Fighting Against Professional Trolling and Disinformation: Whether the Display of Users’ IP Addresses Works

Shihan Xu

doi:10.54691/bcpep.v8i.4266

Authors

Shihan Xu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/bcpep.v8i.4266

Keywords:

Professional Trolling; Disinformation; Users’ IP Address.

Abstract

The rising of social media has changed the dynamic of mass communication. The extremely high level of individual empowerment enables social media users to participate in public discussion and contribute to public opinion. Yet, such context also leaves sufficient room for toxic organized trolling. Multiple scholars have identified that authorities worldwide are hiring professional trolls to incite cyberwars to attack competitors by manipulating the public with disinformation. To fight against such a situation, most Chinese social media platforms have begun to show users’ IP addresses to expose potential trolls. This study recruited 540 participants and surveyed them to explore and determine the effectiveness of this approach. The result indicated that the IP address display could help social media users identify professional trolls and reduce the clout of disinformation. Being one of the first studies determining the relationship between IP address demonstration and trolling identification, this paper provides a possibility for future research in this area.

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