Editing Troll (slang) (section)

=== United States ===

On 31 March 2010, NBC's ''[[Today (American TV program)|Today]]'' ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls' subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began performing organized psychological harassment across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a "suicidal slut", and posting graphic images on her [[Facebook]] memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old fatally crashed her father's car into a highway pylon; trolls emailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse (see [[Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy]]).<ref name="Trolling:TheTodayShowExplorestheDarkSideoftheInternet">{{cite web |url-status=dead |url=http://gawker.com/5506453/trolling-the-today-show-explores-the-dark-side-of-the-internet |title=Trolling: ''The Today Show'' Explores the Dark Side of the Internet |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102001807/http://gawker.com/5506453/trolling-the-today-show-explores-the-dark-side-of-the-internet |archive-date=2 November 2013 |date=31 March 2010 |access-date=4 April 2010 |website=Gawker |first1=Matt |last1=Toder }}</ref>

In 2007, the media was fooled by trollers into believing that students were consuming a drug called [[Jenkem]], purportedly made of human waste. A user named Pickwick on [[TOTSE]] posted pictures implying that he was inhaling this drug. Major news corporations such as [[Fox News Channel]] reported the story and urged parents to warn their children about this drug. Pickwick's pictures of [[Jenkem]] were fake and the pictures did not actually feature human waste.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/internet-troll-sub-culture-s-savage-spoofing-of-mainstream-media-excerpt/|title=Internet Troll Sub-Culture's Savage Spoofing of Mainstream Media [Excerpt]|author= Whitney Phillips |date=15 May 2015|work=Scientific American}}</ref>

In August 2012, the subject of trolling was featured on the [[HBO]] [[television series]] ''[[The Newsroom (U.S. TV series)|The Newsroom]]''. The character [[The Newsroom (U.S. TV series)#Main cast|Neal Sampat]] encounters harassing individuals online, particularly looking at [[4chan]], and he ends up choosing to post negative comments himself on an economics-related forum. The attempt by the character to infiltrate trolls' inner circles attracted debate from media reviewers critiquing the series.<ref name=hitfix>{{cite web|url=http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-the-newsroom-the-blackout-part-2-mock-debate-help-me-rhonda#|title=Review: The Newsroom – The Blackout Part 2: Mock Debate: Help me, Rhonda|work=HitFix|date=13 July 2023 }}</ref><ref name=indiewire>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/the-newsroom-episode-9-review-and-recap-the-blackout-part-2-whither-the-mock-debate|title='The Newsroom' Episode 9 Review and Recap: 'The Blackout – Thompson on Hollywood|author=Beth Hanna|date=20 August 2012|work=Thompson on Hollywood|access-date=28 June 2015|archive-date=1 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701121846/http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/the-newsroom-episode-9-review-and-recap-the-blackout-part-2-whither-the-mock-debate|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 2019, it was alleged that progressive Democrats had created a fake Facebook page which mis-represented the political stance of Roy Moore, a Republican candidate, in the attempt to alienate him from pro-business Republicans. It was also alleged that a "false flag" experiment attempted to link Moore to the use of Russian Twitter bots.<ref>{{cite web |title=Editorial: Online disinformation isn't just for Russia anymore |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-alabama-disinformation-20190108-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |date=8 January 2019}} "The New York Times reported Monday that progressive Democrats opposed to Roy Moore, the odious Republican candidate in that race, created a Facebook page and Twitter feed purporting to represent Moore supporters opposed to the sale of alcoholic beverages...to associate Moore with calls for a statewide ban on the sale of liquor in order to alienate moderate, pro-business Republicans and help Democratic candidate Doug Jones..."Dry Alabama" was actually the second case of Russian-style disinformation in the Alabama campaign uncovered by the New York Times. In December it reported on an "experiment" in which a phony Facebook page was created to try to drain support for Moore from conservatives and a "false flag" operation was created to suggest that the Republican candidate was being followed on Twitter by Russian bots."</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'', when exposing the scam, quoted a New Knowledge report that boasted of its fabrications: "We orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the [Roy] Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.{{'"}}<ref>{{cite news |title=NBC News, to Claim Russia Supports Tulsi Gabbard, Relies on Firm Just Caught Fabricating Russia Data for the Democratic Party |url=https://theintercept.com/2019/02/03/nbc-news-to-claim-russia-supports-tulsi-gabbard-relies-on-firm-just-caught-fabricating-russia-data-for-the-democratic-party/ |work=The Intercept |date=February 3, 2019}}</ref>

The [[2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries|2020 Democratic]] presidential candidate [[Bernie Sanders]] has faced criticism for the behavior of some of his supporters online, but has deflected such criticism, suggesting that "Russians" were impersonating people claiming to be "[[Bernie Bro]]" supporters.<ref>{{cite news |title=Experts Say There's 'No Evidence' for Bernie's Russian Bot Claim |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/experts-call-bs-on-bernies-russian-bot-theory |work=The Daily Beast |date=February 21, 2020}}</ref> Twitter rejected Sanders' suggestion that Russia could be responsible for the bad reputation of his supporters. A Twitter spokesperson told [[CNBC]]: "Using technology and human review in concert, we proactively monitor Twitter to identify attempts at platform manipulation and mitigate them. As is standard, if we have reasonable evidence of state-backed information operations, we'll disclose them following our thorough investigation to our public archive – the largest of its kind in the industry."<ref>{{cite news |title=Twitter knocks down Bernie Sanders' suggestion that Russian trolls are behind online attacks from his supporters |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/20/twitter-knocks-down-sanders-suggestion-russian-trolls-behind-supporters.html |work=CNBC |date=February 20, 2020}}</ref> Twitter had suspended 70 troll accounts that posted content in support of [[Michael Bloomberg]]'s [[Michael Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign|presidential campaign]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Twitter is suspending 70 pro-Bloomberg accounts, citing 'platform manipulation' |url=https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-21/twitter-suspends-bloomberg-accounts |work=Los Angeles Times |date=February 21, 2020}}</ref>

The 45th [[President of the United States|U.S. president]] [[Donald J. Trump|Donald Trump]] infamously used Twitter to denigrate his political opponents and spread misinformation for which he earned the moniker "Troll-In-Chief" by [[The New Yorker]].<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Donald Trump will go down in history as the Troll-in-Chief |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trump-will-go-down-in-history-as-the-troll-in-chief |magazine=The New Yorker |date=January 29, 2021}}</ref>