I’m neither an expert in psychology nor an expert on internet behaviour, but allow me to respond with what I think are some moderate observations. The problem here is that by calling someone a troll, whether or not their engagement is in ‘good-faith’ – which, by the way, is pretty loaded as a concept by itself, and properly deserves an essay or two on its own, but I digress – we are reducing their motivations and the set of possible responses and interpretations to/of their actions to a binary. A person is a) someone engaged in good-faith dialogue/debate, or b) a bad-faith troll. This dichotomy affords very little by way of gradation. Which extreme should I select when identifying someone I am speaking to? At what point are my own interactions spontaneously transformed into trollishness? Is there a specific crossing point, maybe marked by doggedness or malice, wherein I become a pure vehicle of antagonism?
Now I’m aware there are many people online who, if one was able to perform a thorough psychological evaluation on them, would likely exhibit all manner of psychopathic and anti-social tendencies. There are misogynists, bigots, homophobes, racists, fundamentalists, and all manner of zealots and ideologues. I won’t deny any of this for a minute. But are we talking here about people who are antithetical to our world views, or people who are intentionally abusive and willfully contradictory? If we are attempting to understand people, can we admit of some additional categories of behaviour, some possible alternative motivations beyond malevolent baiting?
When I ask for sophistication it is with an aim towards deeper understanding. What really motivates people towards violence in online communication? I’ve no interest in defending anyone’s actions here. I just want a better rubric for describing behaviour and intention. A non-dualistic one, preferably. Even psychopathy and sociopathy can be described as spectrums: why not also trollish behaviour? What about possibilities for false-positives in our dismissing potential trolls? What if someone was simply confused, or incapable of articulating themselves? What if they suffered from a mental disorder than could be identified and positively addressed, enabling said person to transform their behaviours and begin contributing meaningfully to the community? Or any number of alternate possibilities?
I think at heart what I am saying is that the social apparatus you implement for controlling people’s behaviour permits two modes of interaction, positive or negative, and rigidly defines where one begins and the other ends. You define a subset of valid human behaviours and rigidly enforce those, a kind of benevolent dictatorship. At the end of the day yes, you may observe an overall increase in the civility of people’s interactions, but have you really gained insight into what motivates people?
