Trolling with my homies: Some Economics of Internet Trolls

IP is full of trolls, but typically those associated with IP, not those online.  The IPKat, however, is both a blog and part of the IP community, and therefore can take a wider look a trolls. So, for you delectation, some economics of internet trolls (a person who deliberately provokes, often in an abusive manner, for the sake of provoking):

My home town's beloved "Fremont Troll"
Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

The typical playground for trolling is that of comments -- with posts, Twitter or other forums. Comments are important for blog communities as they create a conversation, rather than a monologue.  The user-generated content of comments really enhances online media.  There are clear benefits from comments, but they come with costs -- one of which is trolls.

To troll or not to troll:

A classic economics approach to an individual's decision making is to assume that the individual weighs up the costs and benefits of the options and chooses the best option.

Costs

The costs to the troll are few.  Trolling requires spending a short amount of time creating online identities, identifying potential opportunities, drafting and posting comments, and monitoring the relevant threads.  The repercussions found offline, such as social rejection and prosecutions under the Public Order Act 1986 are less likely because the probability of identification is lower. Online trolls do get prosecuted, but the individual troll can safely assume a low chance of legal action.

Troll-face1 by Martin Alleus

Benefits

Ah, the benefits. Much of the benefits of trolling are psychological in nature. There are all sorts of studies about the psychological traits of trolls and some personal accounts. This article by psychologist Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic suggests that the benefits largely fall into two categories: the ability to act on impulse and status-enhancing effects.  Just as my posts on IPKat give me some warm fuzzies in the form of social recognition, trolls enjoy the attention their trolling attracts.  That 'gotcha' moment or successful provocation must be addictive.  

The model

What would an economics post be without some squiggly lines? Assume the following:

1. Expected Costs of trolling are a function of:
1. The act of trolling (t)
2. Expected punishment, which is a function of:
1. probability of detection and being found guilty (p) 
2. punishment in the form of a fines or incarceration (n). 
2. Expected Benefits of trolling are a function of:
1. The ability to act on impulse (m)
2. Status enhancing effects (s)

The troll decides to troll if the Expected Utility E(U), which is a function of the Expected Benefits E(B) minus the Expected Costs E(C), is greater than zero.  (Note that f() is the expression for "is a function of")

Tragedy of the commons

Trolling falls into a classic model of the tragedy of the commons. The benefits of exploiting a common resource (the online community) are largely captured by the individual trolls, whereas the costs are absorbed by the many. Left unfettered, the situation has a tragic end where the online community becomes depleted.

Troll by Doug Wildman

You can see that internet trolling isn't vastly different from IP trolling.  In general, the costs to the troll are negligible and the benefits potentially quite high; much of the cost of IP trolling is borne by the IP system and economy as a whole.  Long-term, this may result in the depletion of IP systems and innovation. 

How to tip the balance of troll decision making? Monitoring comments and fostering a self-policing community environment are a good way of reducing benefits (m and s, respectively.) As I discussed in my post on criminalisation of IP, detection (p) and punishment (n) increase costs.  Increasing the costs of trolling activities would likely increase the costs for all commenters, which could result in an inefficient outcome. 

Rock and troll.

N.B. Edited 11/11/15 to correct an error in the cost - benefit function.