A few weeks ago, there was a class discussion thread about the journalist Lindy West’s confrontation with one of her trolls.  I was glad to see this discussion and while I added some thoughts to the thread, I’ve realized after a few weeks this story has really stuck with me, so I’m going to delve a little deeper.

There will always be bullies.  There will always be trolls.  The common thing you hear as a child when someone is mean to you is that “Well, that person feels bad about themselves so they want everyone else to be miserable.”  Judging from so many of the internet comments I’ve seen, boy, there’s a lot of miserable people out there.  And that’s too bad.  But when they feel they have the right to take it out personally on other people from the safety of their anonymity is where I take issue.  As I said in the discussion thread, the part of Lindy’s conversion with her troll that made me stop what I was doing out of shock was his self-aware admittance of his reason for his hateful abuse “I think my anger towards you stems from your happiness with your own being. It offended me because it served to highlight my unhappiness with my own self.”  WHAT.  How can someone that self-aware create so much hate?  Because he’s human, and humans will sometimes make horrible choices when they’re unhappy.  So while trolling is something that could depress and anger me, I’d rather look at the ways that harassment victims can collaborate to bring light to the abuse that is taking place  by creating an online culture where there is a social recourse to sending violent threats to

While I think it’s great that there are laws starting to take place to address online harassment and bullying, it will be a while before there is a clear course of action for those who are harassed online.  It makes me wonder how social media users can collaborate to create safer spaces for discussion, especially spaces that have been resistant in the past to outside voices. without worrying about receiving abusive threats?  In the real world, the majority of people do not go around threatening or insulting anyone they disagree with because of social mores and possible damage to reputation.  Online of course, there are much fewer barriers to hate speech and bullying, so those who cannot say how they really feel on a daily basis

To be clear, I am in no way advocating that we should stoop to the same level of trolls who will “dox” someone by releasing such personal information such as addresses and social security numbers.  I do believe though, that the risk of having one’s name connected to their hate speech could be a powerful deterrent to sending out abusive messages if one faces the risk of being outed as a hatemonger.

For example, some women who have received rape and death threats on Twitter will retweet them to let their online communities be aware of what they are experiencing or to alert law enforcement of the threats they have received.  Or in the case of Alanah Pearce who, when she found out the identities of her harassers were teenage boys, she contacted their mothers to let them know what their sons were up to.  So many women have experienced this, and by speaking up about the hate mail they are receiving, it sheds light on what is going on.  With increased awareness, such as journalists writing about these women’s experiences and online communities who will collaborate to support the victims of these threats by creating a culture where this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

I know that with secured anonymity on the internet,  trolls will not be gone any time soon, and the common adage is “Don’t feed the trolls!” .  But until there is an online culture where everyone feels safe to participate, the tide of trolls may possibly be deterred using collaboration and self-policing of online communities to deter those who want to make others feel unsafe from participating in online cultures.