Trolling: Equated To Cyberbullying

Although social media has become more prominent in people’s daily lives, that hasn’t decreased the frequency of bullying. Instead, the issue has grown substantially as people are able to bully others online even when they aren’t around them. The trend of online bullying, commonly referred to as trolling, occurs when someone uses the Internet to harass, bully, threaten, or annoy another individual. Trolling was previously thought of as the act of using the Internet to play harmless practical jokes or to trick others about the content they are viewing (click-bait). However, the act of trolling is now equated to cyber bullying where the goal is to elicit a negative emotional response. Usually, when someone is an Internet troll, they are anonymous,

As stated in the Bill of Rights, everyone has the right to free speech. However, the boundaries for that are somewhat unclear. While everyone is allowed to voice their own opinion, to what extent are they able to do so? Individuals are granted the right to say almost anything they want, but both the content and context matter. With trolling, there is a difference in context and perception. Close friends might troll each other for fun because they have an established a solid relationship. There are thresholds and limits that are understood, and once that threshold is recognized, the individual apologizes because they don’t want to hurt their friend. Yet, when it is towards someone who they are not as close to, or don’t know at all, they feel that they are able to say or do whatever they want. Although everyone has the right to free speech, there is also a duty to protect others from harm. How, then, do you put one value over that of another if one is legally granted and the other is morally bound? Even though we have a duty to protect others from harm, what happens when it is online? Online there is an objective representation of oneself, whether it be a profile, avatar, character, or just a username. Although the objective online self is not real, the real person still has feelings and has to deal with what happens online to their objective self. Despite the fact that what is online is just an objective representation of the person, trolls still use that as a target because they understand that it will eventually deliver the results they want. The objective online self is connected to the actual person and trolls fail to recognize the human side behind each online self. This allows them to continue trolling or bullying that individual because they don’t see is as causing any harm to the actual person. Besides the fact that trolling is another form of cyber bullying that is morally wrong,