Trolls: Fishers of men not monsters

When people hear the word troll, many think of the mythical monster lurking beneath a bridge, waiting to trouble unsuspecting travellers. But, internet trolling was not really about monsters, it was about fishing. When fishing by trolling, you trail a baited line behind your boat, hoping to hook a fish. You don’t chase the fish; you dangle something tempting and wait for a bite. Which is what internet trolls do. They post a provocative comment, an outrageous opinion or a deliberately misleading statement, then sit back and wait for someone to take the bait. The bigger the reaction, the better the catch. It was in the days of the Usenet and MUDs (multi-user dungeons), “trolling for newbies” (mentioned by Eric S. Raymond in The New Hacker’s Dictionary (1996). Indeed, back then people who baited newbies were called trollers, not trolls. Back then, the trolls were provocative, but they were simply showing up gullibility, naivety, and stupidity, often for the fun of it and the humour…

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