‘I WAS SHAKEN INITIALLY, BUT I WILL FIGHT HIM’
Cyberbullying can make you feel traumatised and can hurt your selfesteem; one should talk to family and friends or seek professional help
Everyone who has voiced a strong opinion on social media has got trolled, and those who haven’t, will. There’s no getting away from people who do not believe in using facts to win arguments but resort to abuse, insults and threats to hit out at people they disagree with.
If you’re using social media, you must understand that trolling will happen no matter what, and you can best deal with it by seeing it for what it is: a rant by a person who cannot win an argument based on reason. A few personalise it and get intimidated by the verbal violence that stalks them everywhere, even in the safety of their homes.
Irrespective of whether a person dismisses or personalises attacks, trolling makes you feel traumatised, helpless, angry and very frustrated.
For a few people, it can be upsetting enough to cause self-esteem issues, affect social life and lead to symptoms of depression, anxiety and panic attacks. If the person being trolled is a woman, the abuse and threats of violence are often openly sexist and sexual, which makes them tougher to deal with.
Talking about what you’re going through helps, whether it is to friends, your online community or counsellors. I always recommend talking to your identity gets replaced by the herd identity.
The troller is essentially a person exploiting the anonymity of social media to air violent and dogmatic opinions that they would not voice in real life. It gives them a sense of relief, satisfaction and, sometimes, even sadomasochistic satisfaction from the sheer pleasure of humiliating someone. It makes them feel superior and validated.
All forms of release have a sexual component and trolling often has a component of sexual aggression because it is among the most personalised humiliation there is.
When trollers get away with it, their opinions get reinforced. This is something society needs to understand. If someone got away saying something lewd to a woman walking down the street once, they will do it again. And then it becomes a cycle.
Trolling is now so rampant that it has become part of communication and social narrative as most people voice their views in the public domain because a major part of our socialising now happens on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, among others. It’s an aberration that has become so common now that people have begun to accept strangers invading their personal lives as a norm.
Trolling, where strangers violently abuse and intimidate you just because your views differ from their beliefs, is a form of mob violence and they are no different from the goons who stalk and threaten people in real life. Intimidation and threats, whether they are verbal or virtual, are unacceptable and must be stopped.
Incessant lewd texts and obscene calls that Sushmita Sinha, 22, started getting on March 11, the day the BJP won the Uttar Pradesh polls, forced her to complain to the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) and seek counselling.
She was being trolled by an acquaintance from her home town Patna for her political views. Sinha had arguments with the man for three years. The threats began after BJP swept Uttar Pradesh.
The phone recordings, some of which Sinha shared with HT, are filthy abuses and threats. “The first call came at 1 am, and the language he used shocked me. We used to have debates on Facebook and by phone conversations, but this time he got abusive and threatened to kill me and my Muslim friends,” said Sinha.
Initially, she thought it would end on its own, but the man kept calling and texting through the night.
“I couldn’t sleep. I blocked his number but he started threatening from other numbers... I am preparing for the entrance exam for my Masters in journalism but the texts keep playing in my head, making it impossible to concentrate on my studies,” she said.
Sinha put up the details of the conversations, including an audio clip on Facebook, but the site removed her posts because they were objectionable. “...(But) the threats didn’t stop,” she said.
Sinha lodged a complaint with DCW. Last week, she spent the evening with DCW counsellors. “They offered help in lodging an FIR,” said Sinha. The police are investigating the case. Since Sinha lives alone in Delhi, her family fears for her safety and wants her to drop the matter. But she is determined to see it through. “I was shaken initially but I’m convinced such people shouldn’t be let scot-free... I’ll fight him,” she said.