The Age of Trolls

Speaker: 
Joel Stein
 
27 Oct 2016
 
8:00 PM
 
Great Hall, Memorial Union

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Joel Stein, author of the recent TIME magazine cover story "Why We're Losing the Internet to a Culture of Hate," will discuss how trolling on the Internet is infecting our real-life interactions, including politics. In addition to sharing the horrific messages he's received personally on Twitter and email, Stein, a longtime journalist, will share his perspective on how we can reverse the trend of a cyberculture that is growing meaner and more threatening. Joel Stein has written a weekly humor column for TIME since 1998, as well as fourteen other cover stories. He contributes frequently to national television and print media, including such publications as The New Yorker, GQ, Businessweek, Wired and the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. National Affairs Series: When American Values Are in Conflict

Expressing yourself online has become scarier than ever. Currently, 5 percent of users self-identify as trolls, and studies have shown they score extremely high in the dark tetrad of personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and, especially, sadism. But maybe that 5 percent is not the problem. Maybe it’s the other 95 percent of us. Maybe we’ve all been trained to be jerks when we’re online. In fact, the average troll isn’t a Dorito-munching basement dweller but a nice, normal, productive member of society you might know and like. Joel Stein shares how we can reverse trend of trolling by demanding more of our social media companies, by not feeding the trolls, by reporting abuse to the right authorities, by sending positive messages to people being trolled and remembering that the Internet is not real life.