Trial by

tormentThere's a disturbing new

kind of bullying on the
Internet called 'trolling'.
What is it and who a-:e the
victims - and the trolls?

ike thousands of others, from

ordinary teens to worldfamous celebrities, British
Olympic champion swimmer
Rebecca Adlington is no stranger
to internet abuse. The 23-year-old
recently admitted she received a
Twitter message (a Tweet) calJing
her a 'whale' with a 'shark fin nose'
- and which included obscenitles",
"It's awful," says Adlington.
"They are to do with how I look,

t:o

which has nothing to do with my

performance in the pool" And last
spring, British pop singer Alexandra
Burke asked for police protection
after a Twitter troll taunted" her with
messages like: "I'm coming, and 1'11
murder you!"
American singer MiJey Cyrus
has also received death threats and
slurs" on her Twitter account. She
urged Twitter to monitor her site and
an army of fans carne to her defence.

Just how destructive is internet

trolling? A 15-year-old British
teenager, Tom Mullaney, kiJIed
himself in 2010 after a bullying
campaign on Facebook. "The
Internet should be able to stop the
trolls," said his grieving father
Robert.
Ali of which raises a very
disturbing question: "What has the
Internet done to us?" asks writer
Tim Rayment in The Times.

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Online activities at: www.mg-plus.netlactivities

Troll threats
By definition, says Rayment, a troll
is someone who disrupts" online
commentary with insulting messages.
"But it has become shorthand" for ali
forms of internet abuse," he says.
And the BBC .eXf'lains,"Trolling
has swept across web&i.tesin recent
years. Online forums, Facebook pages
and newspaper comment forms are
bombarded" with insults ar threats.
Supparters argue it's about humour,
mischief and freedom of speech. But for
many, the personal nature of the abuse
verges" on hate speech."

"

And if 100 other people join in, each

one might be showing off to the rest of
the group, he adds. "Each person makes
only a few posts, or even one. But the
effect is bullying."

Troll traits
Many psychologists think that strong
feelings of anger and a sense of
helplessness about one's own life are the
key traits" of a cyber-troll. It's much safer
to vente one's anger on a stranger than
to express it to a friend, parent or teacher
- where one faces the risk of personal
punishment.

What has the Internet done to us?"

Why do trolls think they can threaten

others so freely? Rayment thinks it's
because new technology is often so
impersonal. "We don't see the effects of
what we say. Because Tweeting is instant,
we don't always stop to think." Rayment
cites the threatening force of a Twitter
message: "If you compress" anger into
140 characters, the format of a Tweet, it
gains power from such short powerful
language."

"You can vent your spleen" on

somebody who is not the real target,"
says psychologist Cary Cooper at
Lancaster University. "I'm stunned"
by some of the things people say on
Twitter. When you're eyeball to eyeba11
with somebody, yOli don't hurt them the
same." Adds Rayment: "There is no risk
of a punch through a computer screen."
But technology specialists point out
that there's often a fine line between

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AUDlO TRACK 4: Listen to Paige Chandler,

victim 01 cyber-bullying
www.mg-plus.neUaudio

someone who is simply posting rude

messages and someone who is genuinely
threatening. The Internet Relay Chat
site offers suggestions for online forum
users or teen social network pages, which
include these 'dos' and 'don'ts':

"I was bullied ali my life, and I know how

alone people feel when they're bullied. I was
called names on websites and people wrote
anonymous comments about me. It was horrible.
I never wanted to go to school and I wouldn't go
online because I knew I would have to face it alI.

DO ... TAKE A STEP BACK:

Sornetimes t~e sender may just be

very frustrateitThe receiver needs to
avoid getting too angry and perhaps
even respond in a positive way.

I let my school know and showed them the

evidence, because I kept ali the chat-Iogs. And
they spoke to the bullies. As an online cybermentor, my role is to give advice to teens from
different countries on what to do about trolling
or refer them to a special online counsellor.

DON'T ... REPLY:

Troll behaviour directed at you will

usually stop if you don't give them
any attention. Don't feed the troll.

DO REPORT IT:

I tell them not to reply to what people are

saying, because that's actually what the bullies
want, and to keep a log of what happened, and
to show it to someone in authority."

If the abuse seems very threatening,

the receiver should report the troll to
a proper authority, such as the website
owner.

Rebecca Adlington chose 'to out'" her

Twitter troll when she re-tweeted the
message for her 51,000 followers to see.
But the Leeds Metropolitan University
student she named has denied sending
the message and blamed it on a friend.
Adlington received "a stream of
supportive Tweets from her followers,"
reported The Daily Mail. One fan wrote:
"Becky, ignore him, because you know
how talented you are." Still, the champion
swimmer refused to go online during this
summer's Olympic Games.
Much more serious, reports Tim
Rayment in The Times, is the case of troll
Sean Duffy, 26: "He lived a 'miserable life'
at home drinking alcohol alone at his
house in Reading." Duffy made spoof"

videos and posted online messages on

webpages in remembrance of teenage girls
who had died. In September 2011 he was
sentenced to 18 weeks in jail.
The British legal system is getting
tougher on trolls. But as media lawyer
Athalie Matthews says, "Social networking
sites have to take strong measures to
enforce their terms cind conditions, to ban
people and throw them off."
Meanwhile, researchers at the
University of Central Lancashire are
developing a system to help identify trolls,
the BBC reports: "Linguistic" experts
are working with police and children's
agencies to develop an automated" system
to recognise language patterns. The
aim is to track people who post abusive
messages."
~
But given the vast" and impersonal
Internet, policing it seems nearly
impossible, and many wonder if trolling
has simply become a fact of high-tech life.

WORDSMART
What's the difference? Can vou
explain the difference in meaning
between these words from the text?
1 insulting

threatening

2 to follow

to stalk

3 impersonal

anonymous

Now go to page 22 for

a language activity

Answers ~ Page 23

10 November

/ Decernber

*WORDWISE
torment (n): great pain, distress or worry
obscenity (n): something indecent or
offensive
to taunt (v): to provoke or ridicule someone
slur (n): aninsult
grieving (adj): the leeling 01 deep pain and
loss
to disrupt (v): to interrupt and often upset
something
shorthand (n): a quick way 01 expressing
something
to bombard (v): to overwhelm with a great
amount 01 something
to verge on (v): to border on or reach the
point 01 something
to compress (v): to shrink or press
together in order to shorten
trait (n): unique characteristic
to vent (v): to let out or release an emotion
like anger in words
to vent your spleen (v, phr): to express
your anger; the spleen is a body organ that
removes dead red cells Irom the blood
stunned (adj): shocked
swearing (n): using offensive words
spoof (adj): a comic version of something
to out (v, inf): to expose someone by
naming them
linguistic (adj): relating to the study 01
language
automated (adj): something that instantly
happens
vast (adj): huge

2012 CURRENT
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