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There are trolls on the Internet

There are trolls on the Internet that can make our lives less pleasant. For the most part they are just an irritation. In worst case scenarios they can make our lives a living hell. People who crave acceptance can be devastated when their social media pages are bombarded with ugly messages – many of which are attacking the person’s family, livelihood as well as the person itself.

When trolls attack

It happens all of a sudden. You put something as simple as a picture of your child on his or her first day of school on your social media page. While most of the comments are positive and friendly, there are always a few unfriendly ones. That on itself isn’t the worst. It is when someone keep posting messages – at first just annoying ones, then they become more and more alarming and threatening. No matter how many times you tell the troll to stop – it just get more threatening until you can no longer ignore it.

It happened to me

About 15 years ago it happened to me and this was before social media. I posted a picture of my children and mother on my website (not my own domain). A guy picked up clues from the photo and end up contacting my Mother and after he got information from my unsuspecting Mother, het send me an e-mail telling me where I live, the name of my Children’s school and the place where my Mom lived at the time. While nothing serious happened it scared me enough to take my website down while also putting safety measures in place

Protecting against trolls

Everyone to his or her own. However I decided to use only two profile pics of myself wherever I post anything. There are no pictures of my children and now Grandchildren on any website or social media of mine. I also do not disclose where in South Africa I live nor do I share private stuff on the Internet. My personal Facebook page are only use to keep in touch with work colleagues or other non close friends. So far it works well for me.