I agree with most of your article here, except for the idea that “Trolling is not the same as disagreement.” I think in most cases trolls will use disagreement or say things they know you will disagree with as part of their bag of tricks.

People who are not trolls generally tend to ‘respectfully disagree’ with others in order to maintain a civil level of discourse. Trolls, on the other hand, they will many times go out of their way to ‘disrespectfully disagree’ with an individual often serving up an extra large helping of ad hominem attacks to boot.

I hate to use the word trigger but it existed long before social justice warriors commandeered and redefined the term into a litany of micro-aggressions. There are some things that people generally do not do in order to be in harmony with others. The use of pointed ad hominem attacks is one of them and that’s the trollers go-to tactic.

The apparent intent when a troller uses that tactic is to ridicule, deride, mock, or trigger an individual instead of addressing the argument. The overall goal in such an endeavor is to elicit an emotional response and by getting the other person angry they feel as if though they’ve won something, or lorded over the person in some way shape or form.

More often than not Trolls can only be addressed with counter-trolling. If you’re lucky, you can raise them up to a place of logical debate as opposed to debating them on a lower level of discourse. But yeah, you are right in that not all disagreement is trolling. However, most trolls do use disagreement as a main tactic. It’s far easier for a troll to achieve their ends by disrespectfully disagreeing than it is for them to agree disrespectfully.

I think it can change radically from culture to culture, in the UK for example trolling can be imperceptible if done cleverly enough, this with the use of snide comments, backhanded compliments, or vague and indirect or almost imperceptible gibes.