Trolls make cyber terror a reality
A two-year campaign of harassment ruins a family’s offline life, raising fresh concerns about internet abuse
Sharon and Richard Moreno were awakened by a phone call from a police negotiator around 2.30am one night last May. He told them to get out of their home immediately and leave their adult son behind.
Officers with rifles greeted the couple on their front lawn in Sterling, Virginia, and tackled their son William on the porch. They had been drawn by a chilling post attributed to William on a popular local web forum: “I JUST SHOT MY PARENTS NOW I WILL KILL MY SISTER”.
The Morenos say in a lawsuit that the post was a hoax, part of an unrelenting campaign of harassment by “trolls” on the forum, Fairfax Underground, that turned their lives upside down and drove William to attempt suicide.
Trolls are the bane of online forums, games and comment sections, sowing discord with inflammatory remarks and needling other users for laughs. Most are content to cause trouble on the web, but in the Morenos’ case, the lawsuit says, the attacks made the unusual leap from cyberspace to the real world.
Malevolent trolling has raised increasing concern in recent years. “RIP trolls” deface Facebook memorial pages to dead children. The white supremacist site Daily Stormer has deployed a “troll army” to target a Jewish British politician and a Muslim activist in Australia.
Many sites are trying to tame the problem. Twitter has rolled out lists of troll accounts users can share, and YouTube revamped its comment moderation to play down trolling.
Fairfax Underground was founded on the idea of creating a zone of unfettered free speech on local issues, but that idealism has sometimes given way to a darker reality. Trolling on the forum has resulted in a criminal conviction, a bomb scare, reports of stalking and more.
The Morenos’ lawsuit claims William was accused of rape on the forum and mass bombing threats were posted under his name, his parents’ house was vandalised, he received death threats, his car was broken into, and his mother’s job was Underground or that he attended VCU. Someone was tracking him.
William Moreno said he discovered Fairfax Underground three years earlier. He has a mild form of autism and suffers from major depression. His parents said a web forum was a natural fit for someone who found it painful to socialise in the real world.
Mr Misery displayed quirky humour but also contributed offensive comments about child molestation and the September 11, 2001, attacks. Moreno said those posts were not serious, but he earned the ire of some users.
The harassment began to escalate in December 2013, according to the lawsuit. Someone broke into the Morenos’ home while they were away and flooded the basement. The lawsuit says eesh posted a message the same day, saying he was coming to Sterling to see William Moreno. Basl denies any role in the vandalism.
Despite the break-in, the online harassment remained unknown to William’s parents — until, Sharon Moreno said, she was going through a security clearance review for her job as an intelligence contractor.
Sharon Moreno recalled becoming increasingly puzzled as an investigator asked her about a party she could not remember. Finally, the woman told her to look at Fairfax Underground.
Sharon Moreno said her jaw dropped. She said someone purporting to be a 13-year-old girl wrote in a message that William had raped her during a party at the family’s home. The Morenos say the post was another hoax.
The Morenos filed their lawsuit in January. Less than a week after he was served, Basl went to a magistrate and swore out a charge against William Moreno.
At trial in April, Basl testified that Moreno had made death threats against him in phone calls and in forum messages. A judge acquitted Moreno. Both Moreno and his mother have sought counselling.
“He keeps saying over and over again, ‘ Our lives are ruined’,” Sharon Moreno said of her son.