Cancer trolls: the nastiest human beings on earth?

Mary has cancer. She also has the courage and empathy to go online and talk about her situation on a cancer forum, in the hope that her story might help or inspire other cancer patients in their own journeys.

Mary's story is discovered by a troll who then proceeds to post a response to her words, saying

1. He is happy that she has cancer and he hopes she dies.
2. Getting cancer is her own fault, and is God's punishment for the evil life she has led.
3. He hopes her parents and siblings get cancer and die too.

Of course when she reads all this, it just makes Mary's day.

Some real-life cases of this kind of cybernetic atrocity actually happening to people:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6919350/miss-earth-contestant-cancer-trolls-outrage/

https://news.yahoo.com/demi-jones-thyroid-cancer-trolls-091422671.html

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/ashton-hamner-lennon-cancer-trolls-17210428

Naturally we wonder what kind of reprehensible human being engages in such despicable behavior, and most of us would have little problem with, when face to face with such a person, grabbing him by his scrawny little neck, lifting him up off the floor, and repeatedly banging him against the nearest wall while politely informing him that we disapprove of what he is doing.

There are of course lots of articles out there that attempt to get into the mind of a troll, and what compels him to behave so, and what he gets out of doing it.

A good general picture, and reasonably short read, as to what goes into the making of a troll:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/writing-integrity/202008/why-do-people-troll-online

So how best to deal with a troll when one of them is encountered? Some ways, gathered from a few websites I visited:

Ignore him completely

Get the forum moderator to intervene, and warn the troll to behave properly or he will be banned

Respond with light, mocking humor (emphasis light, don't give in to the temptation to start flaming him)

Pity him and say so in a post

Join with fellow forum participants in posting a flurry of responses calling him out

But always prefer responding to him with facts, rather than emotions

The world is what it is, and regrettably there will be those with access to computers but no access to brains or sympathy who will continue to act as fools.

How to deal with them? Maybe in one of the above mentioned ways.

But certainly we will not let them get to us. We have far more important things to spend our time on.

We have been fairly fortunate on our forum that we haven't really had these super-ugly POS type trolls. What we typically get is someone pushing a crap cancer treatment or the like.

In any case when a troll arrives here one of the members who sees it first typically emails a mod (unless a mod sees it first). Then we simply ban the person and their IP address. Goodbye a**hole.

Jim

That is the problem of Internet anonymity. A playing field for cowards, particularly men who hate women.

I suppose if someone told me the reason I have cancer was sinful living I might agree, point out how fun it was and hope they enjoyed their boring life.