The document summarizes the author's experience battling "trolls" on Facebook over discussions about reproductive health rights in the Philippines. Some key points: - Facebook discussions about reproductive health (RH) rights were invaded by "trolls" who opposed the issue and wanted to disrupt discussions. - The author engaged with these "trolls", termed "Katolitrolls", for over two years on the largest pro-RH Facebook page with over 30,000 followers. - The trolls posted offensive, harassing and misleading messages, images and spammed the page in an attempt to control the discussion. - Through this experience, the author learned about the deceptive and abusive tactics of online trolls

1. 48 JULY-AUGUST 2013
Asian Dragon / FEATURE
TrollwarsAdventures in battling
fundamentalist kooks on
Facebook
D
id you know Facebook is a terrific
platform for rational, balanced dis-
cussions of public and national is-
sues?
And, if you believe that, that I have a house atop
Mayon Volcano I’d like to sell you?
Come to think of it, being in a Facebook discus-
sion is almost like living next to a fiery crater: plenty
of flames, bitter acrid fumes, eruptions, and lava all
around.
Almost like, that is, except for one thing: volca-
noes don’t have trolls. Facebook does. I’ve met quite
a few of them. In fact, I had a running “discussion”
with them that stretched out for at least two years. It
was a very educational experience.
For instance, I never knew I was a baby-killing,
spell-casting gay warlock mermaid until trolls in-
formed me about it.
And little did I suspect I was actually a gangster
and bully with reading comprehension problems, a
liar whose soul was already burning in hell.
All these things, I learned from helpful FB trolls
and their sockpuppets.
But I’m getting ahead of my story. To those
who don’t frequent FB much (more than 30 million
Filipinos do), a troll is a user who is active in online
discussions. Except that a troll is not interested in
civilized discourse.
“Civilized discourse—yaahh!” you can almost
hear a troll scream. “How you spell dat?”
No, what a troll wants is chaos. A troll butts into
forums to start quarrels—a flame war— as well as to
provoke, upset, bully, harass, and humiliate people.
Using a real or fake FB profile (some have multiple
fake accounts, called sockpuppets), the troll posts
insulting messages and pictures, spewing language
that would make a porn star blush. A troll is the
equivalent of the vandal who throws bricks through
glass windows.
My own Troll Story came about because I hap-
pen to support reproductive health (RH) rights,
and the government’s effort to pass a public health
law to give Filipinos the information and medical
services to let them plan families the way they want
to. RH has always been opposed by the Catholic
church hierarchy, and legions of the bishops’ Kato-
liko sarado followers turned up on FB to attack the
government’s plan.
The main arena we met in, the “I Support the
RH Bill” (ISTRHB) page, was unique in several
ways. First, with 27,000 followers—which eventu-
ally grew to 33,000—it was and easily is the largest
RH page, whether pro or anti. Second, it was a free-
fire zone. Usually, pro-RH activists stayed in their
FB pages and anti-RH in theirs, banning or block-
ing opponents from joining. But the ISTRHB page’s
creator/administrator was either AWOL or believed
in sadistic theater, because he or she allowed abso-
lutely anything to be posted. There was no modera-
tion, no deletion of offensive material or banning of
undesirable members.
It took a while for this fact to sink in, but when
it did, around late 2011, the page was deluged by
demented anti-RH trolls who flooded the site with
inane posts, garish religious images, prayers, graphic
pictures (often of dead babies, cut up fetuses, and
corpses). They mocked, insulted, screamed at (IN
ALL CAPS) and taunted RH activists, sneering that
the moderator had actually deserted to the anti-RH
camp. One troll, using the fake name “Ary Torres,”
spent at least two days non-stop posting crude ex-
plicit descriptions of sex acts in broken Taglish. Not
all RH opponents are loony tunes, but the ones who
showed up at ISTRHB could have benefited from a
Mental Health (MH) bill.
ISTRHB quickly became an arena for virtual
bloodsport as, logging in when we could, we RH
supporters tried to prevent the infestation from
burying the actual RH information—studies, sta-
tistics, news clips, updates—that the site provided.
We did this by posting updated facts and news, and
replying to what I termed the “Katolitrolls.” In the
course of those acrimonious exchanges I dealt with
liars, chauvinists, religious fanatics, bigots, sexually
repressed maniacs, and female impersonators. My
picture was posted together with sneering remarks,
someone created a fake FB account using the same
photo, and there was even an attempt to get FB to
close my account (this is a virtual lynching, Ka-
tolitroll style; a group of them file complaints simul-
taneously to get FB to listen).
I learned the power of free, unfettered speech
and the liberating feeling given to cowards by a fake
FB account. I learned a troll will always tell you, “re-
searchkapa”and“betternotembarrassyourself,”the
presumption being that the troll is your intellectual
superior, even when it’s clear from its grammar and
logic that it probably had a hard time passing Grade
5 on the third attempt. It will inevitably proclaim
victory in any debate and when you understand-
ably disagree (nobody ever wins an argument on
the Internet), it will often make nasty references to
your genealogy. And oh yes, some trolls will tell you
piously they’re praying you won’t go to hell, but the
way they say it will make you doubt their sincerity.
Of course, the Katolitrolls would probably say
I was the one trolling them, except for the fact that
they were the intruders in our page. And anyway,
conclusive proof of their nastiness came late last
year, when a group of them tried to bring their cir-
cus act to a dignified forum—the Ateneo FB page—
to convince the students there of the error of their
pro-RH ways. Within an hour all the trolls had been
kicked out by the exasperated admin.
All of this sounds toxic, and in fact many RH
activists detested interacting with trolls. But as a
humor columnist, I have always found trolls to be a
rich source of comedy.
The battle lasted until December 2012, and sud-
denly the trolls vanished. Why? Apparently their
malicious spirits were broken when Congress finally
passed the RH Bill and President Aquino signed it
into law. It’s not out of the woods yet—the Supreme
Court suddenly stopped the law from implementa-
tion pending hearings. I expect the ISTRHB page
to come alive when those hearings start middle of
this year. In the meantime, I think I’ll be visiting the
anti-Marcos FB pages.
I understand the number of loyalist trolls at-
tacking the pages is growing. AD
by Alan Robles