Independent of your opinion on the limits of free speech on the web, I think stories like this should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks there are no consequences to blasting out vile on the web. Consider the case of Violentacrez on reddit:

Unmasking Reddit's Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web (http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web?tag=the-internet&post=53478396)

and the update

Reddit (http://gawker.com/5951987/)

A long time ago, I realized that people who are so angry and mean-spirited on-line, actually have to have those qualities inside them before they can come out.

The Internet and the anonymity it provides is just a medium and hateful, awful thoughts and opinions have to come from inside. It's like the celebrities that blame racist outbursts on being drunk. Being drunk doesn't make you a racist, it just allows racist thoughts to come out less filtered.

So, I don't buy the "I just like to rile people up" explanation. More than likely this guy -- and those like him -- has serious issues with unhappiness and anger. Unfortunately the 'net provides the opportunity to get attention, which only fuels their fire of hate.

That's a whole different world from one I know. Wow.

BTW, if he and others like him want to rile people up, it's extremely easy to do: Just go to a public place like a bar and start spouting off racist, misogynistic rhetoric and you'll get plenty of reaction.

What he conveniently leaves out is his cowardice. No wonder he is so worried about his real identity being exposed... There might actually be some consequences tied to his actions.


I will also say all of us have bad days or have some on-line person that irritates the crap out of you. And of course, we all are too apt to be less polite in these situations than we ever would be IRL.

But that's very different than someone who seems to be a consistently angry and negative person. That isn't just a bad mood, that's their true character showing through.

I learned a long time ago don't feed the trolls. There's always going to be button pushers in cyber-space but in the end one chooses to have thier buttons pushed and its silly to blame the troll for your reaction to mere words flashing on your computer screen. It so easy to ignore stuff on the internet it floors me how upset people get over content they CHOOSE to CONSUME.

I've never heard of this alleged troll but I actually have more of a problem with the gawker reporter's actions than any of the nonsense reported on in the article.

This is exactly where he went wrong. Trolling to some people is some kind of excuse for bad behavior. Like punching someone in the face and saying, "just kidding".

That's the kind of logic you might expect from a 12 year old, not an adult. Your actions and your words have consequences. Very real consequences. Choose them wisely.
Many people may be chronologically adults but emotionally never grew to be older than 12 years old.

The old saying about "sticks and stones" is BS. Words do hurt, even if they're only words on a screen. You can choose how you react to any verbal barbs thrown your way, but the real problem is with the people hurling them, not with the people who are being hurt by them.

Also, what scares me is that all that negativity is coming from somewhere inside these people...