There are two kinds of asshole in the internet - those that want to say things that other people don’t want to hear, and those who want to stop people saying anything that they don’t want to hear. We hear a lot about the former, and they get accused of being ‘trolls’ which is very dull, but I think the second, the censorious, the worthy, the holier-than-thou are actually worse.
I also think that there is a world of difference between flaming someone in a juvenile manner, or being stalkerish online, which any fuckwit can do, and actively exposing someone’s cognitive dissonance in a way that they cannot avoid. The latter is what I’d describe as trolling. The former is just harassment, just as it would be in the physical world. A troll is trying to push you into a position where you concede the point or stick your fingers in your ears and go ‘lalala I don’t want to think’.
It is interesting how a certain sort of person wants to see the latter (aggressively challenging people) grouped alongside the former (harassment).
