Social Media Trolls

Online trolls are everywhere, and who they are and what they do is almost universally known. But occasionally trolls can do much more than just be annoying. Trolls can appear almost anywhere on the internet, and trolls going on social media is nothing new. Trolls have the ability, with enough skill and money, place ads on social media. These ads, along with other methods such as creating pages or specific posts, have the ability to influence many different things. This can, on occasion, include foreign elections.



Trolls on social media and on some other online mediums, use ads and other methods to influence you. This may just be in the form of annoying you, but it may be for other things as well. Large elections have been influenced my media trolls and hackers, such as in the 2016 United States presidental election, which is believed to have been influenced by these trolls and hackers. As people learn of troll and hacker involvement in events like this, public trust of people online and of media websites has gone down significantly. This is proof of the effect these people can have on the world, from tiny inconvienences to massive elections.



Hackers and trolls are a massive problem. Their influence on the world is massive, and the problems they could cause are not small either. But there are ways to be careful. Know what sources of information to trust, and don't naively believe everything you see. Think for yourself, and analyze and think about what you are told, don't just accept it. As long as you are cautious on the internet, these trolls and hackers may have slightly less power, especially over you.