Angry, powerless people can use their interactions with others on the internet as an outlet, to correct views they see as threatening, or just to lash out at people they perceive as ‘the problem’, and/or a way to feel they have a voice/are making some difference when they don’t get enough opportunity to do this offline.
Separately, trolls just like to mess with people for a basic sense of power and entertainment, and to feel like they matter, again when they otherwise don’t have ways to feel that offline.
Paid trolls/bots can also express negative views either about specific topics, or on specific communities, if these are targeted as going against some political or commercial goal. These may also intersperse red herring interactions that are not to do with the explicit goal to make the account appear more like a regular person’s.
It can be hard to tell which is which, but these all exist, and all can manifest in a pattern of seemingly inconsistent but predominantly negative posts/comments.
Angry, powerless people can use their interactions with others on the internet as an outlet, to correct views they see as threatening, or just to lash out at people they perceive as ‘the problem’, and/or a way to feel they have a voice/are making some difference when they don’t get enough opportunity to do this offline.
Separately, trolls just like to mess with people for a basic sense of power and entertainment, and to feel like they matter, again when they otherwise don’t have ways to feel that offline.
Paid trolls/bots can also express negative views either about specific topics, or on specific communities, if these are targeted as going against some political or commercial goal. These may also intersperse red herring interactions that are not to do with the explicit goal to make the account appear more like a regular person’s.
It can be hard to tell which is which, but these all exist, and all can manifest in a pattern of seemingly inconsistent but predominantly negative posts/comments.