Definition of Trolling

Definition of trolling is still debated among researchers due to the vast amount of different trolling behaviors and activities. Studies have also used trolling and troll inconsistently in the definitions, making it unsure how it should be called.

Definitions have changed during the years to match the growing variety of dif-ferent trolling activities and the latest research, but there are still difdif-ferent defi-nitions emerging and consensus has not been achieved. Coles & West (2016a) pointed out the difficulties related to the terms troll and trolling “as with other categories, both ‘troll’ and ‘trolling’ may have multiple, inconsistent and in-compatible meanings, depending upon the context in which the term is used and the aims of the person using the term.”

A table (table 1) was made to present examples of different definitions, even though not being a comprehensive account of definitions, they still give a good view of how the definitions have changed during the years. It can be seen from the definition on Netlingo in the year 1995 (Bishop, 2012a), the act of trolling was more about posting rather harmless messages in newsgroups that exaggerated something on a particular topic. According to Hardaker (2013),

Tepper (1997, 41) had described trolling to be more about defining group-membership and that it was mostly done by ingroup members to novices or to outgroup members. It has been suggested that this behavior was not meant to be harmful but more of an act to initiate new members into the group (Bishop, 2014a). Donath (1999) characterized trolling as a game about identity deception which is played without the consent of other players and added that a troll at-tempts to pass as a legitimate user, can disrupt discussions, and can damage the feeling of trust. These definitions already show a development going from merely exaggerating something, to being something that can cause damage for trust in an online community. What is common with these definitions is that there was no indication of viciousness or harassment in the trolling behavior during the 1990s.

In the definitions of the 2000s, there was some indication that trolling had started to shift away from the trickster type humorous behavior to more annoy-ing behavior. Herrannoy-ing et al. (2002) defined that trollannoy-ing can be pointless and time consuming for the victims. The Urban dictionary definition of a troll from the same year indicated that the troll’s intent was to cause “maximum disrup-tion and argument” (Alien entity, 2002). Turner, Smith, Fisher & Welser (2005) defined that a troll attempts to cause disruption by asking provocative ques-tions. These definitions started to point out that the trolls now aimed to disrupt online communities by using provocative messages to create arguments and consume the victims time. By the end of the 2000s, trolling had shifted even fur-ther to disruptive behaviors. Cambria et al.’s (2010) definition, which included that trolling attacks were of an emotional kind and the responses from victims were provoked through malicious and vulgar comments. Shachaf & Hara (2010) defined trolling in their study of Wikipedia trolls as being repetitive, intentional and harmful actions where the trolls work alone, has hidden their real identities and they violate the policies of the page by being destructive in the community.

Since 2010, the definitions of trolling have started to take into account new aspects that are present in the behaviors and thus reflect more accurately the modern trolling and the increased research done on the topic. Hardaker’s (2013) definition contained new factors like impoliteness, aggression, and manipula-tion to be a part of trolling and the definimanipula-tion also specified that Computer-mediated communication is used to create context that triggers or antagonizes conflict. Buckels et al. (2014) brought up behaving in a destructive manner in a social setting and added that it is done with no apparent purpose. Golf-Papez &

Veer (2017) and Bishop (2013a) mentioned in their definitions that trolling is done for the entertainment of the troll(s) or their followers. Sanfilippo et al.

(2017a) included that trolling can draw attention to different things such as an-ger that is caused by provocation, humor and trolling can be even used to communicate serious opinions. What is apparent from the definitions that emerged in the 2010s, is that trolling has received more research interest and the wide variety of trolling behaviors that are present today have added complexity to the definitions.

TABLE 1 Examples of different definitions for trolling Year Different definitions of troll/trolling

1995

“act of posting a message in a newsgroup that is obviously exaggerating some-thing on a particular topic.” This was the definition of trolling in the Internet dictionary Netlingo in the year 1995. (Bishop, 2012a, p. 1.)

1997

"Tepper (1997, 41) explains how trolling can define group-membership: those who ‘bite’ (i.e. who rise to the troller’s bait) signal their novice, outgroup status, whilst ingroup members will identify the troller, will not be baited, and may even mock those who are" (Hardaker, 2013, p. 61).

1999 “Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players” (Donath, 1999, p. 43).

2002

“Trolling entails luring others into often pointless and time-consuming discus-sions” (Herring et al., 2002, p. 372).

“One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument” (Alien entity, 2002).

2005 “A Troll attempts to cause disruption within a newsgroup by asking (and often successfully dragging out) a provocative question” (Turner et al., 2005).

2010

“In social web context, emotional attacks on a person or a group through mali-cious and vulgar comments in order to provoke response are referred to as

‘trolling’ and the generator is called ‘a troll’” (Cambria et al., 2010, p. 2).

“repetitive, intentional, and harmful actions that are undertaken in isolation and under hidden virtual identities, involving violations of Wikipedia policies, and consisting of destructive participation in the community” (Shachaf & Hara, 2010, p. 1). This definition was about Wikipedia trolls, but could very well apply to trolling in general.

2012 “the troll may be subtly or blatantly offensive in order to create an argument or may seek to lure others into useless circular discussion” (Binns, 2012, p. 548).

2013

“sending of provocative messages via a communications platform for the enter-tainment of oneself, others, or both” (Bishop, 2013a, p. 302).

"Trolling is the deliberate (perceived) use of impoliteness/aggression, deception and/or manipulation in CMC to create a context conducive to triggering or an-tagonising conflict, typically for amusement’s sake” (Hardaker, 2013, p. 79).

2014

“Online trolling is the practice of behaving in a deceptive, destructive, or disrup-tive manner in a social setting on the Internet with no apparent instrumental purpose” (Buckels et al., 2014, p. 1).

2016 “‘Trolling’ refers to a specific type of malicious online behaviour, intended to disrupt interactions, aggravate interactional partners and lure them into fruitless argumentation” (Coles & West, 2016a, p. 233).

2017

“deliberate, deceptive and mischievous attempts that are engineered to elicit a reaction from the target(s), are performed for the benefit of the troll(s) and their followers and may have negative consequences for people and firms involved”

(Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017, p. 1339)

“set of diverse pseudo-sincere behaviors that draw attention, ranging from anger at provocation to appreciation of humor to recognition of serious opinions com-municated” (Sanfilippo et al., 2017a, p. 1802).

Even though there are many definitions of trolling, it remains unclear whether they can express the modern trolling accordingly and be universally under-stood and accepted. Coles & West (2016a) stated that trolling is a complex activ-ity, which is still far from being clearly defined or understood, and the meaning for troll is assumed by research papers to have one fixed meaning even though there are many sub-classifications. Hardaker (2015, p. 2) had also addressed the problem of creating a clear definition of trolling: “particularly within media and social networking circles, it is possible to find widely divergent denotations and usages that make the creation of any clear definition almost impossible.” Sanfil-ippo et al. (2017a) had reviewed trolling definitions and found that there were different perspectives ranging from act of deviance to a form of comedy and some were accepting of the behavior, even though many academic definitions are condemnatory. According to Synnott et al. (2017), the attempts to define trolling have been limited due to different manifestations of trolling across cul-tures and from constantly evolving in order to adapt to changing online envi-ronments and interactions. Synnott et al. (2017) also emphasized that reducing trolling to a single definition is not possible, because of contributing factors that have to do with the individual, group processes and cultural context. Also, the wide range of practices adds to the difficulty of defining it (de Seta, 2013). Defi-nitions of trolling have turned the term troll to an umbrella term that encapsu-lates various negative online behaviors together, possibly even adding other predefined behaviors to it (Hardaker, 2013; de Seta, 2013; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017).

Coles & West (2016a, p. 242) found that academic definitions have met disagreement from members of various online communities and they had come to a conclusion that “the category ‘troll’, and its associated activity of ‘trolling’

are disputed, contentious phrases.” Sanfilippo et al. (2017a) also noted the disa-greement that exists between academics and the public about the applicability of the term trolling. Academic research has often had to rely on definitions that have academic origins, citing often older definitions from times when trolling behavior was different and more limited due to older and fewer platforms.

Therefore, definitions from nearly two decades ago, such as Donath’s (1999) definition are greatly outdated in expressing the nature of modern trolling. A great number of studies have relied on choosing a definition from the different existing definitions or constructed a new one, thus creating more complicated field of definitions. Creating past definitions in academic research have, accord-ing to Hardaker (2013), had the problem that studies have taken definitions from the media, intuition and from online use. Addressing the problem of dif-ferent definitions and disagreement of the current ones among members of in-ternet communities, Coles & West (2016a) concluded that there needs to be a unified and consistent definition of trolling, that also considers the views held among members of online communities. Sanfilippo, Fichman and Yang (2018) has recently suggested that according to their findings there is reasonable cause to separate troll and trolling from each other and treat them differently.