"Don't feed the trolls" is standard -- and generally sound -- advice for Internet users.
But there is something to be said for shining a light on them, at least from time to time, if for no other reason but to assign a human face to those who so often show nothing but contempt for their fellow human beings. The BBC recently undertook this assignment, and the result is an on-street interview (flagged by The Next Web) with a man named Nimrod Severen, who is known online as Darren Burton, a so-called "RIP troll" who derives pleasure from taking to Facebook tribute pages to torment the loved ones of the recently deceased.
Reasonable people will disagree as to whether doing what the BBC does here is worthwhile or merely giving a bad man more of the attention that he craves. Feel free to judge for yourself, but I don't believe the guy looks like he welcomes this attention.
In my mind, one of the most disturbing parts of the video comes at the 1:48 mark where you'll see that the BBC producers had to blur out part of the image: a woman walking with Severen ... and pushing a baby carriage.
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