention that there is no base definition of internet troll which will make the discussion flow much better if we all have a common definition to use...

So, I looked up  a few definitions  so that we can have a definition to work with.

Wikipedia:

In internet slang, a troll is a person who posts inflammatory, insincere, digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog), with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses,[2] or manipulating others' perception. This is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or manipulating a political process. Even so, Internet trolling can also be defined as purposefully causing confusion or harm to other users online, for no reason at all.[3]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll

2a: to antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content… trolls engage in the most outrageous and offensive behaviors possible—all the better to troll you with.— Whitney Phillips

b: to act as a troll (see TROLL entry 3 sense 2) on (a forum, site, etc.)… is also notorious, for trolling message boards on the Internet, posting offensive material he himself has written and then suing anyone who responds in agreement.— Mark Hemingway

c: to harass, criticize, or antagonize (someone) especially by provocatively disparaging or mocking public statements, postings, or acts

  These definitions of a internet troll  are from widely used resources.  I do realize that Wikipedia can be changed by anyone and the fact that it is similar to the dictionary definition just enforces that this is the general meaning of an internet troll.  

With this definition and what this video  is suggesting  I am interested to see what people think on internet trolls being one of the things mentioned , a combination of these, or none of these things.   I will return to read and respond to those who have posted already. 

The thing is it is hard and very broad ranging, how far do people seperate whats disruptive? antagonistic.     People have their different levels before they get annoyed or can't read a situation at all.    I think it can be simple as annoy or antagonize for me without the rest on top for some who go to depths of threats and paranoia at the other end and conspiracy thoeries in their trolldom.   We count one of my neighbours as a troll who tells people the pentagon have chips in the vaccine to watch people.

I think trolls can be anything from ones who come just to turn up to question grammar or spelling, when offering nothing valid to an argument and the ones who add, are you triggered yet, to those who twist the words purposely and those who post whataboutisms and alter the argument as they know they have already lost, know it, and just trying to twist it in to any kind of victory they can.

Some trolls i have met will be like all foreigners go back home, or EU citizens like myself.    Others just the simple lies, and misinformation.  I meet trolls who cover anything from photoshopped pictures, memes or just snide comments with no contribution mainly, just the typical derision or snide remarks.

There is really no real definition that every one would agree upon, its just a label, that's right 'troll' is just a label as you can call me that and i can call you that it does not make it accurate, nor true nor indicative of anything. The reason is it all depends on where you express what you you express and if the particular expression is 'popular' or not in that particular place.

Its a real jump IMO therefore to start trying too link it to mental health diagnosis simply because online is NOT a clinical setting, the good doctor Grande ought to realize as much. Perhaps he just does not like the negative comments and 'dislikes' on his YT content so lashes out saying they are malicious and psychopathic .. that's such a leap, it boggles my mind. He talks about 'studies have shown' but he does not link to them so I just have to take his word for it, i don't think so.

Here's a thought, What if Dr Grande is just 'trolling' us all with his video?

...See what i mean?

I Could go on and on, but i wont ( someone may just think that i am only trolling here ) .. I Will just give one example, what in the case of a few drunk teenagers in a basement all taking turns at one computer screen, with one name ( handle ) in a chat room say, so its not one person even but a group of them who all just think it is funny because they are drunk to try and get a reaction from other people online. to upset all the 'Karen's' they can find on any particular subject by taking turns trying to get the biggest reaction?

See how cloudy this is, we cannot be sure it's even just one person, nor the true motives, nor if it is a habitual behaviour or a one off, if it is unpopular just because their opinion, ect ect. With so many unknowns it's not IMO very scientific to jump to the conclusion of mental illness symptoms or even to generalize about definition, the activity itself nor those who partake in it, alone or in groups.   

Yes, i said i would not go on, yet i did have a little more, sorry :)

As an extra footnote ' popular opinion ' is in and of itself not seriously even any accurate gauge of any actual scientific truth. There was a time when the 'popular opinion' was that the moon was made of cheese. Or that posies in ones pocket would ward off the 'evil spirits' and protect people from the plague. So i myself don't really choose to ever put much stock in mere popular opinion's .. Sadly, in general people are fairly uneducated and mentally lazy yet still like to regurgitate what someone else has said without ever actually doing the hard work of reading up for hours, days even weeks at a time and digging deep into any given subject matter for themselves, considering all the opposing points of view and ideas before coming to their own conclusions regards any given theory or area of study.

True clinical psychopathy is a rare condition, much too rare, in fact, to account for all the so called 'trolls' however we might wish to define them, there's a lot of mental illnesses, if we do make that massive leap, and as i explained previously .. i don't seriously think that is even in all honestly possible, such as the various cluster b personality disorders that are far far more inclined to  'attention seeking' behaviour in general than are those who are clinically diagnosed psychopaths, even less so the super rare sadistic sub-type's of psychopathy or narcissistic psychopathy, so really it then becomes another whole different ball game as to what, if indeed any at all, actual symptom is or is not, may or may not, be being expressed by some specific instance or even continued pattern of alleged 'trollish behaviour' online. 

See, there's just so much overlap even among the various types, there is also co-morbidity's, yadda yadda, it's all way too much of a grey area to make any absolute statement in this regard, it can be at very best simply an educated opinion, not even a proper hypothesis, even then, every educated opinion or hypothesis, deserves, no, requires indisputably and without exception to be challenged, over and over, as that's the only way to better the understanding of any given area of study. 

Hopefully i have explained properly what my personal opinion's currently are on this subject, i remain open minded and should other valid points be raised that differ from or outright contradict mine then i will be sure to reconsider, in light of them, my point's of view on this topic, 

I Do think it is an interesting topic and a discussion well worth having am just not sure that any real general agreement will be reachable. 

That will, really this time, be all, i have ranted enough ...

(( or .. was i just trolling? - How indeed would any of you ever even be able to know that for sure?.. eh? )) 

... ;)

Hush I wasn't surprised for one I think in recent population counts the millennials  are our largest population group. I found it interesting . On two accounts one their numbers  like I said they area large population, and two it is this generation that grew up with the  growth of the internet.  

@The_Armourer If I understand what he said in the video he made this same point. 

It isn't so much about malice, but there is a level of sadism involved, especially those who have joined the herd via ASCH personalities 

 I don't personally think it comes from a place of malice, but possibly connected to the flight or flight tendencies of all animals when they encounter something that scares them or confuses them. 

Bosco 

Last we heard, you were researching the Hawthorn Effect - for reasons unknown. The general understanding was that it was for a dissertation, but this was never confirmed nor denied.

 I explained the reasons it was because the professor asked us to. The way I did  it was discussed with my professor and she guided me through how to do it, right down to that thread that you posted.  Since I  have been on lock down for health reasons ( much like you all have been experiencing with covid, only stricter ) for years now  and my only way of observing is on the internet that was my source it is my only social source). I also explained that it was not for a dissertation many times. That some one  mistook it for that. I am not sure who did but that has been asked of me several times and I have always said that it was not for a dissertation, it was for required observation for a class. I have said this many times, you know what they say about having to repeat the same thing over and over again, it means people don't respect you.  

I really wish many of you would  actually read to understand what is being said  or asked , instead of just reading  to make a response. 

Is that what made you people dislike me an assignment I had from a class and the fact that I am homebound and have no other resource.. 

Or 

Are people mad because they were not part of the group that knew what I was doing from the start?

Chumps  In depth  observations of what he said.  I noted also he had nothing of resources in the video. He did have  a reference link in the description. It cited some  pages as where he got some of his information, but it does not support all his assertations. 

 I was also alarmed when he  was saying correlation and making emphasis on the strong positive correlation of certain factors through out the video. 

The red flag this gave is because correlation does not equal causation.

The greatest example of this is ice cream sales and city pool drownings. These two have a strong positive correlation, but that does not mean that the more ice sales you have the more city pool drownings you will have. 

To be clear  I do not think trolling is due to a mental illness.

 I do believe it a sadist tendency and I said above I also believe it comes from the fight /flight tendencies of all animals. 

I can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s this sort of odd sanctimonious behaviour that compels me to reply. We still know nothing of this study, and any time we ask questions, we’re berated for it.

Anyway, I have better things to do than sit here and argue the toss, plus I don’t want to be accused of trolling.

Bosco  not sure what your issue is.

I have not even started  it so how could I even finish it . And I have not even decided what I am going to do  it on.  yet. 

 Jesus get the witch hunt out  and over with now.  This is  a good place any. 

Or  quit trying to  take offense where none is intended .   

is that passive aggressive or deflective? 

hmm seems pretty straight forward let's air your grievances out about me here. 

 Any one welcome to , let's get it done. 

I think you’re misunderstanding here; I’m responding to you because you insist on summoning me, not because I have particularly strong feelings about you one way or the other… although I now remember the futility in responding and regret opening this can of worms.