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Assignment: Me and my trolls

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Me and my trolls

03/12/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Assignment, Me and my trolls

One victim’s quest to discover why complete strangers tormented her on social media

Why would anyone spend time online attacking people they don’t know? What can their victims do about it? And what’s it like to meet an internet troll, face to face?

Internet trolls are harassing and bullying people like never before. That’s according to research carried out in the UK which found abuse rising as the world spends more and more time online thanks to the Covid pandemic. But who are the people behind these often anonymous attacks? How do they get involved in persecuting people they don’t even know? And what can their victims do about it? British Journalist, Sali Hughes, has been a target herself. In this edition of Assignment, she sets out to discover how trolls justify their actions, and what motivates them. She speaks to other women who have suffered online abuse and hears about the devastating impact it can have. And, she goes face to face with one of her own former tormentors to make a sobering discovery: those provoking conflict in cyberspace include the most normal people in real life. 

Producer: Paul Grant

(Photo: Anonymous internet-user in a mask. Credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

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