Stop using the word 'trolling' when you mean harassment and abuse

The internet has created a unique vocabulary, but we've stretched some of these new words beyond their limits and "trolling" should be the first to go.

For most people, "trolling" still refers to a form of online pranking — a provocation in search of a response. Witness people endlessly tweeting the retailer ASOS over a pair of ridiculously long jeans or the Amazon reviews of the "Make America Great Again" Christmas ornament. 

Most of all, the word "trolling" demands that you not take anything seriously on the internet. But we've become rhetorically lazy, and there is plenty to be serious about. 

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It's common now to see "trolling" trotted out as a euphemism for harassment and abuse, most often on social media. But using the word suggests the vitriol directed at the comedian Leslie Jones on Twitter was some kind of low stakes comedy rather than a targeted campaign of racist and sexist abuse.

"Trolling" allows malicious behaviour to be set apart from acts we would strongly resist offline. 

If "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli was sending journalist Lauren Duca creepy photo collages to her front door rather than digitally, we might be more comfortable calling his behaviour "targeted harassment" outright, as Twitter did when they booted him Sunday night.

"At its best, trolling is a brand of internet humour that pokes fun at hypocrisy and self-righteousness," Michael Salter, a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Western Sydney, told Mashable, "although it can quickly cross over into abuse and prejudice."

So when is something harassment or abuse? Like noticing original Twitter egg Milo Yiannopoulos' is not a natural blonde, you know it when you see it.

The act of "trolling" emerged years ago from message boards on 4chan and Reddit as users gleefully posted nonsense on feminist websites, according to author of Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History, Emma Jane. But the word has since been picked up by the mainstream. 

To be clear, trolling was never about committing a victimless crime, but its effect has been amplified. "Trolling always involved having a laugh at someone else's expense, but early trolling pales in comparison to what people are doing now," Jane told Mashable. 

"It's become a catch all," she added, including everything from acts that are potentially funny and subversive to those that are outright criminal. "While these practices may well have family resemblance to the earlier form of trolling, they've altered to the extent that 'trolling' has become the wrong word to use."

To call outright harassment "trolling" takes the sting out of the abuse most often directed at people of colour, women and queer communities. 

It also allows phrases like "don't feed the trolls" be treated as useful advice, suggesting in large part that someone might be causing their own harassment by expressing an opinion or standing up for oneself on social media.

Salter suggested that calling Shkreli's treatment of Duca "trolling" trivialises the act. 

"It frames the abuse as an online joke rather than what it was — creepy and invasive," he added. "It was designed to delegitimise Duca's political opinions by focusing on her gender and appearance rather than her opinions.

"This was a concerted effort to intimidate and humiliate a female journalist with opposing political views."

Turns out we don't always need new words for what happens on the internet. "Abuse" and "harassment" will do just fine.

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