The day I confronted my troll

[VivisQueen]

Not my story, but this guy's:

The day I confronted my troll | Leo Traynor | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

And incredible tale, I must say. People are not avatars; people are people. And next time some dickhead starts on about how it's just a bit of fun or a bit of a game, the community better stamp him out.

Time to clean up our fora and our social networking sites.

[r-18]

just the tip of a huge ice burg...people seem to feel they can do anything because of anonymity....the whole troll thing needs to be taken more seriously....and there should be real legal consequences for acting in such a manner...but all too Afton it is just laughed off as a minor joke or some such....yu hear all to often about some kid or person killing them selves over bullying and trolling is just bullying ...i'm glad we don't allow such things to go on here...

[gin]

Is there a tl;dr version?
I'm gonna guess the ending though, he was some sort of pathetic excuse for a human being, and the moral of the story?

[r-18]

topic too serious to be edited to death...

[randomredneck]

Ah, weak. He didn't call the cops on the little bastard. Wuss.

[Aranneas]

that goes quite a bit further than 'trolling'. honestly I don't even think he did the right thing in letting the kid off. threats wouldn't have fazed me at 17 that's for sure

[r-18]

it is one of the things i see coming from the lace of consequences that is so prevalent now....everything is show except the consequences of the actions ....that and the lack of personal responsibility...these 2 things are at the root of most of todays ....idk ...evils is too simple a thing to say...never the less the attitude that i'm anonymous so i can do anything ...needs to be changed...

[MrAnime]

Originally Posted by r-18

just the tip of a huge ice burg...people seem to feel they can do anything because of anonymity....the whole troll thing needs to be taken more seriously....and there should be real legal consequences for acting in such a manner...but all too Afton it is just laughed off as a minor joke or some such....yu hear all to often about some kid or person killing them selves over bullying and trolling is just bullying ...i'm glad we don't allow such things to go on here...

Believe it or not, some countries have laws in place where you can charge people for "Bullying" if you can catch them doing such trash. The only problem is most of the cases that have been taken to court have been dismissed due to lack of evidence that points to the offender.

Now the good thing was, he caught one of the "trolls", So what happened to the other two? Are they still attacking him or what?

Originally Posted by r-18

never the less the attitude that i'm anonymous so i can do anything ...needs to be changed...

The best thing to do at this point, is to inform the mass on how to track your trolls. But then I can see the stalking rate rise when that happens. Btw, Facebook makes the stalkers job stupid simple. So wth...

[r-18]

perhaps the law enforcement types need to spend a bit more time on this rather than busting a few pot heads...everyone says that the "cops" can find out who you are on the net if they try...now i don't support them trying in all cases ,,but with clear evidence of malice on this level it should not have been waved off by them....i also find the letting the creep go on his own cognizance... too lenient ..it should have been a court enforcing the counseling... but i also understand it would be hard to bust down on a friends kid...as to the others ...well them being in another country would mean they were not the ones who were doing
stuff in real life as it were...

[Panta]

Originally Posted by gin

Is there a tl;dr version?
I'm gonna guess the ending though, he was some sort of pathetic excuse for a human being, and the moral of the story?

Guy gets trolled on his Twitter feed and private messages with abusive comments about his religion (Judaism) and political views. Very childish comments I might add, that look as though they came from someone with about as many brain cells as teeth.

This goes on for three years, during which his Facebook gets hacked, he cancels his Twitter and ends up paranoid and terrified when packages start arriving at his house with death threats - specifically death threats to his family.

Finally he told someone about it (not wanting to worry his wife and kid) - an I.T. specialist friend that said he could help - and tracked the troll down by baiting him. It turned out to be the 17 yr old kid of his friend.

They set up a meeting with the troll's parents and the troll and, without giving away that he knew the troll's identity, began to regale how horrific his life had been for the past three years, living in terror that his family was in danger. The troll cried, the guy forgave him.

I would've beaten the fucker so bad he'd think of the pain of it before deciding to troll someone else every again.