Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
staring into the abyss of the internet. And,
uh, honestly, the abyss is making a really weird
face back at us. It usually is. It usually is.
We're talking about trolling. Oh, I know. I know,
the moment I say trolling, you probably have
a very specific image in your head. Maybe it's
a 14 -year -old in a basement spamming memes.
Maybe it's that guy in the comments section who
just won't let the Star Wars sequel trilogy go.
Or maybe it's something... It is likely a mix
of all those things. But if there is one thing
the research stack for this deep dive proves,
it is that our collective definition of trolling
is way too narrow. How so? We tend to think of
it as just noise, static on the line. Just annoying
people being annoying. Right. Like mosquitoes.
Yeah. You just swat away and move on. Exactly.
But what we are going to explore today suggests
that trolling is so much more than a nuisance.
It is a complex sociological phenomenon. It has
a history that predates the World Wide Web, a
psychology that links to some genuinely disturbing
personality traits. And this is where it gets
really scary. It has evolved into a legitimate
weapon of geopolitical warfare. Whoa. Yeah, we
are talking about a spectrum that runs from benign
pranks to state -sponsored psychological operations.
So that is the mission for today. We are going
to peel back the layers. We are going to move
beyond the modern idea of just, you know, Internet
harassment and uncover the history, which, spoiler
alert, involves the Vietnam War. It does. And
the strange, twisting evolution of the troll.
Because I was shocked to learn that trolling
didn't originally mean being a monster. It really
didn't. And I think that is the best place to
start. We need to define the beast before we
dissect it. Okay, let's do it. If you look at
the academic literature or even just the definitions
used by sociologists, trolling is defined as
the act of deliberately posting offensive or
provocative messages. Illiberately. Illiberately.
Intended to elicit an emotional response. Deliberately
seems like the operative word there. It's not
an accident. You don't accidentally troll someone.
No, absolutely not. It requires intent. You are
engineering a reaction. The goal is the emotional
spike from the victim. In the subculture, as
you know, they call this the lulz. The lulz is
such a specific term. It's not just laughter
or fun. It has a nasty edge to it. It does. It
implies a kind of detached, chaotic amusement
at someone else's expense. But even within that
definition, there is a massive range. A spectrum,
like you said. A huge spectrum. On one end, you
have what you might call playtime trolling. This
is mischievous, maybe a little annoying, but
generally harmless. It's a prank. Okay. On the
far other end, you have domination trolling or
strategic trolling. Domination trolling. That
sounds ominous. It is. That is where the goal
isn't just a giggle. It is to destroy reputation,
to silence a voice, or even to destabilize a
political movement. It is tactical aggression.
It's about manipulating how people perceive reality.
So we have this spectrum. But let's go back to
the word itself. Because I think 99 % of people,
including me, until I read these notes, assume
that troll refers to the mythical creature. Of
course. You know, the ugly guy living under the
bridge in the Three Billy Goats gruff story waiting
to eat you. It fits perfectly. Trolls are ugly.
They stop you from getting where you want to
go. They're antisocial. It is a perfect coincidence,
but it is a coincidence. The term trolling in
this context actually comes from fishing. Fishing.
Okay. I have never held a fishing rod in my life.
So you are going to have to walk me through the
mechanics here. How does annoying people on the
internet relate to catching fish? So there are
two words that sound similar but mean very different
things. There is trawling, T -R -A -W -L, where
you drag a massive net behind a boat and catch
everything in your path. Right. Indiscriminate.
You catch the fish, the boots, the tires, everything.
Exactly. But trawling, T -R -O -L -L, is a specific
technique where you drag a baited line or a lure
slowly through the water from a moving boat.
You are pulling it along, making it look enticing,
waiting for something to bite. You are targeting
a reaction. Oh, I see. So the internet troll
isn't the guy throwing a net over the whole comment
section. He is the guy dangling a very specific,
shiny, annoying lure waiting for one specific
person to snap at it. Precisely. You put the
bait out there, a controversial statement, a
deliberate factual error, and you wait to see
who cannot resist correcting you or getting angry.
And here is the kicker you mentioned earlier.
This usage of the word trolling. to mean baiting
a reaction. predates the internet entirely. By
decades. This was the Vietnam War connection.
Yes. Around 1972, U .S. Navy pilots started using
the term trolling for MiGs. MiGs being the Soviet
-made fighter jets used by the North Vietnamese.
Correct. The U .S. pilots would fly consistently
in a way that made them look like easy targets,
or they would fly specific patterns to act as
decoys. They were dragging the lure through the
sky. They were baiting them. They wanted the
MiGs to bite, to come out and engage so they
could be shot down. They called it trolling.
That is fascinating. So it literally started
as a military tactic. It wasn't about being mean.
It was about setting a trap. Come and get me.
I dare you. And that DNA is still in the Internet
troll today. It is all about the trap. OK, so
obviously at some point, the the old Norse folklore
of the troll monster merged with this. Oh, absolutely.
The Internet culture adopted the avatar of the
ugly, brutish monster because it suited the behavior.
It was a perfect fit. But the action, the verb
to troll, is all about the bait. So how did we
get from Navy pilots dogfighting over Vietnam
to teenagers arguing on Reddit? There had to
be a bridge, pun intended. The bridge was Usenet.
We have to go back to the early 1990s. Paint
the picture for us, because I think it's hard
for modern Internet users to visualize just how
different the online world was in, say, 1992.
It's almost unrecognizable. It was a text -based
world. No images, no videos, no influencers,
no likes. Right. Just screens of green or amber
text on black backgrounds. It was very academic,
very technical. A lot of university people, researchers.
They're small communities. tiny by today's standards
and there was a specific new group called alt
.folklore .urban alt .folklore .urban so this
was where people discussed urban legends like
alligators in the sewers and that kind of thing
exactly that they would debunk myths or trace
the origins of stories and in this community
the term trolling for newbies emerged but and
this is crucial it wasn't malicious it was no
not at all it was a game it was a kind of hazing
ritual hazing ritual like a fraternity initiation
in a way the veteran users wanted to see if a
new person was smart enough to be part of the
in group so they would post a topic that had
been debated a thousand times or a fact that
was subtly wrong just to see who would fall for
it okay i need a specific example what kind of
bait works on a bunch of urban legend nerds in
1992 the classic example the one everyone brings
up is the glass flows myth the glass flows myth
have you ever heard the idea that old cathedral
windows are thicker the bottom because glass
is actually a very slow moving liquid that flows
over centuries. Yes. I actually think I learned
that in school. Is that not true? It is completely
false. Glass is an amorphous solid. It doesn't
flow. So why are they thicker at the bottom?
It's simply because medieval glass blowing techniques
were imperfect. When they made a pane, one side
was often thicker. When they installed it, they
just put the heavy side down for stability. My
whole life is a lie. Okay. So how did they weaponize
this on Usenet? A veteran troll would log on
and write a very serious intellectual sounding
post. They wouldn't say glass moves all. They
would write three paragraphs about viscosity
and molecular structures, sounding very authoritative,
claiming that glass flows. And they just wait.
They wait. And inevitably. A new user, a newbie
would jump in. They would either say, wow, that's
amazing. I never knew that. Or they would try
to argue against it using incorrect logic. And
the moment they did that, the veterans knew,
OK, this person is a newbie. They don't check
their sources. They aren't one of us yet. So
the troll wasn't the person screaming insults.
The troll was the person pretending to be a polite
but misinformed intellectual. Exactly. It was
an inside joke. It served the sociological function.
It defined the boundaries of the community. It
identified the us and the them. It feels almost
gentle compared to what we see today. It's like
a riddle. If you solve it, you get to stay in
the club. It was gentle, but the internet didn't
stay small. By the late 90s, specifically around
the time of AOL, you had this massive influx
of new users. The Eternal September, they called
it. The community just got too big to manage.
The floodgates opened. And that is when the definition
shifted. There were too many newbies to haze.
So the practice of trolling evolved from a community
test into a form of solitary entertainment. I
see. It became about playing a character, often
a stupid or inflammatory character, just to watch
people get mad. For fun. And that is the pivot
point. That is where we leave the gentle hazing
behind and enter the dark territory. Because
it takes a specific type of brain to look at
a screen and say, I'm going to spend the next
four hours making strangers angry for my own
amusement. It does. And this is where we have
to look at the psychology. Because for a long
time, people thought trolls were just bored kids.
But researchers have done deep profiling on this,
and they found a correlation with what is called
the dark tetrad. Dark Tetrad. That sounds like
a heavy metal band or a group of supervillains.
It might as well be. It is a cluster of four
personality traits that are generally considered
socially aversive. And those are? You have. Narcissism,
Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Sadism. Okay,
let's break those down. How do they manifest
in a troll? Well, narcissism is pretty straightforward.
The need for attention. Look at me. Look at the
chaos I caused. Machiavellianism is about manipulation,
using people as pawns in your game. Okay. But
the studies show the strongest link between trolling
and the other two. Psychopathy and Sadism. Sadism
is the big one that jumps out at me. That's taking
pleasure in someone else's pain, right? Yes.
In this context, psychologists often call it
everyday sadism. We aren't necessarily talking
about serial killers who physically torture people.
We are talking about verbal or vicarious sadism.
So they enjoy the psychological distress of others.
They get a thrill from it. They want to see you
type in all caps. They want to see you lose your
cool. Your frustration is their entertainment.
So when I'm sitting there, face red, typing a
furious response to some guy who said something
awful. Yeah. He is literally getting a dopamine
hit from my anger. That is the reward. Your suffering
is his reward. And the psychopathy part is the
lack of empathy. They don't feel bad about causing
that suffering. And Machiavellianism. That comes
in with the control. If I can type a sentence
that ruins your morning, I have power over you.
I control your emotional state from thousands
of miles away. That is terrifying. It makes him
sound like emotional vampires. It's a power trip.
There's a researcher, Ben Radford, who has a
really interesting theory about this. He suggests
that trolls don't see themselves as bad guys.
They see themselves as jesters. Jesters, like
court jesters in the little hats. Bad clowns,
he calls them. If you think about the medieval
court jester, they were the only ones allowed
to mock the king. They were the tricksters who
spoke the truth through humor. So the troll thinks...
I'm not being a bully. I'm just exposing how
sensitive you are. Exactly. I'm exposing your
hypocrisy. I'm showing that you take yourself
too seriously. They view themselves as performing
a kind of public service by pricking your ego.
A very twisted public service. They hide behind
the mask, the anonymous avatar, and perform for
the lulz. It's just a joke, bro. Defense weaponized
into a lifestyle. And the engine that allows
this to happen, the thing that makes it all possible
is the online disinhibition effect. Which is
basically the fact that we act like absolute
maniacs when we can't see each other's faces.
Right. Judith Gonath, who is a brilliant researcher
on social media, she puts it perfectly. She says
that in the physical world. One body equals one
identity. OK. If I see you, I know you're a person.
I see your eyes. I see your reaction. There are
consequences. But online, we are just text. We
are information. I'm not yelling at a human.
I'm yelling at a username. Exactly. The empathy
circuit in the brain essentially short circuits.
You don't see the pain you are causing, so you
don't feel the social shame that usually stops
you from being a monster in public. So is there
a gender dynamic here? I feel like the stereotype
of the troll is overwhelmingly male. Is that
fair or is that just a bias? No, the research
really backs that up. Studies consistently show
that men are more likely to engage in malicious
trolling. Why is that? Psychologists link this
to what they call agentic characteristics, traits
like competitiveness, dominance, and assertiveness,
which are, you know, often socialized more heavily
in men. Trolling is a dominance game. It's a
status game. It is about winning the conversation,
about being on top. So if we know they want to
win and we know they feed on our anger, we have
to talk about the golden rule of the Internet.
Don't feed the trolls. The classic advice, the
mantra. Does it work? Or is that just something
we tell ourselves to feel better? In theory,
it is the only thing that works. It is standard
behavioral conditioning. If you stop providing
the reward, which is your attention. The behavior
should stop. The behavior should extinguish.
But, and this is a huge but. There is a trap
called the extinction burst. The extinction burst.
Okay, explain this because it sounds like something
exploding. It basically is. Imagine a toddler
who wants a cookie. He whines. You say no. He
whines louder. You ignore him. Does he stop immediately?
Absolutely not. He goes nuclear. He screams.
He throws himself on the floor the whole nine
yards. That is the extinction burst. When the
expected reward is removed, the behavior doesn't
just stop. It spikes. It gets incredibly intense.
The subject tries harder and harder to get that
reaction back. So if I ignore a troll who has
been harassing me, he might get worse before
he goes away. Yes, much worse, potentially. He
might escalate from annoying comments to direct
threats or to creating new accounts to get at
you. He is desperate for the lulz. And this is
where most people fail. This is exactly where
they fail. They ignore the troll for a day. The
troll escalates. That's the burst. And then the
victim breaks down and responds saying, leave
me alone. And then the troll learns. I just have
to scream louder to get what I want. Exactly.
You have just reinforced the escalation. You've
taught him that extreme behavior works. If you
are going to use don't feed the trolls, you have
to be prepared to weather the burst. You have
to ride out the storm, and most people can't.
That is actually really practical advice. It's
grim. but practical. Now, I want to pivot a bit
because while the psychology seems universal,
the flavor of trolling changes depending on where
you are in the world. I was looking at the linguistic
notes here, and some of these terms are incredible.
Oh, the international terminology is a goldmine.
It tells you so much about how different cultures
perceive the annoyance. Let's start with the
Chinese term, Bai Mu. Bai Mu. It literally translates
to white eye. That sounds like a ghost story.
The legend of white eye. It refers to the idea
of eyes without pupils. So someone who is wide
-eyed is blindly talking nonsense. They can't
read the room. They're socially blind. I love
that. It's not about them being mean, necessarily.
It's about them being oblivious. Look at this
guy. He has no pupils. It's so descriptive. And
then in Korea, they use the word naxie. Which
brings us full circle. Don't tell me. Does it
mean fishing? It means fishing. The metaphor
holds up completely across the Pacific. In fact,
if you get fooled by a troll in a Korean gaming
cafe, you might say, I am a codfish. I am a codfish.
There is something so humble and honest about
that. You're just admitting you took the bait.
It's great. But my absolute favorite is the Brazilian
one. This is poetry. Chess with a pigeon. This
is an adage that has become the definitive definition
of arguing with a troll in Brazil. The saying
goes, arguing with a fool is like playing chess
with a pigeon. Walk me through the imagery here.
I want the full picture. No matter how good you
are at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock
over the pieces, defecate on the board, and fly
back to its flock claiming victory. It is perfect.
It's so perfect. You could have the best logic,
the best citations, the moral high ground. Yeah.
And the pigeon just knocks the king over and
craps on the table. And struts around like it
won. Yeah. It captures the futility perfectly.
You are playing by rules. They are playing by
biology. And then Thailand has one about haircuts.
This one was interesting. Korean. It refers to
the closely cropped crew cut that schoolboys
in Thailand are required to wear. So when someone
is acting like a troll in a forum or a game,
they call them Korean. They are calling them
a schoolboy. It's a status check. You are acting
like a child. It diminishes their power. Exactly.
It associates the behavior with immaturity, specifically
the rowdy kids you might see in internet cafes.
It diminishes the troll. I think we need more
of that energy. Less fear, more stop acting like
a schoolboy. But unfortunately, we can't stay
in the fun linguistic section forever because
we have to acknowledge that trolling isn't always
playing chess with a pigeon. Sometimes the pigeon
brings a knife. This is the shift to the dark
side. When trolling moves from pranks to harassment
and then to things like RIP trolling. RIP trolling.
Even the name makes me cringe. This is defacing
memorial pages for people who have died. It is.
And this brings us right back to that sadism
trait we talked about. RIP trolling targets the
grieving. The logic, if you can call it that,
is that the troll wants the maximum possible
emotional reaction. And where is a human being
most vulnerable? When they have just lost a loved
one. When they're at their absolute lowest, that's
the target. It's monstrous. I remember the Trinity
Bates case in Australia. She was a child. A young
girl, eight years old, brutally murdered. And
trolls descended on her tribute page on Facebook.
They posted horrific images. They mocked her
death. They tormented the family. The public
outcry was huge. It caused such a national outrage
that the Australian government had to fast track
new laws. They realized the existing legal framework
just didn't cover this level of cruelty. And
in the U .S., the Nikki Katsoura's case. I almost
don't want to talk about it. It's so vile. But
we have to understand the depth of this. We do
because it shows the escalation. Nikki was 18.
She died in a horrific car accident. The crash
scene photos were. Extremely graphic. And they
were leaked. They were leaked by two California
Highway Patrol officers. And trolls didn't just
post them on 4chan or some gore site. They went
further. What did they do? They tracked down
Nikki's father's email address. They created
fake MySpace profiles using her name. And they
emailed him the photos of his daughter's decapitated
body with captions like, Hey, Daddy, I'm still
alive. That isn't trolling. That is psychological
torture. There's no other word for it. It is.
And that is why it is dangerous to lump everything
under one word. Fishing for newbies with a glass
fact is one thing. Sending gore to a grieving
father is something else entirely. It is weaponized
cruelty. And we can't talk about this without
talking about the hubs where this kind of thing
festers. 4chan. Specifically the B board. 4chan
is the engine room for a lot of this. It's an
image board with forced anonymity. No usernames,
no post history. It creates a hive mind. You
aren't an individual. You are just anonymous.
And that hive mind can be powerful for good or
ill. I mean, they did Project Chenology where
they went to war against Scientology. Look at
it. They wore the Guy Fawkes masks. They saw
themselves as activist trolls. They did. They
used classic trolling tactics, prank calls. Black
faxes, which is sending solid black pages to
drain a target's ink, overwhelming their servers.
But they directed it at an organization they
believed was evil. So it shows that trolling
is a methodology. Exactly. It's like a hammer.
You can use a hammer to build a house or you
can use it to crack a skull. The tool is neutral.
The intent is everything. Well, speaking of hammers,
let's talk about the biggest hammer of all. State
-sponsored trolling. Because this is where the
lull stops being the motive and geopolitics takes
over. This is the era of industrialized trolling.
We are not talking about a guy in a basement
anymore. We are talking about salaried employees
in office buildings clocking in at 9 a .m., sitting
in a cubicle and trolling for the government.
Let's start with China, the 50 cent party. I
would assume this meant they literally paid people
50 cents to go online and argue with dissidents.
You know, hey, you're wrong about the government.
That is the common misconception. We assume state
censorship looks like an argument. But Gary King,
a researcher at Harvard, did a massive analysis
of millions of these posts. And what he found
was that the 50 Cent Party, and it's a huge operation,
something like 440 million posts a year, they
generally do not argue. They don't argue. So
what do they do? They distract. They cheerlead.
Let's say there is a protest breaking out in
a rural province and people are posting about
it online. Okay. The 50 Cent Army doesn't go
into the comments and say the protesters are
wrong. Instead, they flood the internet with
beautiful photos of the Chinese landscape. They
post inspirational quotes about traditional culture.
They talk about how great the local food is.
Wait, that's genius. They just changed the subject
on a national scale. It is strategic distraction.
If the Internet is a room where everyone is shouting
about a fire, the 50 cent party doesn't shout
there is no fire. They just bring in a thousand
people to start singing happy birthday really,
really loudly. They drown out the signal with
positive noise. It's so much more effective than
arguing. Arguing keeps the controversial topic
alive. Distraction buries it under a mountain
of fluff. That's insidious. Yeah. Now compare
that to the Russian strategy. the Internet Research
Agency or the Russian troll farms, their goal
is different. Very different. They don't want
to distract. They want to create conflict and
confusion. They want to polarize. This is hybrid
warfare. Yes. And one of their most effective
and I think most frightening tools is what the
NATO sources call the Wikipedia troll. The Wikipedia
troll. This is the one that really scared me
when I read about it. Explain how this works.
OK, let's role play this. Let's say you are on
a forum and you post a comment criticizing Russia's
annexation of Crimea. You say this is a violation
of international borders. OK, simple enough.
Russia is wrong for invading Crimea. That's my
post. Now, a standard troll might just call you
an idiot, but a Wikipedia troll will reply with
something very calm and seemingly reasonable.
They'll say. It is interesting you talk about
borders. Did you know about the U .S. annexation
of Hawaii in 1898? Here is the link to the Wikipedia
article detailing how the U .S. government overthrew
the Hawaiian kingdom. Okay. I mean, I guess that's
true. The U .S. did do that. The link is probably
to a real Wikipedia page. Exactly. The facts
are true. The link is to an authoritative source.
But look what just happened. Are we talking about
Crimea anymore? No. Now we're talking about American
imperialism in the 19th century. You have been
neutralized. They use true facts in the wrong
context to imply a moral equivalence. It is whataboutism
weaponized with citations. And if I try to argue
back, I look like a hypocrite. Oh, so it's okay
when America does it. And the conversation is
derailed. It's an incredibly sophisticated tactic
because it targets people who think they're smart.
The people who check sources. It hacks your critical
thinking. It creates a fog where truth doesn't
matter because everyone is guilty of something.
And corporations do this too, right? This isn't
just states. We hear the term astroturfing. Astroturfing
is fake grassroots support. But the specific
character to look out for here is the concern
troll. I hate the concern troll. Maybe more than
any other kind. We all do because they're so
slippery. The concern troll pretends to be an
ally. They enter a community, say an online group
for a political campaign and say, hey, guys,
I love this candidate. I'm a huge supporter.
But UT. But I'm really worried that if we talk
about this specific policy, we are going to alienate
the moderate voters or I just don't think we
have the resources to win. Exactly. I support
the protest, but I'm just concerned that the
slogan is too aggressive and might turn people
off. We have a documented case of this. A staffer
for U .S. Congressman Charles Bass was caught
posing as a concerned supporter of his opponent,
Paul Hodes. What did he do? He went on to liberal
blogs and posted comments like, I really want
Hodes to win, but I'm just worried he's wasting
his money because Bass is unbeatable and we should
focus on other races. It's sabotage disguised
as friendship. It sows doubt from the inside.
It's designed to lower morale. And it creates
what's called uncertainty bias. If you can just
make people a little bit unsure, they freeze,
they don't donate, they don't volunteer, they
don't march. You don't have to convince them
to switch sides. You just have to convince them
to do nothing. God, it makes you paranoid. It
makes you look at every comment online and think,
are you a real person? Are you a Russian bot?
Are you a congressional staffer? And that paranoia
is the damage. That's the goal. Trolling on this
scale destroys the social trust required for
a public square to function. Okay. That is heavy.
Yeah. And I think we need a palate cleanser.
Yeah. Because not all trolling is state -sponsored
psychological warfare. Sometimes it's just really
funny weirdos being weird. We have to talk about
the legends. We have to talk about Ken M. Ken
M. The myth. The man. Ugh. For listeners who
don't know, who is Ken M? Ken McCarthy, known
online as Ken M, is widely considered the good
troll. His whole persona is the well -meaning
moron. That's a good way to put it. He goes into
comment sections, usually on serious news articles
or brand pages, and posts completely absurd,
innocent -sounding nonsense. But the trick is,
he baits people into correcting him. He preys
on their need to be right. Yes, he trolls their
intellectual vanity. Do you have the space potato
comment there? I do. This is one of my all -time
favorites. So there's a serious article about
a new telescope discovery. Science stuff. And
Ken M. comments, Pastor says space is the only
place big enough to hold all the mountains if
they weren't so heavy. It makes absolutely no
sense whatsoever. It's beautiful. None. And yet,
look at the replies. Ken, you are an idiot. That's
not how physics works. People are furious. They
are typing out long paragraphs explaining mass
and volume and gravity to him. And that is the
beauty of it. The trolls in that scenario are
the people replying to him. He is exposing their
desperate need to be the smartest person in the
room. He isn't abusive. He's absurdist. He turns
the comment section into a surrealist comedy
sketch. It's a work of art. Then there are the
hoaxes, the Jenkin panic. This one actually hit
the mainstream news. This is a masterclass in
media literacy, or the lack thereof. A user named
Pickwick on a forum called Tootsie claimed he
was making a new drug called Jenkum. And the
recipe was unique, to say the least. It was fermented
human waste, sewage. The idea was you'd inhale
the fumes to get high. Gross. Just gross. He
posted photos of bottles filled with brown sludge.
He claimed it was the real deal. In reality,
it was just flour, water, and some chocolate
syrup. But he sold it. the story and the media
bit hard. I remember this. Fox News ran a segment
on it, didn't they? They did. Major news outlets
warned parents to check their children's breath
for the smell of sewage. They ran serious, straight
-faced segments about the new drug sweeping the
nation. That has to be the ultimate troll victory.
Getting a neatly groomed news anchor to look
into the camera and say the word Jenkum with
a straight face. It was a perfect troll because
it exposed the sensationalism of the 24 -hour
news cycle. They didn't fact check. They just
wanted the shock value. And the internet absolutely
howled with laughter. I also want to mention
the Vampitazo in Brazil. Because this feels like
a bridge between the funny stuff and the political
stuff. It's almost a protest. It is. This is
counter -trolling as a form of protest. So Vampeta
is a famous ex -footballer in Brazil. Okay. And
years ago, he once posed fully nude for a magazine
called G Magazine. Okay. I think I see where
this is going. When a public figure, someone
like Elon Musk or a foreign politician, says
something that offends Brazil, Brazilian users
engage in a vampatazo. They flood the person's
social media replies with thousands and thousands
of photos of the naked footballer. Yeah, if you
insult Brazil, your entire timeline just becomes
naked soccer players. Wall to wall, it makes
the comment section unusable. It embarrasses
the target. It's a digital flash mob using nudity
as a censorship weapon. It's chaotic. It's absurd,
but it's effective. You have to admire the creativity.
We won't argue with you. We will just show you
Vampeda. But this raises the big question. If
trolls can harass families, disrupt elections,
and flood timelines with nudity, what is the
law doing about it? The law is trying to catch
up, but it's struggling. And it varies wildly
depending on where you are. Let's start with
the U .S. What's the situation here? In the United
States, trolling is largely protected by the
First Amendment. Being mean or offensive isn't
a federal crime. Unless it crosses the line into
a true threat or stalking, you are generally
allowed to be a jerk. Even the hateful stuff.
Hate speech is protected speech in the U .S.,
generally speaking. There was a fascinating collision
of this with the U .S. Army esports team a couple
years ago. Wait, the Army has an esports team?
They do. They stream on Twitch to recruit young
people. Well, trolls started going into their
Twitch chat and asking questions about U .S.
war crimes. What about the Maile Massacre? What
about white phosphorus? Things like that. Trolling
the army with its own history. And then the army
started banning them, I assume. They did. But
the ACLU and other legal groups stepped in and
said, wait a minute. You are a government entity.
This is a public forum. You cannot ban citizens
for their speech just because you don't like
the content. That is a wild paradox. Yeah. The
trolls were using the First Amendment to troll
the military about war crimes, and the First
Amendment protected them. Exactly. But if you
cross the Atlantic to the UK, it is a completely
different ballgame. The UK doesn't mess around,
right? No. They have the Malicious Communications
Act and the Communications Act. People have been
literally jailed, sent to prison for tweets.
Prison for tweets. Give me an example. There
is a man who made grossly offensive jokes about
a missing child, April Jones, who was murdered,
and another missing girl, Madeline McCann. He
was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail. 12 weeks for
a joke. A grossly offensive one. The legal standard
there is much, much broader than in the US. It
is subjective, but it is enforced. And Japan
is moving in that direction, too. In 2022, they
introduced a ban on online insults. How do they
define an insult? That seems tricky. It is. It's
defined as publicly demeaning someone's social
standing without referring to specific facts.
So if I call you a thief and you are a thief,
that's one thing. But if I just call you garbage
or useless, that is a prosecutable insult. And
now it is punishable by imprisonment. It feels
like the world is splitting. The U .S. is saying
free speech above all else. And much of the rest
of the world is saying, no, human dignity is
the priority. And in the middle of that split,
we have the platforms themselves trying to solve
it with real names. You see this push for de
-anonymization. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reuters comments,
they want you to use your legal name. The idea
being, if you can't wear the mask, you won't
throw the brick. Correct. Remove the anonymity.
You remove the disinhibition effect. But then
you lose the privacy that allows whistleblowers
to speak or marginalized people to find communities
safely. It is a double -edged sword with no easy
answer. We have been on quite a journey today.
I mean, we went from Navy pilots dragging lures
for MiGs to glass flows debates on Usenet through
the dark psychology of sadism all the way to
Chinese propaganda armies and Brazilian nude
photo protests. It is a sweeping landscape. But
if I can summarize it, I'd say this. Trolling
isn't just one thing. It is a mechanism. It is
a tool of identity deception. It goes back to
what you said earlier about the Internet. We
aren't bodies online. We are just information.
Trolling is hacking that information. And it
is hacking the social contract. Society, conversation,
it relies on the assumption that people are arguing
in good faith. That when you speak, you generally
mean what you say. Trolling weaponizes that trust.
When a troll enters the room, good faith dies.
Which leaves me with a final, slightly unsettling
thought to chew on. We talked about concerned
trolls, people who pretend to be on your side
just to sabotage you. We talked about Russian
trolls using true facts to manipulate you. Where
are you going with this? Well, if aggression
is easy to spot and hate is easy to block, what
happens when the trolls start using agreement
as their primary weapon? If the most effective
troll is the one who pretends to be your best
friend simply to steer you off a cliff, How can
we ever trust anyone who agrees with us online?
That is the real danger, isn't it? We might be
entering an era where sincerity itself is more
suspicious than aggression. If someone is yelling
at me, at least I know where they stand. If someone
is agreeing with me, are they fishing? On that
paranoid note, check your sources, watch out
for pigeons playing chess, and thanks for diving
deep with us. Stay skeptical out there. See you
next time.