How to Deal with Online Trolls

How do you deal with online trolls?

I often help com­pan­ies and organ­isa­tions deal with online trolls. 

“Of course, humans have always had this poten­tial for the irra­tion­ally vin­dict­ive, but the advent of the inter­net finally allowed it to thrive. Because as soon as you stuck someone behind a com­puter, a dan­ger­ously insu­lar shield of anonym­ity came down and, for those inclined, hap­pily took over.“
Source: Gizmodo ¹Feinberg, A. (2014, October 30). The Birth of the Internet Troll. Gizmodo; Gizmodo. https://​giz​modo​.com/​t​h​e​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​i​n​t​e​r​n​e​t​-​t​r​o​l​l​-​1​6​5​2​4​8​5​292

Here we go:

Pick Your Opponents Proactively

The Paradox of Prominence

The “dark side” of what drives people’s engage­ment can be a true PR chal­lenge. This phe­nomen­on, where every strength inher­ently pos­sesses a cor­res­pond­ing down­side, can be called the “Paradox of Prominence.”

An example of this para­dox is the halo effect, where phys­ic­al attract­ive­ness becomes an asset for a spokes­per­son. Attractiveness often leads to pos­it­ive biases; attract­ive indi­vidu­als are fre­quently per­ceived as more cred­ible and com­pet­ent. ²Eagly, A. H., Ashmore, R. D., Makhijani, M. G., & Longo, L. C. (1991). What is beau­ti­ful is good, but…: A meta-ana­lyt­ic review of research on the phys­ic­al attract­ive­ness ste­reo­type. … Continue read­ing ³Silfwer, J. (2023, December 17). The Halo Effect: Why Attractiveness Matters in PR. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​h​a​l​o​-​e​f​f​e​ct/

However, this same attrib­ute can spark neg­at­ive reac­tions. Critics might claim that the indi­vidu­al’s suc­cess or vis­ib­il­ity is primar­ily due to their looks, under­min­ing their com­pet­en­cies. This dual­ity illus­trates how the qual­it­ies that draw pos­it­ive atten­tion can sim­ul­tan­eously attract cri­ti­cism and scepticism.

Competence, anoth­er valu­able trait, often encoun­ters sim­il­ar pit­falls. Highly com­pet­ent indi­vidu­als inspire con­fid­ence and admir­a­tion. Nevertheless, this com­pet­ence can be per­ceived neg­at­ively when will­fully inter­preted as arrog­ance. Studies sug­gest that while com­pet­ence garners respect, it can also lead to social pen­al­ties, such as envy and resent­ment. ⁴Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A mod­el of (often mixed) ste­reo­type con­tent: Competence and warmth respect­ively fol­low from per­ceived status and com­pet­i­tion. Journal of … Continue read­ing

Examples of the Paradox of Prominence

The para­dox of prom­in­ence seems to be an inher­ent aspect of human interest dynamics. 

Prominence	Positive Outcome	Negative Outcome
Physical attract­ive­ness	Enhanced cred­ib­il­ity and trust	Accusations of super­fi­cial success
High com­pet­ence	Respected and trus­ted as an expert	Perceived as arrog­ant or unapproachable
Charisma	Ability to inspire and attract followers	Viewed as manip­u­lat­ive or insincere
Strong advocacy	Increased sup­port and mobil­iz­a­tion for a cause	Target of intense cri­ti­cism from opponents
Wealth	Seen as suc­cess­ful and influential	Resentment and accus­a­tions of greed or unfairness
Assertiveness	Effective lead­er­ship and decision-making	Labeled as dom­in­eer­ing or aggressive
Innovation	Admired for cre­ativ­ity and forward-thinking	Resistance to change and cri­ti­cism from traditionalists
High vis­ib­il­ity	Greater recog­ni­tion and influence	Increased scru­tiny and loss of privacy
Generosity	Viewed as kind-hearted and philanthropic	Suspected of ulteri­or motives
Success in com­pet­it­ive fields	Role mod­el and sym­bol of achievement	Envy and attempts to under­mine accomplishments

We must recog­nise that with every increase in vis­ib­il­ity, there is a cor­res­pond­ing increase in scru­tiny and criticism.

Pick Your Opponents Wisely

Public aware­ness comes with inev­it­able costs.

In the quest for great­er vis­ib­il­ity and influ­ence, it is crit­ic­al to acknow­ledge that “being uni­ver­sally well-liked” is a naïve and unreal­ist­ic goal. 

By stra­tegic­ally har­ness­ing this para­dox, pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als can man­age pub­lic per­cep­tion by inter­n­al­ising expec­ted “down­sides” as addi­tion­al aware­ness drivers. 

Learn more: The Paradox of Prominence

Categorise Your Online Trolls

Use the High Road Tonality

The Stoic Tonality

An organ­isa­tion is the poly­phon­ic sum of all its cowork­ers. Imagine extract­ing each cowork­er­’s most vir­tu­ous and mature traits and com­bin­ing them into one voice — the Stoic tonality.

Stoic Tonality Examples

“Why does­n’t your brand speak out against indus­tri­al over­fish­ing killing our oceans?”

“As a com­pany that sells fish­ing gear, we want our oceans — and all anim­als and plants liv­ing in them! — to be healthy and plen­ti­ful. We, too, were dis­turbed by the recent news of over­fish­ing. How could any­one not be? We now ask ourselves, how can our com­pany make more of a dif­fer­ence? Honestly, we’re dis­cuss­ing our strategy for sus­tain­ab­il­ity every day. I can­not say how or when we might take spe­cif­ic action regard­ing this latest news, but rest assured that we’re tak­ing the gen­er­al issue of sav­ing our oceans seriously.”

“Why does­n’t your brand engage in Black Lives Matter?”

“As for right now, we’re listen­ing. We’re listen­ing to the stor­ies being told. We’re listen­ing to under­stand bet­ter how we can learn and grow as a com­pany. As for inclus­ive­ness and human rights in gen­er­al, we think we’re doing a great job, and part of that is to stay open and care­fully listen to people’s stor­ies. We might take spe­cif­ic actions, but we’re listen­ing and learning.”

“Why does­n’t your brand join our protests against tox­ic mas­culin­ity and the pat­ri­archy?”

“Honestly, we’re a product com­pany. We make products for any­one who likes them. And I dare say that we’re experts in mak­ing these products. However, we’re not experts on ideo­lo­gies or soci­et­al struc­tures. So, for now, we listen. And we con­tin­ue to focus on mak­ing the best products that we can. For every­one. We believe that’s our best way of con­trib­ut­ing at this point.”

“Why does­n’t your brand sign our peti­tion to boy­cott all com­pan­ies on our Environmental Black List?”

“As a com­pany, we oper­ate dif­fer­ently. Instead of sign­ing peti­tions or par­ti­cip­at­ing in oth­er pub­lic demon­stra­tions, we take action with­in our sphere of influ­ence. And I dare say that our many envir­on­ment­al ini­ti­at­ives are mak­ing a lot of dif­fer­ence world­wide rel­at­ive to our size and reach. If we were to sign your peti­tion, we would first have to use our resources to research the legit­im­acy of its cre­at­ors and then make sure that none of the com­pan­ies on that list is being wrong­fully accused. While it would be pos­sible, we’ve decided that we can do more good by dir­ect­ing our resources to where we can make the most difference.”

“Why does­n’t your com­pany act against your female employ­ees who take time off for abor­tions?”

“All our employ­ees are grown-ups, and what they do on their own time is frankly none of our busi­ness. We’re a large com­pany, and we have employ­ees who are pro-life and pro-choice. We believe we have a work­place where people can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions but still respect each oth­er and work well together.”

“Why has­n’t your com­pany offered your thoughts and pray­ers for the vic­tims and their fam­il­ies of the school shoot­ing?”

“The vic­tims and their fam­il­ies have our empath­ies, of course. I speak for every­one work­ing at our com­pany when I say we were dev­ast­ated by the news as every­one else. But you’re right that we haven’t pos­ted any status updates about the shoot­ing on our Facebook page. It’s not that we don’t care (we do!), it’s just that we focus our updates on our products and ser­vices and how they make a pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence in the world.”

Learn more: The Stoic Tonality: Rise Above With Integrity

Establish House Rules

Spring Clean Your Accounts (Ban, Block, Report)

“Canadian psy­cho­lo­gists Erin Buckels, Paul Trapnell, and Delroy Paulhus set up a sur­vey of per­son­al­ity invent­or­ies matched with ‘Internet com­ment­ing styles’ — in oth­er words, they attemp­ted to psy­cho­ana­lyse com­menters, which should be cause for a Nobel prize (and haz­ard pay) in itself. What came from the study will likely sur­prise no one: people who like to troll are also likely to show signs of ‘sad­ism, psy­cho­pathy, and Machiavellianism.’”
Source: Time ⁵Chayka, K. (2014, February 13). Internet Trolls Are Actually Sadists, Study Finds. Time; Time. https://​time​.com/​8​2​6​5​/​i​n​t​e​r​n​e​t​-​t​r​o​l​l​s​-​a​r​e​-​a​c​t​u​a​l​l​y​-​s​a​d​i​s​t​s​-​s​t​u​d​y​-​f​i​n​ds/

People who viol­ate your online house rules (e.g., com­ment policy) are online trolls. You can ban, block, and delete them. It’s tedi­ous work, but you should spring clean amongst your fans, fol­low­ers, and sub­scribers, even if there are thousands.

Spring clean­ing means sift­ing through your online com­munity and look­ing for prom­in­ent troll accounts. When you find such accounts, delete them, ban them, block them, or unsub­scribe them. Banning, block­ing, and report­ing are applic­able when online trolls are enga­ging in the feeds of your brand’s social accounts or com­ment forms on your web­site or app:

While spring clean­ing might decrease your com­munity num­bers, you’ll bene­fit from bet­ter algorithmic scores.

Affiliate: I use Email List Validation to pro­tect my sender’s repu­ta­tion by keep­ing my PR email lists free from boun­cing emails.

Nurture a Brand Community

Nothing will pro­tect your brand bet­ter than nur­tur­ing a pos­it­ive and ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion across all your social channels. 

When the shit hits the fan, hav­ing your com­munity take your side is cru­cial. And if they favour your brand’s online envir­on­ment, they won’t eas­ily allow online trolls to des­troy what they’ve helped build.

Affiliate: I use Mailchimp as my default email list manager.

Implement Social Tech

Social tech­no­lo­gies could allow you to shape and man­age your online com­munity’s behaviours.

You can nur­ture a pos­it­ive online brand cul­ture by util­ising indi­vidu­al com­ment replies, reac­tions, pins, high­lights, badges, top lists, scores, sort­ing mech­an­isms, rewards, etc.

Here are a few on-site examples:

Implement “Staff Mode”

When online trolls attack your brand, their activ­ity must be mon­itored, and actions must be taken imme­di­ately. The soon­er you take action, the better.

If online trolls are allowed to wreak hav­oc without the brand tak­ing any meas­ures for too long, their activ­ity will attract oth­ers, and your prob­lems might become more prom­in­ent than they have to be.

So, when your brand deals with online trolls, staff up accord­ingly. It’s rarely a good idea for every­one to leave work while online trolls ramp up dur­ing the night.

Use Fancy Copywriting

Online trolls might be bad people, but you can throw many types of them off by react­ing in a way they wouldn’t expect you to.

There are many suc­cess­ful case stud­ies of brands using fancy copy­writ­ing to fight against online trolls. The idea is to make the gen­er­al online audi­ence favour your brand instead and turn them against online trolls.

Fancy copy­writ­ing might be your choice weapon if you take the fight. 

Be charm­ing.
Be clev­er.

Fancy copy­writ­ing is an art form, though.

You need a copy­writer or a PR writer who can pro­duce glim­mer­ing online responses in a high-pres­sure situation.

Monitor and Evaluate

When online trolls attack, it’s chal­len­ging to gauge pro­por­tion­al­ity. Coworkers might be upset and feel per­son­ally attacked, and lead­ers might feel pres­sured to push for action.

Your brand’s first line of defence against mak­ing bad calls is data. Data is har­ves­ted through online mon­it­or­ing sys­tems and then evaluated.

Attempt De-Platforming

If online trolls are giv­ing your brand grief out­side your brand plat­forms (social accounts, web­sites, apps, etc.), you might still be able to ban, block, or report their con­tent. However, this is a high-stakes strategy and should only be used cautiously.

Brands should be care­ful about try­ing to de-plat­form someone. Although they might be online trolls, they’re not in viol­a­tion of your house rules any­more. Because they’re not in your “house.”

The only time de-plat­form­ing is a reas­on­able course of action is if an online troll viol­ates the terms or con­di­tions stated by the social net­work. But even then, there’s a high prob­ab­il­ity that the social net­work won’t respond to your reports.

“Scores on the Dark Tetrad per­son­al­ity test revealed that trolls are, by far, more likely to have nar­ciss­ist­ic, Machiavellian, psy­cho­path­ic, and sad­ist­ic per­son­al­ity traits. Okay, so that’s not so sur­pris­ing. But Buckels and col­leagues wanted to take it a step fur­ther: how much enjoy­ment are these trolls get­ting from their online shenanigans? The research­ers con­struc­ted their own Global Assessment of Internet Trolling (GAIT), which asked such ques­tions as ‘I have sent people to shock web­sites for the lulz’ and ‘The more beau­ti­ful and pure a thing is, the more sat­is­fy­ing it is to cor­rupt.’ (Sadly, some people indeed answered these ques­tions with a ‘yes’).“
Source: The Guardian ⁶Jordan Gaines Lewis. (2014, February 25). Internet trolls are also real-life trolls. The Guardian. … Continue read­ing

Read also: De-Platforming as a Public Relations Strategy

PR Resource: List of Social Media Issues