Before this unit, whenever someone would say the word "troll" I imagined those small tan dolls with colored hair. I did not even know that harassing someone online made you a troll. Now that I know this, I wonder if being rude online, as I like to think of as online bullying, is the same as bullying in person. If one person was bullying another, for example at school, all of the bystanders watching it happen, allowing to occur, and not reporting it to a teacher or an administrator would often be considered helping the bully.
What about online? Of course rude or unnecessary comments are going to be made all the time online. It would be impossible to stop all of those people from posting mean or rude comments on the internet. But, what about the extremely harsh comments that are put online which are either illegal or are borderline (I am not sure exactly where that line is). How do other internet users react to those? In person, allowing bullying to happen is so common that at school we have entire assemblies dedicated to bullying. The assemblies teach us how to stand up to bullies, how and why bullying should be reported, and how to help our peers if they are being bullied.
What do you think that we should do when we encounter trolls online? Should we ignore them, stand up to them, block them? Do you think that trolls and bullies are the same thing, or are they completely different because one happens in person and one happens on the internet?
I had the same question as you, Lizzie. The whole concept of trolling seems like another form of bullying to me. Before this unit, I have always thought of troll as someone who should not be taken seriously whether their comments are uncalled for, annoying, or just rude. However, this unit really forced me to question the distinction between trolling and bullying. Extreme methods of trolling that include threats or really hurtful stuff are just as bad as bullying.
ReplyDeleteI think similarly to bullying, people can handle trolls differently and there is no particularly ideal way.