4 ms·

Since when does a troll stand for someone who harasses others?

• CharlesW 4y ago
  > Since when does a troll stand for someone who harasses others? For decades now. The sort of extremely gentle, early-Usenet-style teasing/provocation you're thinking of didn't last long.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  Didn't it used to be someone big and ugly who lived under a bridge and would whack you with a club if you didn't pay?
  • kerpotgh 4y ago
    [dead]
  • anigbrowl 4y ago
    Internet lore cleaves between this interpretation and references to the fishing practice of dropping a baited hook with a float (or fly) and then twitching the fishing line just enough to create the impression of some small creature fighting the current.
• swatcoder 4y ago
  The author notes that they’ve personally expanded the definition as part of their own research. Like you, I think that’s unhelpful and tries to analyze dissimilar things and apply conclusions to them indiscriminantly. But I suspect it’s more interesting to them this way, and easier to pursue funding when your thesis includes more socially impactful stuff like harassment and harm instead of just provocation and ideological derision. Institutional bureaucracy gonna bureaucrat.