Robin Williams Suicide

In lieu of comedian and actor Robin Williams tragic suicide there was an understandable outpouring of grief, as this was man who had been entertaining the public for forty years. Some remember him for his early roles, in Mork and Mindy, others for Good Morning Vietnam, while my generation knew him as the Genie from Aladdin and the lead in Jumanji.

Amidst the public mourning his daughter, Zelda Williams, quit her social media sites, leaving Twitter and Instagram. Her reasoning? She had been the target of Internet Trolls taunting her over her father’s death.

This is not unique, their have been plenty of other high profile cases, for example radio host Ray Hadley and NRL star Robbie Farah, the later mocked over his mother’s passing.

Probably the most high–profile case dates to 2012, when Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old Canadian took her own life after a sustained period

Buckels, Paul D Trapnell and Delroy L. Paulhus attempt to create a physiological profile of Internet trolls through two questionnaires of 1,215 individuals. The surveys attempted measure trolls against the Dark Tetrad of personality: narcissism, sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism (a tendency to manipulate and deceive others).

Subjects were asked a series of questions about their activities on the Internet, including their frequency and usage. They were also asked questions to gauge what activities they enjoyed doing, such as, “do you enjoy trolling memorial pages of people who have died (RIP trolling what type of internet user they enjoyed trolling the most, “general public/strangers”, “other trolls”, “corporations”, “celebrities” and “people you know in real life”.

Interestingly, they asked participants to rate the pleasure they gained from trolling, so they asked them four other questions, including, “‘I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz’’ and “The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to