President-Elect Donald J. Trump – The Culmination Of Internet Trolling?

Following the election of Donald J. Trump as America’s presumptive next President, a lot of people have been asking themselves – how did this happen? And while there are as many theories as there are political pundits, many have missed the effect that internet trolls, particularly those from 4chan, its deeply-disturbed sibling, 8ch, and the bowels of Reddit, had on this election. It would, of course, be folly to suggest that they were the deciding factor – as Gizmodo noted, many were unaware that they even had to register to vote – but it’s foolish to ignore the impact they had as well.

Trump, to them, is nothing less than their finest troll, in the senses of both the noun and the verb. To understand that, we have to understand who these trolls really are – their origins and their past actions.

Most of “Trump’s troll army” has its roots in various online forums and harassment campaigns which have a heavy focus on attacking women, minorities, and other marginalized people. Ashley Lynch discusses this in-depth on Extra Newsfeed if you want a look at the full timeline of events, but the takeaway is that Trump’s campaign was aggressively pushed by a large segment of “Alt-Right” trolls – predominantly young, cis, straight white men, doing what they always do – silencing the voices of people they don’t like, ironically in the name of their “freedom of speech.” There’s also a fair bit of overlap in these groups with genuine hate groups, notably white supremacists and self-styled “men’s rights activists,” who have found fertile ground for their vitriol in this collection of angry, disaffected young white men already seeking to lash out at everyone outside of themselves.

Of course, when they say that they’re for freedom of speech, they mean their freedom of speech – attempting to silence and speak over everyone else is ubiquitous in their actions; what some derisively call the “Freeze Peach” mentality.

These trolls have generally been helped along by extreme partisan sites looking to cash in on their need for legitimacy; possibly the most egregious example of this is Breitbart‘s support of GamerGate, embodied by Alt-Right poster boy Milo Yiannopoulos.

So let’s compare all of this to Donald Trump. Misogynist? I hardly need mention the Trump Tapes (as per a report from the New York Times.) Opposed to minorities? He built his campaign on racist statements and promises. Harassing marginalized people? Remember the time that, as per NBC News, Trump mocked a disabled reporter? Talking over those same people? Watch the last Presidential debate and count how many times he blatantly interrupts, talks over, and dismisses Hillary Clinton. Silencing dissent? He has had the worst relationship with the media in Presidential campaign history, he’s repeatedly threatened to revoke press passes, he’s kicked journalists out of his rallies and inspired violence against them, and he continues to do so after his election, as noted by the Washington Post.

Oh, and let’s not forget that, according to People, Trump’s campaign staff allegedly banned him from using Twitter in the final days of his campaign because he can’t stop using social media to harass people.

What I’m saying here is that Trump doesn’t just have a lot in common with these trolls – he is essentially one of them. They recognized it and were gleefully willing to put one of their own in the White House.

The evidence of their actions is all over this campaign if you know what you’re looking for. In my spare time, I’m a member of the Snopes fact-checking group on Facebook. During the election season, the group’s membership more than doubled – and it was plain that a significant fraction of those new members were joining for one reason only; to increase support for Donald Trump, and further vilify Hillary Clinton. The group consistently gained new members who promptly began posting what is best called propaganda – some blatantly, others with a very brief “Is this true?” or “Just want the facts” or brief, insulting statements about Hillary Clinton. Those members continued to post in that manner until they were removed from the group.

While that’s only one group, not only was it one of the primary fact-checkers in this election cycle, one has to wonder how many other Facebook groups were subject to this wave of propaganda.

Now, it’s fair to say that Donald Trump was not explicitly responsible for the actions of these trolls – but he certainly didn’t stand in their way. He wasn’t a fan of fact-checking. His usual response to having any obvious lie challenged was to double-down on it – or threatening to sue. And this all suggests that these internet trolls will thrive under the next administration.

This is, quite frankly, the end result of years of social media companies – mostly Facebook and Twitter – promising but failing to police their platform. Facebook has repeatedly promised to make an effort to filter fake or misleading news, and utterly failed to; something which was further exacerbated when, according to CBC, the United States Senate grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over allegations that Facebook was censoring right-wing news. They weren’t, but it’s something that as a private company they are entirely entitled to do – which didn’t stop the Senate from launching an inquiry into the allegations.

At this point, preventing censorship and silencing may fall entirely on the same people these trolls have already been trying to oppress for years – and rather ironically, it’s a group of people constantly accused of being in favor of censorship; marginalized, left-leaning people who are more than likely going to have to rely on (and lean on) social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to exercise their legal rights and preserve freedom of speech in a country that is increasingly hostile to it.

[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]