Online Political Trolling

This book takes a sociotechnical approach to examine how demographics and ideology contribute to online trolling considering the affordances of various social media platforms. Politically-motivated trolling is an integral part of online interaction on social media, as individuals with social and political agendas post and live stream to provoke and mobilize other online users. From foreign interference in democratic processes as well as the use of bots and troll farms, to less organized forms of trolling by individuals, political trolling is everywhere. Trolling continues to advance as online platforms and social media are fast changing, and sociotechnical affordances are evolving to include video, individualized recommendations algorithms, AI-enabled deception, and deepfake manipulations. Online political trolling is affecting public opinion, interfering with election results, and threatening our democracies. As the public adopts technological advances, related sociotechnical affordances enable new forms of trolling that exacerbate the societal impact of online trolling.