The Cowardly Pathology of Online Trolls Who Make Illegal Statements To Destroy Others
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
I was speaking to someone recently and sharing that I was writing a blog about anonymous trolling. What’s the first thing they said in reply? “Cowards!! Well, all trolls are cowards, but anonymous ones even more so because they don’t own what they say.” I thought this beautifully summed up the pathology of those who decide to troll and to do so anonymously.
The Intentions of Trolls & The Unimaginable Suffering It Can Cause
Trolls take sick pleasure out of others’ misfortune which means those who troll are incredibly damaged and unhealthy individuals. Their actions can cost lives; children and adults take their own lives as a result of the emotional trauma that trolling can cause. Our Head Mentor Paul Waugh recently shared how the screams from a parent who has lost a child to suicide because of trolling is a sound that no one would ever want to hear; it pierces to the core of your being. He has experienced that and it’s one of many reasons why we have launched Parents Against Trolls & Trolling. As humanity we need to stand together against this dark and malevolent behaviour.
In 18 years of working with over 70,000 people, we have recently had a tiny number (less than 0.01%) of those people decide to go online and write defamatory statements about us and our work. We’re not talking about an expression of feeling hard done by or a service that didn’t meet expectations, it’s been full-blown libellous character assassination!!
The Reasons For Allowing Trolls To Post For Months: Gathering Evidence To Prosecute & Learn From
Over the course of around 9 months I have personally invested hundreds of hours of my time to collate hundreds of pages of evidence for our legal investigation. There have been personal attacks made on me and people that I’ve decided to build my life and business with in line with my lifelong altruistic aims to alleviate suffering for the vulnerable. Why have we allowed this? Not only is this evidence for our lawyers, but also invaluable for our study of narcissism. Trolling behaviour is very much rooted in the self-obsessive nature of narcissism; more on the psychopathic end of the psychopathic-empathic continuum of human pathology. What this means is that each time a troll writes something they incriminate themselves and we learn more about narcissism in order to help those who want to get out of toxic relationships and environments caused by narcissistic people.
The Character of Those At Lighthouse International Group
Before sharing an example, let me just give context to this. The people that these comments are made about are people that I speak to each day. They include people I have chosen to live with, build businesses with and build friendships with. They are people who have helped me to see my potential and who have backed me when I haven’t backed myself. They have helped me with challenges like the loss of my mum last year, they have supported me emotionally and financially. They are people I’ve invested in and people who’ve invested in me. Some of these people I’ve known for more than a decade and we have been there for each other through the highs and lows in this time. By nature of their involvement in Lighthouse International Group they are dedicated to reality and absolute truth; constantly questioning themselves and the way they see the world in order to optimise their lives. They are committed to building their characters and have often left promising careers to further our pioneering research into human potential. They are by no means perfect people (who is?!?), but they are willing to acknowledge when they’ve got things wrong, apologise and do the work to make things right. This sounds wonderful and how things ought to be, but it's far easier said than done. It's involved confrontation, disagreements, bitter pills and at times big servings of humble pie. However, it's through that challenge that trust and relationships have been forged not fractured.
These people have also been through great struggle and strife in their lives; many tragically abused and attacked… including by those closest to them, some have even attempted to take their own lives. Yet they are not victims, they came to Lighthouse to heal, to strengthen and to stand for something greater than themselves in spite of themselves. They care deeply about our work; to find pioneering solutions to problems that have never been solved before by any government, charity or other group of people. One example being the 800 million children who are drinking toxic, sewage-infested water each day; with clean water being something that many of us take for granted. So please remember this is the character of the people being persecuted in these online posts on Reddit or 'Questioning Lighthouse'. You can get to know the people I'm talking about through their experiences shared on this site; as well as the breakthroughs of those they've helped. That is the character of the people being written about and my real name is here online to say I’m willing to back up everything I’ve written here.
How a Troll Describes The Same People.... Anonymously
What you will see below is what’s been written about the same group of people by an anonymous troll; lacking the courage of their convictions to put their name to what they’ve said. For one, what they’ve written is criminal and secondly, it’s cowardly! They would not dare write against their own name, let alone say it to our faces. Why? Because they’re a coward and they also know it’s not true. Their motive is not to help us to improve, it is to destroy the reputation of Lighthouse International Group and its people.
Here’s a post in which people (including myself) are described as coercive, manipulative, predators, money-grabbing, controlling, deceptive scam artists. There’s a comparison with NXIVM which I needed to look up. According to Wikipedia this is “an American cult that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour and racketeering”. There's no evidence to back up this comparison because it's an unlawful lie!
Trolls Use Anonymity To Inflate Themselves & Make Slanderous Statements
There are a number of equally slanderous statements made online in other posts and comments, but ultimately when you examine the posts, you'll see that it's less than a handful of individuals posting under different accounts to inflate what's written into something bigger than it actually is. Now I’m one of the first to admit that I don’t see things perfectly and need to work with any subjective bias I may have, but what I trust the most is their commitment to living according to timeless, universal and self-evident laws and principles that served as an objective moral standard. For me it starts there and is backed up by the countless examples of how these individuals have extended themselves for me, their families and those they are serving through our work. I have yet to meet others who hold themselves to the same moral and ethical standards whilst having the humility to recognise their fallibilities and shortcomings. Have a look at the post above and ask yourself what the motive is behind these posts? Are they to build up or break down? Is there a genuine intent to understand or is it more akin to slander? And as you will see from the various experiences on this site, I’m not the only one who has such a view. What I find incredible is that there are slanderous comments being made about us by people who've never actually met us!
What We Want For The Trolls
When you actually look at what this troll has written, they’ve not backed up one thing that’s been said with evidence, it’s simply baseless slander and it’s criminal! They fail to recognise that anonymity does not abscond their responsibility. Although clearly an incredibly unhealthy individual, they will be investigated legally and held accountable for their actions. I say this is in the hope they will see the error in their ways, do what it takes to reform their character and become someone who inspires other trolls to change their ways. We would ABSOLUTELY LOVE that! Why? Because that could save a child’s life. This is what Parents Against Trolls & Trolling is about; every troll is still a human being, but in all instances they have been damaged (most likely in their childhood) and we must get to the root. Think about it, no genuinely healthy and loving human being would choose to troll online.
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