WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.919 staring into the abyss of the internet. And, 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:09.400 uh, honestly, the abyss is making a really weird 00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:11.980 face back at us. It usually is. It usually is. 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:14.580 We're talking about trolling. Oh, I know. I know, 00:00:14.619 --> 00:00:16.780 the moment I say trolling, you probably have 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:19.500 a very specific image in your head. Maybe it's 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:21.579 a 14 -year -old in a basement spamming memes. 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:24.059 Maybe it's that guy in the comments section who 00:00:24.059 --> 00:00:26.339 just won't let the Star Wars sequel trilogy go. 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:30.390 Or maybe it's something... It is likely a mix 00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:32.469 of all those things. But if there is one thing 00:00:32.469 --> 00:00:34.509 the research stack for this deep dive proves, 00:00:34.750 --> 00:00:37.149 it is that our collective definition of trolling 00:00:37.149 --> 00:00:40.070 is way too narrow. How so? We tend to think of 00:00:40.070 --> 00:00:44.210 it as just noise, static on the line. Just annoying 00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:46.149 people being annoying. Right. Like mosquitoes. 00:00:46.429 --> 00:00:48.770 Yeah. You just swat away and move on. Exactly. 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:50.710 But what we are going to explore today suggests 00:00:50.710 --> 00:00:52.869 that trolling is so much more than a nuisance. 00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:58.170 It is a complex sociological phenomenon. It has 00:00:58.170 --> 00:01:01.009 a history that predates the World Wide Web, a 00:01:01.009 --> 00:01:03.649 psychology that links to some genuinely disturbing 00:01:03.649 --> 00:01:06.489 personality traits. And this is where it gets 00:01:06.489 --> 00:01:09.930 really scary. It has evolved into a legitimate 00:01:09.930 --> 00:01:14.000 weapon of geopolitical warfare. Whoa. Yeah, we 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.659 are talking about a spectrum that runs from benign 00:01:16.659 --> 00:01:20.760 pranks to state -sponsored psychological operations. 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:23.739 So that is the mission for today. We are going 00:01:23.739 --> 00:01:25.599 to peel back the layers. We are going to move 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:29.180 beyond the modern idea of just, you know, Internet 00:01:29.180 --> 00:01:32.680 harassment and uncover the history, which, spoiler 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:35.560 alert, involves the Vietnam War. It does. And 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:37.560 the strange, twisting evolution of the troll. 00:01:37.900 --> 00:01:39.939 Because I was shocked to learn that trolling 00:01:39.939 --> 00:01:42.700 didn't originally mean being a monster. It really 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:44.819 didn't. And I think that is the best place to 00:01:44.819 --> 00:01:46.799 start. We need to define the beast before we 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:48.560 dissect it. Okay, let's do it. If you look at 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:50.719 the academic literature or even just the definitions 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.819 used by sociologists, trolling is defined as 00:01:53.819 --> 00:01:56.000 the act of deliberately posting offensive or 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.379 provocative messages. Illiberately. Illiberately. 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.120 Intended to elicit an emotional response. Deliberately 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:03.540 seems like the operative word there. It's not 00:02:03.540 --> 00:02:05.780 an accident. You don't accidentally troll someone. 00:02:05.959 --> 00:02:08.639 No, absolutely not. It requires intent. You are 00:02:08.639 --> 00:02:11.550 engineering a reaction. The goal is the emotional 00:02:11.550 --> 00:02:14.389 spike from the victim. In the subculture, as 00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:16.729 you know, they call this the lulz. The lulz is 00:02:16.729 --> 00:02:19.110 such a specific term. It's not just laughter 00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:22.909 or fun. It has a nasty edge to it. It does. It 00:02:22.909 --> 00:02:25.430 implies a kind of detached, chaotic amusement 00:02:25.430 --> 00:02:28.469 at someone else's expense. But even within that 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:31.310 definition, there is a massive range. A spectrum, 00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:33.990 like you said. A huge spectrum. On one end, you 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:36.949 have what you might call playtime trolling. This 00:02:36.949 --> 00:02:39.590 is mischievous, maybe a little annoying, but 00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:42.810 generally harmless. It's a prank. Okay. On the 00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:45.689 far other end, you have domination trolling or 00:02:45.689 --> 00:02:47.830 strategic trolling. Domination trolling. That 00:02:47.830 --> 00:02:50.849 sounds ominous. It is. That is where the goal 00:02:50.849 --> 00:02:52.990 isn't just a giggle. It is to destroy reputation, 00:02:53.569 --> 00:02:56.810 to silence a voice, or even to destabilize a 00:02:56.810 --> 00:02:59.210 political movement. It is tactical aggression. 00:02:59.289 --> 00:03:02.830 It's about manipulating how people perceive reality. 00:03:03.150 --> 00:03:05.750 So we have this spectrum. But let's go back to 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.729 the word itself. Because I think 99 % of people, 00:03:08.830 --> 00:03:11.550 including me, until I read these notes, assume 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:14.789 that troll refers to the mythical creature. Of 00:03:14.789 --> 00:03:16.969 course. You know, the ugly guy living under the 00:03:16.969 --> 00:03:19.330 bridge in the Three Billy Goats gruff story waiting 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:22.789 to eat you. It fits perfectly. Trolls are ugly. 00:03:22.930 --> 00:03:24.509 They stop you from getting where you want to 00:03:24.509 --> 00:03:27.259 go. They're antisocial. It is a perfect coincidence, 00:03:27.460 --> 00:03:29.599 but it is a coincidence. The term trolling in 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:32.240 this context actually comes from fishing. Fishing. 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:34.840 Okay. I have never held a fishing rod in my life. 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:37.400 So you are going to have to walk me through the 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:39.919 mechanics here. How does annoying people on the 00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:43.139 internet relate to catching fish? So there are 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:45.759 two words that sound similar but mean very different 00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:49.219 things. There is trawling, T -R -A -W -L, where 00:03:49.219 --> 00:03:51.639 you drag a massive net behind a boat and catch 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:53.800 everything in your path. Right. Indiscriminate. 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:55.939 You catch the fish, the boots, the tires, everything. 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:59.240 Exactly. But trawling, T -R -O -L -L, is a specific 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:02.340 technique where you drag a baited line or a lure 00:04:02.340 --> 00:04:04.759 slowly through the water from a moving boat. 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:07.539 You are pulling it along, making it look enticing, 00:04:07.699 --> 00:04:10.590 waiting for something to bite. You are targeting 00:04:10.590 --> 00:04:13.569 a reaction. Oh, I see. So the internet troll 00:04:13.569 --> 00:04:15.689 isn't the guy throwing a net over the whole comment 00:04:15.689 --> 00:04:18.829 section. He is the guy dangling a very specific, 00:04:18.970 --> 00:04:22.149 shiny, annoying lure waiting for one specific 00:04:22.149 --> 00:04:24.990 person to snap at it. Precisely. You put the 00:04:24.990 --> 00:04:27.250 bait out there, a controversial statement, a 00:04:27.250 --> 00:04:30.029 deliberate factual error, and you wait to see 00:04:30.029 --> 00:04:32.589 who cannot resist correcting you or getting angry. 00:04:32.870 --> 00:04:34.850 And here is the kicker you mentioned earlier. 00:04:35.050 --> 00:04:38.639 This usage of the word trolling. to mean baiting 00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:41.779 a reaction. predates the internet entirely. By 00:04:41.779 --> 00:04:43.759 decades. This was the Vietnam War connection. 00:04:44.060 --> 00:04:47.579 Yes. Around 1972, U .S. Navy pilots started using 00:04:47.579 --> 00:04:50.620 the term trolling for MiGs. MiGs being the Soviet 00:04:50.620 --> 00:04:52.639 -made fighter jets used by the North Vietnamese. 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:55.160 Correct. The U .S. pilots would fly consistently 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:57.399 in a way that made them look like easy targets, 00:04:57.579 --> 00:04:59.860 or they would fly specific patterns to act as 00:04:59.860 --> 00:05:02.040 decoys. They were dragging the lure through the 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:03.939 sky. They were baiting them. They wanted the 00:05:03.939 --> 00:05:06.540 MiGs to bite, to come out and engage so they 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:08.500 could be shot down. They called it trolling. 00:05:08.970 --> 00:05:11.029 That is fascinating. So it literally started 00:05:11.029 --> 00:05:14.110 as a military tactic. It wasn't about being mean. 00:05:14.189 --> 00:05:16.889 It was about setting a trap. Come and get me. 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.310 I dare you. And that DNA is still in the Internet 00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:22.009 troll today. It is all about the trap. OK, so 00:05:22.009 --> 00:05:25.470 obviously at some point, the the old Norse folklore 00:05:25.470 --> 00:05:28.709 of the troll monster merged with this. Oh, absolutely. 00:05:28.870 --> 00:05:31.370 The Internet culture adopted the avatar of the 00:05:31.370 --> 00:05:33.889 ugly, brutish monster because it suited the behavior. 00:05:33.990 --> 00:05:36.730 It was a perfect fit. But the action, the verb 00:05:36.730 --> 00:05:39.509 to troll, is all about the bait. So how did we 00:05:39.509 --> 00:05:42.110 get from Navy pilots dogfighting over Vietnam 00:05:42.110 --> 00:05:45.910 to teenagers arguing on Reddit? There had to 00:05:45.910 --> 00:05:48.149 be a bridge, pun intended. The bridge was Usenet. 00:05:48.250 --> 00:05:50.250 We have to go back to the early 1990s. Paint 00:05:50.250 --> 00:05:52.149 the picture for us, because I think it's hard 00:05:52.149 --> 00:05:54.889 for modern Internet users to visualize just how 00:05:54.889 --> 00:05:57.569 different the online world was in, say, 1992. 00:05:58.220 --> 00:06:00.519 It's almost unrecognizable. It was a text -based 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:03.579 world. No images, no videos, no influencers, 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:06.740 no likes. Right. Just screens of green or amber 00:06:06.740 --> 00:06:09.180 text on black backgrounds. It was very academic, 00:06:09.339 --> 00:06:11.879 very technical. A lot of university people, researchers. 00:06:12.019 --> 00:06:14.579 They're small communities. tiny by today's standards 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:17.160 and there was a specific new group called alt 00:06:17.160 --> 00:06:21.519 .folklore .urban alt .folklore .urban so this 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:23.600 was where people discussed urban legends like 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:25.660 alligators in the sewers and that kind of thing 00:06:25.660 --> 00:06:28.439 exactly that they would debunk myths or trace 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:31.279 the origins of stories and in this community 00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:35.360 the term trolling for newbies emerged but and 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:38.040 this is crucial it wasn't malicious it was no 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.079 not at all it was a game it was a kind of hazing 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:43.980 ritual hazing ritual like a fraternity initiation 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:47.160 in a way the veteran users wanted to see if a 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:49.180 new person was smart enough to be part of the 00:06:49.180 --> 00:06:51.800 in group so they would post a topic that had 00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:54.660 been debated a thousand times or a fact that 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:57.180 was subtly wrong just to see who would fall for 00:06:57.180 --> 00:06:59.740 it okay i need a specific example what kind of 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:02.220 bait works on a bunch of urban legend nerds in 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:04.779 1992 the classic example the one everyone brings 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:07.779 up is the glass flows myth the glass flows myth 00:07:07.779 --> 00:07:10.160 have you ever heard the idea that old cathedral 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.740 windows are thicker the bottom because glass 00:07:12.740 --> 00:07:15.779 is actually a very slow moving liquid that flows 00:07:15.779 --> 00:07:18.540 over centuries. Yes. I actually think I learned 00:07:18.540 --> 00:07:20.439 that in school. Is that not true? It is completely 00:07:20.439 --> 00:07:23.120 false. Glass is an amorphous solid. It doesn't 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.339 flow. So why are they thicker at the bottom? 00:07:25.540 --> 00:07:28.180 It's simply because medieval glass blowing techniques 00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:31.540 were imperfect. When they made a pane, one side 00:07:31.540 --> 00:07:34.399 was often thicker. When they installed it, they 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:36.639 just put the heavy side down for stability. My 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:40.019 whole life is a lie. Okay. So how did they weaponize 00:07:40.019 --> 00:07:43.040 this on Usenet? A veteran troll would log on 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:45.639 and write a very serious intellectual sounding 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.740 post. They wouldn't say glass moves all. They 00:07:48.740 --> 00:07:51.000 would write three paragraphs about viscosity 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.439 and molecular structures, sounding very authoritative, 00:07:54.439 --> 00:07:56.519 claiming that glass flows. And they just wait. 00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:00.600 They wait. And inevitably. A new user, a newbie 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:02.779 would jump in. They would either say, wow, that's 00:08:02.779 --> 00:08:05.120 amazing. I never knew that. Or they would try 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.459 to argue against it using incorrect logic. And 00:08:07.459 --> 00:08:09.639 the moment they did that, the veterans knew, 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:11.860 OK, this person is a newbie. They don't check 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:14.120 their sources. They aren't one of us yet. So 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:16.480 the troll wasn't the person screaming insults. 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:19.560 The troll was the person pretending to be a polite 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.579 but misinformed intellectual. Exactly. It was 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:25.199 an inside joke. It served the sociological function. 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:28.199 It defined the boundaries of the community. It 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:31.079 identified the us and the them. It feels almost 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:34.419 gentle compared to what we see today. It's like 00:08:34.419 --> 00:08:36.080 a riddle. If you solve it, you get to stay in 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.320 the club. It was gentle, but the internet didn't 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:41.450 stay small. By the late 90s, specifically around 00:08:41.450 --> 00:08:44.009 the time of AOL, you had this massive influx 00:08:44.009 --> 00:08:47.450 of new users. The Eternal September, they called 00:08:47.450 --> 00:08:49.909 it. The community just got too big to manage. 00:08:50.129 --> 00:08:52.610 The floodgates opened. And that is when the definition 00:08:52.610 --> 00:08:54.629 shifted. There were too many newbies to haze. 00:08:54.769 --> 00:08:57.450 So the practice of trolling evolved from a community 00:08:57.450 --> 00:09:00.230 test into a form of solitary entertainment. I 00:09:00.230 --> 00:09:02.549 see. It became about playing a character, often 00:09:02.549 --> 00:09:04.809 a stupid or inflammatory character, just to watch 00:09:04.809 --> 00:09:08.360 people get mad. For fun. And that is the pivot 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.379 point. That is where we leave the gentle hazing 00:09:11.379 --> 00:09:14.419 behind and enter the dark territory. Because 00:09:14.419 --> 00:09:17.539 it takes a specific type of brain to look at 00:09:17.539 --> 00:09:20.120 a screen and say, I'm going to spend the next 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:22.879 four hours making strangers angry for my own 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:24.700 amusement. It does. And this is where we have 00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:26.259 to look at the psychology. Because for a long 00:09:26.259 --> 00:09:28.779 time, people thought trolls were just bored kids. 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:31.659 But researchers have done deep profiling on this, 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:34.419 and they found a correlation with what is called 00:09:34.419 --> 00:09:37.470 the dark tetrad. Dark Tetrad. That sounds like 00:09:37.470 --> 00:09:40.070 a heavy metal band or a group of supervillains. 00:09:40.070 --> 00:09:42.169 It might as well be. It is a cluster of four 00:09:42.169 --> 00:09:44.110 personality traits that are generally considered 00:09:44.110 --> 00:09:47.940 socially aversive. And those are? You have. Narcissism, 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:50.960 Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Sadism. Okay, 00:09:51.039 --> 00:09:52.580 let's break those down. How do they manifest 00:09:52.580 --> 00:09:55.179 in a troll? Well, narcissism is pretty straightforward. 00:09:55.460 --> 00:09:57.559 The need for attention. Look at me. Look at the 00:09:57.559 --> 00:10:00.919 chaos I caused. Machiavellianism is about manipulation, 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:04.179 using people as pawns in your game. Okay. But 00:10:04.179 --> 00:10:06.840 the studies show the strongest link between trolling 00:10:06.840 --> 00:10:11.120 and the other two. Psychopathy and Sadism. Sadism 00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:13.220 is the big one that jumps out at me. That's taking 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:15.399 pleasure in someone else's pain, right? Yes. 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:18.710 In this context, psychologists often call it 00:10:18.710 --> 00:10:21.909 everyday sadism. We aren't necessarily talking 00:10:21.909 --> 00:10:24.509 about serial killers who physically torture people. 00:10:24.769 --> 00:10:28.009 We are talking about verbal or vicarious sadism. 00:10:28.009 --> 00:10:30.509 So they enjoy the psychological distress of others. 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:32.889 They get a thrill from it. They want to see you 00:10:32.889 --> 00:10:34.909 type in all caps. They want to see you lose your 00:10:34.909 --> 00:10:37.590 cool. Your frustration is their entertainment. 00:10:38.049 --> 00:10:41.350 So when I'm sitting there, face red, typing a 00:10:41.350 --> 00:10:43.549 furious response to some guy who said something 00:10:43.549 --> 00:10:46.360 awful. Yeah. He is literally getting a dopamine 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:49.419 hit from my anger. That is the reward. Your suffering 00:10:49.419 --> 00:10:52.320 is his reward. And the psychopathy part is the 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:54.659 lack of empathy. They don't feel bad about causing 00:10:54.659 --> 00:10:57.039 that suffering. And Machiavellianism. That comes 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:59.320 in with the control. If I can type a sentence 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.700 that ruins your morning, I have power over you. 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:04.539 I control your emotional state from thousands 00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:06.879 of miles away. That is terrifying. It makes him 00:11:06.879 --> 00:11:09.039 sound like emotional vampires. It's a power trip. 00:11:09.559 --> 00:11:11.720 There's a researcher, Ben Radford, who has a 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:14.220 really interesting theory about this. He suggests 00:11:14.220 --> 00:11:16.600 that trolls don't see themselves as bad guys. 00:11:16.740 --> 00:11:19.620 They see themselves as jesters. Jesters, like 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:23.179 court jesters in the little hats. Bad clowns, 00:11:23.179 --> 00:11:25.539 he calls them. If you think about the medieval 00:11:25.539 --> 00:11:27.919 court jester, they were the only ones allowed 00:11:27.919 --> 00:11:30.360 to mock the king. They were the tricksters who 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:33.059 spoke the truth through humor. So the troll thinks... 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:35.200 I'm not being a bully. I'm just exposing how 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:37.840 sensitive you are. Exactly. I'm exposing your 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:39.980 hypocrisy. I'm showing that you take yourself 00:11:39.980 --> 00:11:42.919 too seriously. They view themselves as performing 00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:45.480 a kind of public service by pricking your ego. 00:11:45.659 --> 00:11:48.519 A very twisted public service. They hide behind 00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.580 the mask, the anonymous avatar, and perform for 00:11:51.580 --> 00:11:55.639 the lulz. It's just a joke, bro. Defense weaponized 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:58.350 into a lifestyle. And the engine that allows 00:11:58.350 --> 00:12:00.830 this to happen, the thing that makes it all possible 00:12:00.830 --> 00:12:04.029 is the online disinhibition effect. Which is 00:12:04.029 --> 00:12:05.830 basically the fact that we act like absolute 00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:07.669 maniacs when we can't see each other's faces. 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:10.490 Right. Judith Gonath, who is a brilliant researcher 00:12:10.490 --> 00:12:13.289 on social media, she puts it perfectly. She says 00:12:13.289 --> 00:12:16.490 that in the physical world. One body equals one 00:12:16.490 --> 00:12:20.190 identity. OK. If I see you, I know you're a person. 00:12:20.269 --> 00:12:22.610 I see your eyes. I see your reaction. There are 00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:26.509 consequences. But online, we are just text. We 00:12:26.509 --> 00:12:28.690 are information. I'm not yelling at a human. 00:12:28.730 --> 00:12:30.990 I'm yelling at a username. Exactly. The empathy 00:12:30.990 --> 00:12:33.789 circuit in the brain essentially short circuits. 00:12:33.870 --> 00:12:36.389 You don't see the pain you are causing, so you 00:12:36.389 --> 00:12:38.669 don't feel the social shame that usually stops 00:12:38.669 --> 00:12:41.779 you from being a monster in public. So is there 00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:44.620 a gender dynamic here? I feel like the stereotype 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:48.320 of the troll is overwhelmingly male. Is that 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:50.759 fair or is that just a bias? No, the research 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:53.179 really backs that up. Studies consistently show 00:12:53.179 --> 00:12:55.980 that men are more likely to engage in malicious 00:12:55.980 --> 00:12:58.590 trolling. Why is that? Psychologists link this 00:12:58.590 --> 00:13:00.590 to what they call agentic characteristics, traits 00:13:00.590 --> 00:13:03.730 like competitiveness, dominance, and assertiveness, 00:13:03.970 --> 00:13:06.389 which are, you know, often socialized more heavily 00:13:06.389 --> 00:13:08.570 in men. Trolling is a dominance game. It's a 00:13:08.570 --> 00:13:10.590 status game. It is about winning the conversation, 00:13:10.850 --> 00:13:13.730 about being on top. So if we know they want to 00:13:13.730 --> 00:13:17.230 win and we know they feed on our anger, we have 00:13:17.230 --> 00:13:19.009 to talk about the golden rule of the Internet. 00:13:19.610 --> 00:13:22.350 Don't feed the trolls. The classic advice, the 00:13:22.350 --> 00:13:25.210 mantra. Does it work? Or is that just something 00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:27.600 we tell ourselves to feel better? In theory, 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:30.059 it is the only thing that works. It is standard 00:13:30.059 --> 00:13:33.039 behavioral conditioning. If you stop providing 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:35.720 the reward, which is your attention. The behavior 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:38.000 should stop. The behavior should extinguish. 00:13:38.139 --> 00:13:41.490 But, and this is a huge but. There is a trap 00:13:41.490 --> 00:13:44.250 called the extinction burst. The extinction burst. 00:13:44.309 --> 00:13:46.070 Okay, explain this because it sounds like something 00:13:46.070 --> 00:13:48.610 exploding. It basically is. Imagine a toddler 00:13:48.610 --> 00:13:51.289 who wants a cookie. He whines. You say no. He 00:13:51.289 --> 00:13:54.570 whines louder. You ignore him. Does he stop immediately? 00:13:54.990 --> 00:13:57.230 Absolutely not. He goes nuclear. He screams. 00:13:57.350 --> 00:13:59.009 He throws himself on the floor the whole nine 00:13:59.009 --> 00:14:01.429 yards. That is the extinction burst. When the 00:14:01.429 --> 00:14:03.990 expected reward is removed, the behavior doesn't 00:14:03.990 --> 00:14:07.360 just stop. It spikes. It gets incredibly intense. 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:10.279 The subject tries harder and harder to get that 00:14:10.279 --> 00:14:12.559 reaction back. So if I ignore a troll who has 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:14.980 been harassing me, he might get worse before 00:14:14.980 --> 00:14:19.299 he goes away. Yes, much worse, potentially. He 00:14:19.299 --> 00:14:21.980 might escalate from annoying comments to direct 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:24.700 threats or to creating new accounts to get at 00:14:24.700 --> 00:14:28.429 you. He is desperate for the lulz. And this is 00:14:28.429 --> 00:14:30.450 where most people fail. This is exactly where 00:14:30.450 --> 00:14:32.970 they fail. They ignore the troll for a day. The 00:14:32.970 --> 00:14:35.210 troll escalates. That's the burst. And then the 00:14:35.210 --> 00:14:37.370 victim breaks down and responds saying, leave 00:14:37.370 --> 00:14:40.500 me alone. And then the troll learns. I just have 00:14:40.500 --> 00:14:43.000 to scream louder to get what I want. Exactly. 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:45.960 You have just reinforced the escalation. You've 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:49.159 taught him that extreme behavior works. If you 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:52.000 are going to use don't feed the trolls, you have 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:53.879 to be prepared to weather the burst. You have 00:14:53.879 --> 00:14:56.100 to ride out the storm, and most people can't. 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.039 That is actually really practical advice. It's 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:01.809 grim. but practical. Now, I want to pivot a bit 00:15:01.809 --> 00:15:03.850 because while the psychology seems universal, 00:15:04.190 --> 00:15:07.090 the flavor of trolling changes depending on where 00:15:07.090 --> 00:15:09.110 you are in the world. I was looking at the linguistic 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:11.690 notes here, and some of these terms are incredible. 00:15:11.830 --> 00:15:13.649 Oh, the international terminology is a goldmine. 00:15:13.669 --> 00:15:15.870 It tells you so much about how different cultures 00:15:15.870 --> 00:15:18.129 perceive the annoyance. Let's start with the 00:15:18.129 --> 00:15:22.169 Chinese term, Bai Mu. Bai Mu. It literally translates 00:15:22.169 --> 00:15:25.049 to white eye. That sounds like a ghost story. 00:15:25.509 --> 00:15:28.629 The legend of white eye. It refers to the idea 00:15:28.629 --> 00:15:31.470 of eyes without pupils. So someone who is wide 00:15:31.470 --> 00:15:34.330 -eyed is blindly talking nonsense. They can't 00:15:34.330 --> 00:15:36.169 read the room. They're socially blind. I love 00:15:36.169 --> 00:15:38.669 that. It's not about them being mean, necessarily. 00:15:38.750 --> 00:15:40.809 It's about them being oblivious. Look at this 00:15:40.809 --> 00:15:44.529 guy. He has no pupils. It's so descriptive. And 00:15:44.529 --> 00:15:47.470 then in Korea, they use the word naxie. Which 00:15:47.470 --> 00:15:49.629 brings us full circle. Don't tell me. Does it 00:15:49.629 --> 00:15:52.850 mean fishing? It means fishing. The metaphor 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:55.110 holds up completely across the Pacific. In fact, 00:15:55.110 --> 00:15:57.750 if you get fooled by a troll in a Korean gaming 00:15:57.750 --> 00:16:01.789 cafe, you might say, I am a codfish. I am a codfish. 00:16:01.929 --> 00:16:04.289 There is something so humble and honest about 00:16:04.289 --> 00:16:06.230 that. You're just admitting you took the bait. 00:16:06.389 --> 00:16:08.970 It's great. But my absolute favorite is the Brazilian 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:12.840 one. This is poetry. Chess with a pigeon. This 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.419 is an adage that has become the definitive definition 00:16:15.419 --> 00:16:18.419 of arguing with a troll in Brazil. The saying 00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:20.919 goes, arguing with a fool is like playing chess 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:23.000 with a pigeon. Walk me through the imagery here. 00:16:23.059 --> 00:16:25.240 I want the full picture. No matter how good you 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:27.279 are at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:30.340 over the pieces, defecate on the board, and fly 00:16:30.340 --> 00:16:33.320 back to its flock claiming victory. It is perfect. 00:16:33.990 --> 00:16:36.110 It's so perfect. You could have the best logic, 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:38.730 the best citations, the moral high ground. Yeah. 00:16:38.789 --> 00:16:40.450 And the pigeon just knocks the king over and 00:16:40.450 --> 00:16:42.570 craps on the table. And struts around like it 00:16:42.570 --> 00:16:44.570 won. Yeah. It captures the futility perfectly. 00:16:44.950 --> 00:16:47.409 You are playing by rules. They are playing by 00:16:47.409 --> 00:16:49.929 biology. And then Thailand has one about haircuts. 00:16:50.009 --> 00:16:52.799 This one was interesting. Korean. It refers to 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.659 the closely cropped crew cut that schoolboys 00:16:55.659 --> 00:16:58.759 in Thailand are required to wear. So when someone 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:01.440 is acting like a troll in a forum or a game, 00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:03.600 they call them Korean. They are calling them 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.119 a schoolboy. It's a status check. You are acting 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:09.500 like a child. It diminishes their power. Exactly. 00:17:09.619 --> 00:17:12.579 It associates the behavior with immaturity, specifically 00:17:12.579 --> 00:17:14.779 the rowdy kids you might see in internet cafes. 00:17:15.019 --> 00:17:17.720 It diminishes the troll. I think we need more 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:21.589 of that energy. Less fear, more stop acting like 00:17:21.589 --> 00:17:25.329 a schoolboy. But unfortunately, we can't stay 00:17:25.329 --> 00:17:27.589 in the fun linguistic section forever because 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:29.609 we have to acknowledge that trolling isn't always 00:17:29.609 --> 00:17:32.289 playing chess with a pigeon. Sometimes the pigeon 00:17:32.289 --> 00:17:34.410 brings a knife. This is the shift to the dark 00:17:34.410 --> 00:17:38.130 side. When trolling moves from pranks to harassment 00:17:38.130 --> 00:17:41.670 and then to things like RIP trolling. RIP trolling. 00:17:41.670 --> 00:17:44.710 Even the name makes me cringe. This is defacing 00:17:44.710 --> 00:17:47.490 memorial pages for people who have died. It is. 00:17:47.509 --> 00:17:49.450 And this brings us right back to that sadism 00:17:49.450 --> 00:17:52.569 trait we talked about. RIP trolling targets the 00:17:52.569 --> 00:17:55.109 grieving. The logic, if you can call it that, 00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:57.509 is that the troll wants the maximum possible 00:17:57.509 --> 00:18:00.170 emotional reaction. And where is a human being 00:18:00.170 --> 00:18:02.869 most vulnerable? When they have just lost a loved 00:18:02.869 --> 00:18:05.970 one. When they're at their absolute lowest, that's 00:18:05.970 --> 00:18:08.089 the target. It's monstrous. I remember the Trinity 00:18:08.089 --> 00:18:10.910 Bates case in Australia. She was a child. A young 00:18:10.910 --> 00:18:14.190 girl, eight years old, brutally murdered. And 00:18:14.190 --> 00:18:16.670 trolls descended on her tribute page on Facebook. 00:18:16.809 --> 00:18:19.309 They posted horrific images. They mocked her 00:18:19.309 --> 00:18:21.490 death. They tormented the family. The public 00:18:21.490 --> 00:18:24.599 outcry was huge. It caused such a national outrage 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:27.039 that the Australian government had to fast track 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:30.440 new laws. They realized the existing legal framework 00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:33.299 just didn't cover this level of cruelty. And 00:18:33.299 --> 00:18:36.380 in the U .S., the Nikki Katsoura's case. I almost 00:18:36.380 --> 00:18:38.880 don't want to talk about it. It's so vile. But 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:40.859 we have to understand the depth of this. We do 00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:44.140 because it shows the escalation. Nikki was 18. 00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:47.720 She died in a horrific car accident. The crash 00:18:47.720 --> 00:18:51.809 scene photos were. Extremely graphic. And they 00:18:51.809 --> 00:18:53.910 were leaked. They were leaked by two California 00:18:53.910 --> 00:18:56.809 Highway Patrol officers. And trolls didn't just 00:18:56.809 --> 00:18:59.529 post them on 4chan or some gore site. They went 00:18:59.529 --> 00:19:01.710 further. What did they do? They tracked down 00:19:01.710 --> 00:19:03.789 Nikki's father's email address. They created 00:19:03.789 --> 00:19:06.230 fake MySpace profiles using her name. And they 00:19:06.230 --> 00:19:08.529 emailed him the photos of his daughter's decapitated 00:19:08.529 --> 00:19:11.049 body with captions like, Hey, Daddy, I'm still 00:19:11.049 --> 00:19:13.269 alive. That isn't trolling. That is psychological 00:19:13.269 --> 00:19:15.289 torture. There's no other word for it. It is. 00:19:15.390 --> 00:19:17.890 And that is why it is dangerous to lump everything 00:19:17.890 --> 00:19:20.990 under one word. Fishing for newbies with a glass 00:19:20.990 --> 00:19:24.069 fact is one thing. Sending gore to a grieving 00:19:24.069 --> 00:19:27.069 father is something else entirely. It is weaponized 00:19:27.069 --> 00:19:29.150 cruelty. And we can't talk about this without 00:19:29.150 --> 00:19:30.950 talking about the hubs where this kind of thing 00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:35.869 festers. 4chan. Specifically the B board. 4chan 00:19:35.869 --> 00:19:38.710 is the engine room for a lot of this. It's an 00:19:38.710 --> 00:19:41.910 image board with forced anonymity. No usernames, 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:45.829 no post history. It creates a hive mind. You 00:19:45.829 --> 00:19:48.150 aren't an individual. You are just anonymous. 00:19:48.349 --> 00:19:51.609 And that hive mind can be powerful for good or 00:19:51.609 --> 00:19:54.089 ill. I mean, they did Project Chenology where 00:19:54.089 --> 00:19:55.829 they went to war against Scientology. Look at 00:19:55.829 --> 00:19:58.250 it. They wore the Guy Fawkes masks. They saw 00:19:58.250 --> 00:20:01.029 themselves as activist trolls. They did. They 00:20:01.029 --> 00:20:04.420 used classic trolling tactics, prank calls. Black 00:20:04.420 --> 00:20:07.539 faxes, which is sending solid black pages to 00:20:07.539 --> 00:20:09.960 drain a target's ink, overwhelming their servers. 00:20:10.180 --> 00:20:12.319 But they directed it at an organization they 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:14.819 believed was evil. So it shows that trolling 00:20:14.819 --> 00:20:16.779 is a methodology. Exactly. It's like a hammer. 00:20:16.859 --> 00:20:18.559 You can use a hammer to build a house or you 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:20.859 can use it to crack a skull. The tool is neutral. 00:20:21.019 --> 00:20:23.140 The intent is everything. Well, speaking of hammers, 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:26.500 let's talk about the biggest hammer of all. State 00:20:26.500 --> 00:20:29.140 -sponsored trolling. Because this is where the 00:20:29.140 --> 00:20:32.140 lull stops being the motive and geopolitics takes 00:20:32.140 --> 00:20:35.490 over. This is the era of industrialized trolling. 00:20:35.529 --> 00:20:37.750 We are not talking about a guy in a basement 00:20:37.750 --> 00:20:40.470 anymore. We are talking about salaried employees 00:20:40.470 --> 00:20:44.170 in office buildings clocking in at 9 a .m., sitting 00:20:44.170 --> 00:20:46.509 in a cubicle and trolling for the government. 00:20:46.809 --> 00:20:50.069 Let's start with China, the 50 cent party. I 00:20:50.069 --> 00:20:52.150 would assume this meant they literally paid people 00:20:52.150 --> 00:20:54.990 50 cents to go online and argue with dissidents. 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:57.160 You know, hey, you're wrong about the government. 00:20:57.400 --> 00:21:00.420 That is the common misconception. We assume state 00:21:00.420 --> 00:21:03.480 censorship looks like an argument. But Gary King, 00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:06.579 a researcher at Harvard, did a massive analysis 00:21:06.579 --> 00:21:09.160 of millions of these posts. And what he found 00:21:09.160 --> 00:21:11.460 was that the 50 Cent Party, and it's a huge operation, 00:21:11.740 --> 00:21:15.259 something like 440 million posts a year, they 00:21:15.259 --> 00:21:17.420 generally do not argue. They don't argue. So 00:21:17.420 --> 00:21:19.519 what do they do? They distract. They cheerlead. 00:21:19.859 --> 00:21:22.000 Let's say there is a protest breaking out in 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:23.940 a rural province and people are posting about 00:21:23.940 --> 00:21:26.579 it online. Okay. The 50 Cent Army doesn't go 00:21:26.579 --> 00:21:28.140 into the comments and say the protesters are 00:21:28.140 --> 00:21:30.579 wrong. Instead, they flood the internet with 00:21:30.579 --> 00:21:32.940 beautiful photos of the Chinese landscape. They 00:21:32.940 --> 00:21:35.359 post inspirational quotes about traditional culture. 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:37.500 They talk about how great the local food is. 00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:40.359 Wait, that's genius. They just changed the subject 00:21:40.359 --> 00:21:42.829 on a national scale. It is strategic distraction. 00:21:43.150 --> 00:21:45.470 If the Internet is a room where everyone is shouting 00:21:45.470 --> 00:21:47.950 about a fire, the 50 cent party doesn't shout 00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:50.569 there is no fire. They just bring in a thousand 00:21:50.569 --> 00:21:53.349 people to start singing happy birthday really, 00:21:53.490 --> 00:21:56.430 really loudly. They drown out the signal with 00:21:56.430 --> 00:21:59.190 positive noise. It's so much more effective than 00:21:59.190 --> 00:22:01.869 arguing. Arguing keeps the controversial topic 00:22:01.869 --> 00:22:05.230 alive. Distraction buries it under a mountain 00:22:05.230 --> 00:22:07.930 of fluff. That's insidious. Yeah. Now compare 00:22:07.930 --> 00:22:10.660 that to the Russian strategy. the Internet Research 00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:13.420 Agency or the Russian troll farms, their goal 00:22:13.420 --> 00:22:15.859 is different. Very different. They don't want 00:22:15.859 --> 00:22:18.039 to distract. They want to create conflict and 00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:20.539 confusion. They want to polarize. This is hybrid 00:22:20.539 --> 00:22:23.579 warfare. Yes. And one of their most effective 00:22:23.579 --> 00:22:26.259 and I think most frightening tools is what the 00:22:26.259 --> 00:22:29.839 NATO sources call the Wikipedia troll. The Wikipedia 00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:32.180 troll. This is the one that really scared me 00:22:32.180 --> 00:22:33.960 when I read about it. Explain how this works. 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:37.059 OK, let's role play this. Let's say you are on 00:22:37.059 --> 00:22:40.680 a forum and you post a comment criticizing Russia's 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:43.359 annexation of Crimea. You say this is a violation 00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:46.259 of international borders. OK, simple enough. 00:22:47.019 --> 00:22:50.180 Russia is wrong for invading Crimea. That's my 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:52.619 post. Now, a standard troll might just call you 00:22:52.619 --> 00:22:55.319 an idiot, but a Wikipedia troll will reply with 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:57.619 something very calm and seemingly reasonable. 00:22:57.640 --> 00:23:00.150 They'll say. It is interesting you talk about 00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:02.809 borders. Did you know about the U .S. annexation 00:23:02.809 --> 00:23:06.109 of Hawaii in 1898? Here is the link to the Wikipedia 00:23:06.109 --> 00:23:09.269 article detailing how the U .S. government overthrew 00:23:09.269 --> 00:23:12.009 the Hawaiian kingdom. Okay. I mean, I guess that's 00:23:12.009 --> 00:23:14.329 true. The U .S. did do that. The link is probably 00:23:14.329 --> 00:23:16.650 to a real Wikipedia page. Exactly. The facts 00:23:16.650 --> 00:23:18.869 are true. The link is to an authoritative source. 00:23:19.130 --> 00:23:20.990 But look what just happened. Are we talking about 00:23:20.990 --> 00:23:23.470 Crimea anymore? No. Now we're talking about American 00:23:23.470 --> 00:23:25.869 imperialism in the 19th century. You have been 00:23:25.869 --> 00:23:28.640 neutralized. They use true facts in the wrong 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:32.259 context to imply a moral equivalence. It is whataboutism 00:23:32.259 --> 00:23:34.759 weaponized with citations. And if I try to argue 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:37.319 back, I look like a hypocrite. Oh, so it's okay 00:23:37.319 --> 00:23:40.519 when America does it. And the conversation is 00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:43.339 derailed. It's an incredibly sophisticated tactic 00:23:43.339 --> 00:23:46.140 because it targets people who think they're smart. 00:23:46.569 --> 00:23:49.210 The people who check sources. It hacks your critical 00:23:49.210 --> 00:23:52.069 thinking. It creates a fog where truth doesn't 00:23:52.069 --> 00:23:54.470 matter because everyone is guilty of something. 00:23:54.690 --> 00:23:57.569 And corporations do this too, right? This isn't 00:23:57.569 --> 00:24:00.589 just states. We hear the term astroturfing. Astroturfing 00:24:00.589 --> 00:24:03.750 is fake grassroots support. But the specific 00:24:03.750 --> 00:24:06.569 character to look out for here is the concern 00:24:06.569 --> 00:24:09.869 troll. I hate the concern troll. Maybe more than 00:24:09.869 --> 00:24:11.410 any other kind. We all do because they're so 00:24:11.410 --> 00:24:14.369 slippery. The concern troll pretends to be an 00:24:14.369 --> 00:24:16.990 ally. They enter a community, say an online group 00:24:16.990 --> 00:24:19.589 for a political campaign and say, hey, guys, 00:24:19.730 --> 00:24:21.849 I love this candidate. I'm a huge supporter. 00:24:22.069 --> 00:24:24.470 But UT. But I'm really worried that if we talk 00:24:24.470 --> 00:24:28.049 about this specific policy, we are going to alienate 00:24:28.049 --> 00:24:30.349 the moderate voters or I just don't think we 00:24:30.349 --> 00:24:32.630 have the resources to win. Exactly. I support 00:24:32.630 --> 00:24:34.190 the protest, but I'm just concerned that the 00:24:34.190 --> 00:24:36.329 slogan is too aggressive and might turn people 00:24:36.329 --> 00:24:39.880 off. We have a documented case of this. A staffer 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.039 for U .S. Congressman Charles Bass was caught 00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:44.400 posing as a concerned supporter of his opponent, 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:47.539 Paul Hodes. What did he do? He went on to liberal 00:24:47.539 --> 00:24:50.000 blogs and posted comments like, I really want 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.319 Hodes to win, but I'm just worried he's wasting 00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:54.799 his money because Bass is unbeatable and we should 00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:57.559 focus on other races. It's sabotage disguised 00:24:57.559 --> 00:25:00.019 as friendship. It sows doubt from the inside. 00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:03.099 It's designed to lower morale. And it creates 00:25:03.099 --> 00:25:05.859 what's called uncertainty bias. If you can just 00:25:05.859 --> 00:25:08.240 make people a little bit unsure, they freeze, 00:25:08.460 --> 00:25:10.359 they don't donate, they don't volunteer, they 00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:12.779 don't march. You don't have to convince them 00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:14.660 to switch sides. You just have to convince them 00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:17.599 to do nothing. God, it makes you paranoid. It 00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:19.599 makes you look at every comment online and think, 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:21.640 are you a real person? Are you a Russian bot? 00:25:21.819 --> 00:25:24.619 Are you a congressional staffer? And that paranoia 00:25:24.619 --> 00:25:27.990 is the damage. That's the goal. Trolling on this 00:25:27.990 --> 00:25:30.450 scale destroys the social trust required for 00:25:30.450 --> 00:25:33.430 a public square to function. Okay. That is heavy. 00:25:33.549 --> 00:25:35.309 Yeah. And I think we need a palate cleanser. 00:25:35.329 --> 00:25:37.690 Yeah. Because not all trolling is state -sponsored 00:25:37.690 --> 00:25:41.029 psychological warfare. Sometimes it's just really 00:25:41.029 --> 00:25:43.049 funny weirdos being weird. We have to talk about 00:25:43.049 --> 00:25:45.710 the legends. We have to talk about Ken M. Ken 00:25:45.710 --> 00:25:49.130 M. The myth. The man. Ugh. For listeners who 00:25:49.130 --> 00:25:51.930 don't know, who is Ken M? Ken McCarthy, known 00:25:51.930 --> 00:25:54.930 online as Ken M, is widely considered the good 00:25:54.930 --> 00:25:57.910 troll. His whole persona is the well -meaning 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:00.269 moron. That's a good way to put it. He goes into 00:26:00.269 --> 00:26:02.410 comment sections, usually on serious news articles 00:26:02.410 --> 00:26:05.750 or brand pages, and posts completely absurd, 00:26:06.009 --> 00:26:08.269 innocent -sounding nonsense. But the trick is, 00:26:08.390 --> 00:26:11.210 he baits people into correcting him. He preys 00:26:11.210 --> 00:26:13.910 on their need to be right. Yes, he trolls their 00:26:13.910 --> 00:26:16.730 intellectual vanity. Do you have the space potato 00:26:16.730 --> 00:26:19.000 comment there? I do. This is one of my all -time 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.319 favorites. So there's a serious article about 00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:23.920 a new telescope discovery. Science stuff. And 00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:26.900 Ken M. comments, Pastor says space is the only 00:26:26.900 --> 00:26:28.960 place big enough to hold all the mountains if 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:31.079 they weren't so heavy. It makes absolutely no 00:26:31.079 --> 00:26:33.960 sense whatsoever. It's beautiful. None. And yet, 00:26:34.019 --> 00:26:36.900 look at the replies. Ken, you are an idiot. That's 00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:39.519 not how physics works. People are furious. They 00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:41.819 are typing out long paragraphs explaining mass 00:26:41.819 --> 00:26:44.700 and volume and gravity to him. And that is the 00:26:44.700 --> 00:26:47.259 beauty of it. The trolls in that scenario are 00:26:47.259 --> 00:26:49.859 the people replying to him. He is exposing their 00:26:49.859 --> 00:26:52.180 desperate need to be the smartest person in the 00:26:52.180 --> 00:26:55.680 room. He isn't abusive. He's absurdist. He turns 00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:58.279 the comment section into a surrealist comedy 00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:00.319 sketch. It's a work of art. Then there are the 00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:03.049 hoaxes, the Jenkin panic. This one actually hit 00:27:03.049 --> 00:27:05.390 the mainstream news. This is a masterclass in 00:27:05.390 --> 00:27:09.029 media literacy, or the lack thereof. A user named 00:27:09.029 --> 00:27:11.670 Pickwick on a forum called Tootsie claimed he 00:27:11.670 --> 00:27:13.950 was making a new drug called Jenkum. And the 00:27:13.950 --> 00:27:17.609 recipe was unique, to say the least. It was fermented 00:27:17.609 --> 00:27:20.250 human waste, sewage. The idea was you'd inhale 00:27:20.250 --> 00:27:23.690 the fumes to get high. Gross. Just gross. He 00:27:23.690 --> 00:27:25.930 posted photos of bottles filled with brown sludge. 00:27:25.970 --> 00:27:27.930 He claimed it was the real deal. In reality, 00:27:27.970 --> 00:27:30.170 it was just flour, water, and some chocolate 00:27:30.170 --> 00:27:33.130 syrup. But he sold it. the story and the media 00:27:33.130 --> 00:27:36.069 bit hard. I remember this. Fox News ran a segment 00:27:36.069 --> 00:27:38.930 on it, didn't they? They did. Major news outlets 00:27:38.930 --> 00:27:41.650 warned parents to check their children's breath 00:27:41.650 --> 00:27:45.089 for the smell of sewage. They ran serious, straight 00:27:45.089 --> 00:27:47.430 -faced segments about the new drug sweeping the 00:27:47.430 --> 00:27:49.769 nation. That has to be the ultimate troll victory. 00:27:50.369 --> 00:27:53.049 Getting a neatly groomed news anchor to look 00:27:53.049 --> 00:27:55.309 into the camera and say the word Jenkum with 00:27:55.309 --> 00:27:57.670 a straight face. It was a perfect troll because 00:27:57.670 --> 00:28:00.410 it exposed the sensationalism of the 24 -hour 00:28:00.410 --> 00:28:03.140 news cycle. They didn't fact check. They just 00:28:03.140 --> 00:28:05.900 wanted the shock value. And the internet absolutely 00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:08.279 howled with laughter. I also want to mention 00:28:08.279 --> 00:28:12.220 the Vampitazo in Brazil. Because this feels like 00:28:12.220 --> 00:28:13.980 a bridge between the funny stuff and the political 00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:16.259 stuff. It's almost a protest. It is. This is 00:28:16.259 --> 00:28:19.420 counter -trolling as a form of protest. So Vampeta 00:28:19.420 --> 00:28:23.099 is a famous ex -footballer in Brazil. Okay. And 00:28:23.099 --> 00:28:26.160 years ago, he once posed fully nude for a magazine 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:28.960 called G Magazine. Okay. I think I see where 00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:30.539 this is going. When a public figure, someone 00:28:30.539 --> 00:28:32.720 like Elon Musk or a foreign politician, says 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:35.119 something that offends Brazil, Brazilian users 00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:38.599 engage in a vampatazo. They flood the person's 00:28:38.599 --> 00:28:40.900 social media replies with thousands and thousands 00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:43.019 of photos of the naked footballer. Yeah, if you 00:28:43.019 --> 00:28:45.500 insult Brazil, your entire timeline just becomes 00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:48.740 naked soccer players. Wall to wall, it makes 00:28:48.740 --> 00:28:51.880 the comment section unusable. It embarrasses 00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:55.200 the target. It's a digital flash mob using nudity 00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:58.400 as a censorship weapon. It's chaotic. It's absurd, 00:28:58.559 --> 00:29:01.039 but it's effective. You have to admire the creativity. 00:29:01.259 --> 00:29:03.180 We won't argue with you. We will just show you 00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:06.900 Vampeda. But this raises the big question. If 00:29:06.900 --> 00:29:09.740 trolls can harass families, disrupt elections, 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:13.740 and flood timelines with nudity, what is the 00:29:13.740 --> 00:29:15.599 law doing about it? The law is trying to catch 00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:19.059 up, but it's struggling. And it varies wildly 00:29:19.059 --> 00:29:20.960 depending on where you are. Let's start with 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:23.309 the U .S. What's the situation here? In the United 00:29:23.309 --> 00:29:25.670 States, trolling is largely protected by the 00:29:25.670 --> 00:29:28.509 First Amendment. Being mean or offensive isn't 00:29:28.509 --> 00:29:31.009 a federal crime. Unless it crosses the line into 00:29:31.009 --> 00:29:33.869 a true threat or stalking, you are generally 00:29:33.869 --> 00:29:36.109 allowed to be a jerk. Even the hateful stuff. 00:29:36.450 --> 00:29:38.750 Hate speech is protected speech in the U .S., 00:29:38.750 --> 00:29:41.089 generally speaking. There was a fascinating collision 00:29:41.089 --> 00:29:43.369 of this with the U .S. Army esports team a couple 00:29:43.369 --> 00:29:45.390 years ago. Wait, the Army has an esports team? 00:29:45.490 --> 00:29:47.470 They do. They stream on Twitch to recruit young 00:29:47.470 --> 00:29:50.380 people. Well, trolls started going into their 00:29:50.380 --> 00:29:52.339 Twitch chat and asking questions about U .S. 00:29:52.339 --> 00:29:55.599 war crimes. What about the Maile Massacre? What 00:29:55.599 --> 00:29:58.279 about white phosphorus? Things like that. Trolling 00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:00.380 the army with its own history. And then the army 00:30:00.380 --> 00:30:02.440 started banning them, I assume. They did. But 00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:05.039 the ACLU and other legal groups stepped in and 00:30:05.039 --> 00:30:07.390 said, wait a minute. You are a government entity. 00:30:07.569 --> 00:30:10.890 This is a public forum. You cannot ban citizens 00:30:10.890 --> 00:30:12.890 for their speech just because you don't like 00:30:12.890 --> 00:30:16.170 the content. That is a wild paradox. Yeah. The 00:30:16.170 --> 00:30:18.650 trolls were using the First Amendment to troll 00:30:18.650 --> 00:30:21.069 the military about war crimes, and the First 00:30:21.069 --> 00:30:23.289 Amendment protected them. Exactly. But if you 00:30:23.289 --> 00:30:25.970 cross the Atlantic to the UK, it is a completely 00:30:25.970 --> 00:30:28.450 different ballgame. The UK doesn't mess around, 00:30:28.569 --> 00:30:30.390 right? No. They have the Malicious Communications 00:30:30.390 --> 00:30:33.069 Act and the Communications Act. People have been 00:30:33.069 --> 00:30:36.329 literally jailed, sent to prison for tweets. 00:30:36.589 --> 00:30:38.650 Prison for tweets. Give me an example. There 00:30:38.650 --> 00:30:41.329 is a man who made grossly offensive jokes about 00:30:41.329 --> 00:30:43.890 a missing child, April Jones, who was murdered, 00:30:44.009 --> 00:30:46.869 and another missing girl, Madeline McCann. He 00:30:46.869 --> 00:30:50.890 was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail. 12 weeks for 00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:54.819 a joke. A grossly offensive one. The legal standard 00:30:54.819 --> 00:30:57.599 there is much, much broader than in the US. It 00:30:57.599 --> 00:31:00.619 is subjective, but it is enforced. And Japan 00:31:00.619 --> 00:31:02.900 is moving in that direction, too. In 2022, they 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:06.920 introduced a ban on online insults. How do they 00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:10.000 define an insult? That seems tricky. It is. It's 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:13.180 defined as publicly demeaning someone's social 00:31:13.180 --> 00:31:15.339 standing without referring to specific facts. 00:31:15.619 --> 00:31:17.880 So if I call you a thief and you are a thief, 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:20.579 that's one thing. But if I just call you garbage 00:31:20.579 --> 00:31:23.880 or useless, that is a prosecutable insult. And 00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:26.700 now it is punishable by imprisonment. It feels 00:31:26.700 --> 00:31:28.700 like the world is splitting. The U .S. is saying 00:31:28.700 --> 00:31:31.519 free speech above all else. And much of the rest 00:31:31.519 --> 00:31:33.359 of the world is saying, no, human dignity is 00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:35.619 the priority. And in the middle of that split, 00:31:35.740 --> 00:31:38.099 we have the platforms themselves trying to solve 00:31:38.099 --> 00:31:40.480 it with real names. You see this push for de 00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:43.059 -anonymization. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reuters comments, 00:31:43.359 --> 00:31:45.900 they want you to use your legal name. The idea 00:31:45.900 --> 00:31:48.160 being, if you can't wear the mask, you won't 00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:50.630 throw the brick. Correct. Remove the anonymity. 00:31:50.630 --> 00:31:53.230 You remove the disinhibition effect. But then 00:31:53.230 --> 00:31:55.630 you lose the privacy that allows whistleblowers 00:31:55.630 --> 00:31:58.009 to speak or marginalized people to find communities 00:31:58.009 --> 00:32:00.910 safely. It is a double -edged sword with no easy 00:32:00.910 --> 00:32:03.460 answer. We have been on quite a journey today. 00:32:03.579 --> 00:32:06.259 I mean, we went from Navy pilots dragging lures 00:32:06.259 --> 00:32:09.359 for MiGs to glass flows debates on Usenet through 00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:12.279 the dark psychology of sadism all the way to 00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:15.299 Chinese propaganda armies and Brazilian nude 00:32:15.299 --> 00:32:17.920 photo protests. It is a sweeping landscape. But 00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:20.059 if I can summarize it, I'd say this. Trolling 00:32:20.059 --> 00:32:22.819 isn't just one thing. It is a mechanism. It is 00:32:22.819 --> 00:32:25.599 a tool of identity deception. It goes back to 00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:27.779 what you said earlier about the Internet. We 00:32:27.779 --> 00:32:29.859 aren't bodies online. We are just information. 00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:32.400 Trolling is hacking that information. And it 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:35.259 is hacking the social contract. Society, conversation, 00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:37.839 it relies on the assumption that people are arguing 00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:40.000 in good faith. That when you speak, you generally 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:43.200 mean what you say. Trolling weaponizes that trust. 00:32:43.559 --> 00:32:46.200 When a troll enters the room, good faith dies. 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:48.980 Which leaves me with a final, slightly unsettling 00:32:48.980 --> 00:32:51.630 thought to chew on. We talked about concerned 00:32:51.630 --> 00:32:54.150 trolls, people who pretend to be on your side 00:32:54.150 --> 00:32:56.990 just to sabotage you. We talked about Russian 00:32:56.990 --> 00:33:00.210 trolls using true facts to manipulate you. Where 00:33:00.210 --> 00:33:02.809 are you going with this? Well, if aggression 00:33:02.809 --> 00:33:07.509 is easy to spot and hate is easy to block, what 00:33:07.509 --> 00:33:09.509 happens when the trolls start using agreement 00:33:09.509 --> 00:33:12.490 as their primary weapon? If the most effective 00:33:12.490 --> 00:33:14.549 troll is the one who pretends to be your best 00:33:14.549 --> 00:33:18.210 friend simply to steer you off a cliff, How can 00:33:18.210 --> 00:33:20.230 we ever trust anyone who agrees with us online? 00:33:20.650 --> 00:33:23.369 That is the real danger, isn't it? We might be 00:33:23.369 --> 00:33:25.890 entering an era where sincerity itself is more 00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:28.470 suspicious than aggression. If someone is yelling 00:33:28.470 --> 00:33:31.230 at me, at least I know where they stand. If someone 00:33:31.230 --> 00:33:33.930 is agreeing with me, are they fishing? On that 00:33:33.930 --> 00:33:36.849 paranoid note, check your sources, watch out 00:33:36.849 --> 00:33:39.309 for pigeons playing chess, and thanks for diving 00:33:39.309 --> 00:33:41.670 deep with us. Stay skeptical out there. See you 00:33:41.670 --> 00:33:41.970 next time.