Meeting A Troll

For those of you who claim that the right thing in this situation would be to turn the child over to the authorities - what exactly do you think the authorities are going to do to make this situation better? The child obviously has some darkness that he needs to work through - to work through darkness he needs the support of a loving community. I find it very sad and disturbing that some commenters (who I assume are adults) believe that the right thing to do is to hand a child like this over to the police or mental institutions. This idea that the police are some sort of magical wand that you can wave at problems to make them go away is at the center of our (our here meaning the US &#38; Britain's) social decay (c.f. the current treatment of drug abusers, ethnic minorities, and the "mentally ill" in the United States).<p>Assuming this story is true, what OP did was the right, human, adult thing to do - to treat the child as a human being capable of change and growth and to see to it that the community accepted him and moved him towards change. Concepts like "justice" and "psychosis" are easy to throw around and are very practical, but their use is typically the root of more harm than good.

For what it's worth, if you're the target of especially terrifying harassment like this, it's important to keep two things in mind: the more targeted the harassment is, the easier it is to identify the harasser, and the more likely it is that there's some sort of personal connection.<p>If you're receiving stuff in the mail (like the lunchbox with ashes) or stuff literally just dropped on your doorstep (the dead flowers), it's extremely unlikely that someone on the internet you have absolutely zero connection with just randomly picked you to ruin your life that badly just for some lulz.<p>I'm glad the OP was able to take the steps he needed to identify his harasser, which I'm sure was a lot more empowering than living in fear and checking his door locks every night.

It's difficult to read this and not think that a psychopath was let off the hook because he was young. Outing and labeling these kinds of people is important to curbing the amount of future damage they can do.<p>There is bullying, there is harassment, and then there is what the OP experienced. No reasonable, rational individual who is just "acting out" in adolescence takes it to these levels. As much as I feel for the OP he should have taken legal action and had the youth examined by a credible mental health professional if only as a favor to others.

Interesting. I don't think I would have done the same, and even with time to think long and hard about it, I still would have gone after him with all my might. I don't think letting him off with just a warning is in any sense "justice" nor in the end was the smart choice.<p>There's something <i>psychotic</i> about harassing someone you know for YEARS, anonymously, in such a vicious way as he did. It's just cruelty on a level akin to torturing dogs for fun. "It was kind of a game" is hardly an excuse. "I will kill you, I will rape your wife, I will do &#60;unspeakable things&#62; to your wife's dead body..." Sending ashes. Putting dead flowers on the door step. Causing the man to be paranoid in his own house. Causing him to cry over the safety of his family. This is beyond harassment, and lasted daily/weekly over a period of years.<p>I almost don't believe this is real. How could a psychotic 17-year old be let off with a handshake and a look in the eye? He's going to kill someone someday. I'm stunned.

Wow ... I'd like to shake your hand because I think you handled your friend's son with an amazing amount of grace. It's horrible that you had to be tormented like that, but at 17 he may have learned how to be human. In my experience, not many of us understood empathy at that age.<p>Let me know when you're in the U.S. and perhaps I can buy you a dinner.

My wife and I just had a baby and it has made me realize that I would burn the world to cinders in defense of my family. I have no idea how this guy reached through the fire and shook this kid's hand. Wow.

That's not a troll. And that's not harassment. That's a stalker. I'm shocked Twitter did nothing about this kind of repeated targeted abuse. And I'm very surprised that the police did nothing for someone who was receiving death threats at his front door.

I remember reading a story about a man who was knocked unconscious by a group of kids as he was riding past them on a bicycle not too long ago. That story followed a similar trajectory including the writer not pressing charges under the conditions that he would be able to meet with the attacker and ask him questions about why he did what he did.<p>One of the things I remember about the article was the reaction from the police who said that the show of remorse from the attacker was a well-practiced show and that they had seen it many times in repeat offenders.<p>Does anyone remember more details about this that would help find it?

that is not "trolling", that's (pretty bad) harassment. I get the feeling this is a story written to prove a point. Nobody would refer to this as "trolling".

&#62; <i>He wanted to call the authorities there and then and turn him in. But I said no.</i><p>That's an impressive show of self control, but I wonder if his next victims will have preferred that you did contact the authorities. Presumably, at age 17 this guy won't be living with his parents for much longer.

I have to ask. Why was this young man given the opportunity to escape the law despite committing a hate crime. He threatened murder and rape. Would he have been afforded the privilege of a hand shake rather than hand cuffs if he was... say a member of a outgroup, say for example, an Arab?

That is a pretty compelling story. I'm not sure I could let it go without a bit more narrative around the 'game thing.' It sounds too much like 'making your bones' in a street gang.

&#62; I responded: "I'm not criminalizing a 17 year old kid and ruining his future.<p>I really hope restorative justice works. Well done for doing something that must have been incredibly tough.

I'd love to have an update in a few years. Do things end up better for having let him off, or does he cause even more damage?<p>I think it's unlikely that the author was the only person threatened, and also unlikely that a "talking to" will prevent others from being victims as well. While I'd like to think that people can make a full turn around from evil to good, in this case I'd bet against it. If things are as described, the kid is not a wayward youth but a psychopath.<p>Certainly from the child's perspective it's better not to involve the authorities. But my greater concern is for the rest of society. No, there is nothing magic the authorities can do that will help this individual, but unlike a counsellor they might be able to restrict his ability to further harm others.

Do we have to be careful not to brand this sort of behaviour as trolling? Trolling to me is often mild and more for a laugh rather than for quite malicious purposes. It's easier to ignore.<p>Anything that constitutes targeted harassment, stalking, bullying and the like should always be framed around those stronger terms. They cannot be things that kids grow up doing for a laugh with friends. They need to be clearly framed as the sort of things that have repercussions, put you on the flipside of society, etc.

compelling story, but I'd like to know how he translated an ip address in to a street address.

One potentially but as of yet unmentioned aspect is the "game thing" itself. The fact that he refers to this as a "game," indicates that by means of some conspiracy theory site or other, he was more or less interacting with others in competitive harassment.<p>Take the following potential scenario:<p><pre><code> Impressionable youth joins conspiracy site, finds lots of anti-semitic information. The youths of the forum are encourage to pick a Jew and harass them, recording both their creations (i.e. a plastic container filled with ashes), and the responses of the person they are harassing. Within the context of a game this harassment can immediately seem quite harmless. I am actually not thinking much about the person who is on the receiving end of my "prank" anymore, I am simply thinking of the optimal reaction I can get from my "innovative" creation in the harassment sector. Anyways, easy to see how something like this could get out of hand. Very out of hand in this case.</code></pre>

There is an alarming amount of laziness in the conclusion of this affair. I'm hoping that significant actions were left out of the post.<p>Who has the kid been talking to online? What else has he been up to? Who else is he harassing? How was he going to escalate the "game"?<p>It seems that the author wanted a peaceful resolution so badly that he manufactured one falsely.

I hope that The Troll learned something from this experience. It is truly interesting to me what kind of mental processes drive this kind of behavior.

I am truly amazing by this post. What an incredible human being the OP is. If faced with a similar situation I'm quite certain I lack to moral fiber to conduct myself with that level of class. Odds are excellent I would have pasted that kids guts all over the street.

Here's a funnier take on confronting an internet troll. Comedian Chris Gethard talks to a commenter who really didn't like his performance in the show "Big Lake."<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s10F4ulkLY" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s10F4ulkLY</a>

If you've ever seen very young puppies playing, you know that it's not as cute as it sounds. There's yelping and pain, and often even blood as the puppies bite one another mercilessly. But as the days and weeks pass, that stops; by being bitten, the puppies learn that biting hurts. It takes a little while, and is perhaps not the most pleasant of methods, but it's what their minds can process.<p>Some people are the same way. It's a cruel thing to force a bully (or its net-cousin, the troll) to look in the mirror and see what they've really done; what they really are. It messes with a person's head in a way that those who haven't experienced it cannot understand. But many of them legitimately NEED that kind of cruelty; it's the language they speak, the stimulus they know how to sense.<p>It's still cruel, mind you; it shouldn't be shied away from, but it shouldn't be glorified or looked forward to either. Sometimes it's not even possible, especially in the age of the Internet. But when it can be done, I'd call it preferable to bringing in the authorities. It's less wasteful, on account of not throwing up lifelong obstacles for the troll to overcome, and when properly applied it hurts worse than the law would allow our authorities to inflict anyway. Justice and vengeance, all wrapped up in a nice, neat package.

It's disturbing how terrifying and malicious this suburban 17-year old kid could be.

Am I the only one who feels like this story is hugely, hugely embellished? It is just too picture perfect. And absolutely none of the comments herein seem to question any aspect of it whatsoever. It is straight-up revenge-porn. My bet is that certain aspects of this actually happened, but things just don't happen this smoothly in real life.

Pains me to see this kinda stuff go on...<p>Troll doesn't quite cover it in my eye, its pure criminalized harassment.

I would have prosecuted the little shit.

I'm honestly astonished at how little Twitter seems to care about abuse and spam. I actually wrote an article about this last night (<a href="https://tyler.menez.es/articles/twitters-empathy-problem.html" rel="nofollow">https://tyler.menez.es/articles/twitters-empathy-problem.htm...</a>), when - after going through blog posts - I realized the spam problem there hadn't gotten any better since I first wrote about it in <i>2007</i>!

I'm very sorry you went through that. I actually couldn't finish reading it - too unsettling. I hope you and yours are okay and this is behind you.

That's not a troll, that's just a run-of-the-mill dickhead.<p>Trolling is a art.

I do not believe that this is an act by an individual. Even though the author tracked it down to one attacker, there is something much bigger behind attacks of this caliber.Right now there is a movement underway, a Troll movement.It has been around for no longer than a decade, but already it has shown the signs of a serious problem to come. It's essentially a gang mentality that ropes these "kids" in to participate in trolling. In the 90's I was lucky enough to have not grown up in the circumstances that would lead me into joining a gang. A desire to feel like your a part of something combined with the desire to feel powerful is a tool for whoever is recruiting these trolls(mostly older siblings or friends cause them to want to imitate).Just as these kids,imagine your self put under the wrong(for a successful life) circumstances at that age,you may have been persuaded into trying new drugs, or gang banging.<p>By meddling with the lives of others, one can get a feeling of true power. This feeling of power when combined with the comradeship of fellow trolls can be a very dangerous mix. Gangs recruit new members by playing on both those desires, first they are given a gun (they are now powerful, They hold the power over human life in their hands), next they are given comradeship (a feeling of belonging, they are now a part of something). At the age of 17, these kids, placed under the right(to this way of life) circumstances are soooooo susceptible to the gang mentality. The gang mentality is present everywhere you look, its just at different levels of activity. Give a kid a bat or ball, surround him with teammates, and give him something to do; Compares with giving a kid a computer, surrounding him with fellow trolls, and something to do (harassing and cyber attacking);Now lets throw in actual street gangs for a third level of comparison with the past. Give a kid a gun, surround him with fellow gang members, and something to do. Although baseball has stayed offline and in the ballpark to this day; The street gangs have moved online in the form of a 17 year old kid with a computer.<p>This is only a preview of whats to come. Imagine second generation trolls. These kids have had access to a computer, ipad, laptop, cell phone, since they were truly children(3-12). These trolls can hack,they are tech savvy, they can find your address, access all your online resources. They now have the power over a human life. Unlike street gangs of the 90's, the internet has allowed them to be apart of something big, bigger than any street gang has ever had the opportunity to reach. Where a gang was always limited by location, Trolling is only limited by language. A troll hierarchy has formed in several different hives. Troll soldiers are dispatched in the thousands, maybe even millions, in strategically placed cyber attacks. Worse these troll soldiers, at the easily corruptible age of 17, will have the mentality of an anarchist,ego of a street banger, and posses the technical ability of a hacker. Where a banger would steal and old ladies purse, they will get into her bank account. Where a banger would shoot someone for initiation, these trolls would attack every online outlet you use, ruin your name and image. Even worse, for the most part they need not be money motivated, their parents are paying the cable bill.And since this would for the most part be completely anonymous, they wouldn't have to watch as they shoot you in the face just as a street banger has to. They wont feel the blood splash their face as your life crumbles beneath you.<p>I can only hope measures are taken against the Trolls fast. It is not a hacker mentality they posses, but that of an anarchist and street banger.Those in power at the time it becomes apparent, will, as with every other threat to humanity, not act until it is too late.These kids do this because there is a lack of communication from the ones who raise them, they need attention, advice,something to do (baseball?). The authorities cant fix this, further separating the parents from the kids will only strengthen the bonds of the trolls. Who do you think they will go to after their parents have further distanced themselves from their kid by sending him off to juvy? Their friends who were a part of their bad way of life? The gang?

17 is OLD. This is a high school kid, and maybe he's immature, but he crossed a very serious line. The line between prank phone calls, and the types of coercive intimidation tactics he employed shouldn't be glossed over.<p>One other comment about this anecdote: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Revealing your true identity online, on the internet can be very, VERY risky. Downright dangerous. The fact that Google+ and Facebook encourage this as a normal, casual practice is irresponsible.<p>The internet is high-powered super-charged tachnology, which needs to be respected as such. It's not like putting your name in the phone book. VIPs who retain attourneys, hire personal assistants, and hire other staff (possibly even professional security) have adequate countermeasure to cope with online stalkers. Average individuals do not.<p>Consider that in ye olden days, predating even dial-up, there were notorious problems with local TV stations who would hire pretty women as their meteorologists. These were professional broadcasters that had problems with public exposure.<p>Craigslist has a firm understanding of some of the cold realities of the internet, in particular, prostitution, and they advise their users with very little whitewash. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ should do the same.

Theres something about this story that just doesn't sit right with me. Why would a 17 year old go through so much trouble to harass someone just for the heck of it? The guy had to have done something to the kid. Normal people don't spend hours of their lives to harass a single person for no reason.<p>I call bullshit.