For the years that I was on Reddit and now on Lemmy, I have seen these terms used a lot, but honestly, I’ve never actually knew what it meant. (I’m sorry if this is a really stupid question.)
A troll is someone not using the platform in good faith, but instead trying to fish some type of negative reaction or result.
On a social media platform like Lemmy, a troll could be someone creating fights, baiting people with insults or fabrications, spreading misinformation purposely, adding links to content that might dangerous or illegal, and so on.
In short, a troll is someone engaging with others with the goal of ruining their experience. In a videogame it could be a team member losing on purpose to annoy others, for example.
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation.
A little Internet history: the etymology of “troll” in the Internet sense comes from the fishing term “trolling” which is where one moves around the fishing area with bait waiting for fish to hit (or bite). In the old bulletin board days a normal response before engaging with an obviously inflammatory/bad faith post was to start “ok, I’ll bite … [Counter Argument]”
That’s really interesting. Thanks for telling me that.
