Game of trolls: What is it like to be a victim of online abuse?

From taunts about people’s looks to death threats and suggestions of suicide, online abuse is common in Ireland. Shamim Malekmian speaks to a victim and a perpetrator

WHEN Ibrahim Halawa finally came home after four years of political incarceration in Egypt, he found himself in a new prison, one made of unkind words.

The 22-year-old has been the subject of relentless internet trolling since his acquittal and subsequent release from an Egyptian jail, last year.

Trolling is the intentional spreading of erroneous and incendiary comments on online platforms, often to agitate and lure a response.

Ibrahim says some mordant remarks he read online, especially those that questioned his Irish identity left a lasting scar.

“When I left Ireland for Egypt as a teenager, I still had the morals and principles that was fully Irish, and I never believed otherwise,” he says. “So, I come back to see so many people saying ‘oh, he’s not Irish,’ and it left me depressed.”

The former political prisoner insists that his participation in a mass demonstration, which led to his arrest, was in line with his Irish values. “Ireland raised me to learn these morals and principles, doing what is right,” he says. “I was doing something you taught me; why all the hate?”

Trolls, however, told him that he was a terrorist, a member of a radical Islamic organisation and above all, not Irish.

“The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood terrorist is now claiming he’s a Dubliner,” a Facebook post reads.

“Some people just can’t accept that a brown person can be Irish,” Ibrahim says.

Trolls have falsely and repeatedly accused him of ripping up his Irish passport.

The young man has received numerous death threats online, some unbelievably chilling.

“I’ve got one online that was a picture of someone with a mask holding an AK-47, and he said ‘Watch your back,’” Ibrahim recalls.

He had to go on The Late Late Show pronouncing that he was Irish, a declaration of nationality that has become a part of his life. A new short film titled What does Irishness Look Like? made to celebrate a diverse Irish society, shows a smiling Ibrahim reiterating his nationality: “I’m Irish.”

He worries about the children who might read the comments left under posts related to him, fearing hatred could be infectious.

“When adults are publicly making these posts, they [children] would be affected by that. They will learn the hatred from you.”

Although never ended, the online abuse has subsided now. Ibrahim says he has learned to “get over it” because trolls don’t represent the majority of the population.

“These are just people with fake profiles who are hiding behind their screens,” he says.

“I would like to thank the people who would answer these trolls for me. I discovered the beauty of some people through this; I didn’t want to get off social media to miss that.”

Alex Cooney is the CEO of Cyber- SafeIreland, a Dublin-based charity focused on ensuring a safe online experience for children and adolescents. For Alex, internet trolling equals in-person bullying, with trolling being even more vicious as trolls enjoy the convenience of a kind of abuse that does not require shame-inducing eye contact.

Alex Cooney is the CEO of Cyber- SafeIreland

“The online world can really exacerbate tension because eye contact is not part of the equation, and the bully can’t see the impact of their words or actions on the other person,” she says. “It is an extension of traditional forms of bullying.”

Online posts about contentious social issues have a particular allure for trolls. In the days leading up to the abortion referendum, for example, trolls were exceptionally busy, provoking people from both sides of the abortion debate with racist or sexist remarks.

“Judging by your profile you’re not even Irish. Nothing to do with you. Move along SWEETHEART,” one such comment reads.

According to Ms Cooney, trolls can be quite dismissive when confronted, portraying themselves as witty examiners of life and their victims as hypersensitive.

“The person accused doesn’t identify what they were doing as bullying for example [they would say] ‘it was just meant as a joke and [the victim] took it the wrong way.’”

She says while traditional bullies would hassle a known target in isolation, trolls go after strangers online and galvanise other abusers to join them as their mean comment can be liked and shared multiple times.

While most trolls gall social media users on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram some online abusers extend their dominion to dating applications such as Tinder. An American survey from 2016, revealed that 57% of women and 21% of men experienced online abuse on dating apps.

Harassing teenagers is also quite popular among trolls. “We’ve heard about kids being told to kill themselves because they are ‘ugly’ and other children being targeted online because of their race,” Ms Cooney says. In 2015,a quarter of teenagers in England fell victim to online abuse.

In dealing with adolescent trolls, Ms Cooney would often try to provoke their empathy. “We ask them to consider how their granny might view a photo or comment that they are about to share.”

Cyber experts customarily advise internet users to remain calm and ignore online offenders, as their ultimate aim is to entice a clapback.

A Labour online abuse bill, which would criminalise online bullying and revenge porn, is also at its second debate stage in the Oireachtas.

Frank (not his real name) is a 24-year-old self-admitted troll in Cork for whom the term has shed its derogatory implications. “It’s not trolling; it’s activism,” he says.

He describes trolling as a thankless, but significant act of “telling it like it is” while others are too “politically correct” to do so.

“Being real should be valued and appreciated instead of being labelled and judged by society. You call me a troll; I call myself real. These labels are there to make us conform to society’s rules.”

Frank’s day job as a customer service operator requires him to be extra polite and patient with people, even when they unleash their fury on him over the phone. The young man says he hates his job mostly because it encourages him to be “fake”.

“I have to put on a mask. I mean we all do, but some people forget to take off their masks so they will always be fake.”

Trolling, he claims, gives him a sense of freedom from a phoney society, handing him a unique opportunity to play by his own rules, like a tiny number liberated from a larger equation. He says trolling, much like customer service operation, takes much patience, but yields therapeutic results.

“It does make me angry to see how people are ignorant. But it’s good that I can tell them the truth and be as real as I can be. So, It actually makes me feel better,” he says.

Suspended from Twitter, Frank trades sharp-edged barbs with Facebook users every night from midnight to 3am, and goes to work at 8am every weekday. He becomes agitated when inquired about his suspension from Twitter. “Some people reported it [his account] as being inappropriate, nonsense like that.”

Does he ever wonder if his words would provoke someone to commit suicide? “I don’t think people kill themselves because of trolling,” he says, without missing a beat.

Frank says he has built a rapport with other trolls in the country with whom he plays a nightly game of trolls, the only game in which he deems himself a victor.