1 INTRODUCTION

The acceptance of trolling as a feature of internet communication and the clustering together of behaviors that range from playfulness to abusive bullying under the term “trolling” has interesting moral implications. For it seems that sometimes such behavior is dismissed as “mere trolling” and consequently the trolls who perform these acts are granted a partial exemption from responsibility for the content or consequences of their speech. A result of this is that some acts which might ordinarily be considered bullying, abuse or threats when uttered outside of the internet can be dismissed as mere trolling when carried out on the internet. One popular response to this is to categorize acts of trolling based on perceived intentions or to argue that, for more virulent acts particularly, “trolling” is not an appropriate label to be applied. Although I agree that, for example, there should be no special exemption granted for racist speech on the basis that it is used in an act of trolling, I argue here that we also should not ignore the structural similarities of the range of speech acts often described as “trolling.” Application of tools from the philosophy of language and consideration of an act of trolling as a complex speech act can make clear some of these similarities. Once these similarities are made clearer we can then start to understand a little more about what trolling is. I suggest that central to acts of trolling is a notion of seriousness and its interplay between the troll, their target, and any onlookers to the act of trolling. By viewing trolling in this way we can understand better the rhetorical nature of an act of trolling and why we can often end up facing what I call the trolling dilemma—that is, in many acts of trolling the directions of reply are either to respond seriously to an utterance and so be trolled, or to acknowledge it as an unserious act of trolling and so dismiss it as mere trolling.

Though far from a complete account of the speech act of trolling, what I present here are the grounds for understanding trolling as a systematically divisive act. In an act of trolling the audience targeted by the troll is a mere prop to be manipulated for the entertainment of the troll and their onlookers. This in-built division between different audiences makes trolling a particularly powerful political device, and the trolling dilemma makes responding to trolling difficult. So when we consider that the act itself is essentially divisive and difficult to respond to effectively, we can start to understand why regimes and movements which thrive on division have successfully embraced trolling as a propaganda tool.

中文翻译：

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作为言语行为的拖钓（或拖钓的艺术，描述所有必要的器具、工具、钓具和材料：附有如何使用它们的规则和说明）

1 简介

接受拖钓作为互联网通信的一个特征，以及在“拖钓”一词下从嬉戏到辱骂性欺凌的行为聚集在一起，具有有趣的道德含义。因为有时这种行为似乎被认为是“纯粹的喷子”，因此执行这些行为的喷子被授予部分免除对其言论内容或后果的责任。这样做的结果是，一些在互联网之外发表时通常被视为欺凌、辱骂或威胁的行为可能会被视为仅仅是在互联网上进行拖钓。对此的一种流行回应是根据感知的意图对拖钓行为进行分类，或者争辩说，特别是对于更恶毒的行为，“拖钓”不是一个合适的标签。虽然我同意，例如，不应该因为种族主义言论被用于拖钓行为而给予特别豁免，但我在这里认为，我们也不应该经常忽视言论行为范围的结构相似性被描述为“拖钓”。应用语言哲学中的工具，并将拖钓行为视为一种复杂的言语行为，可以明确其中一些相似之处。一旦这些相似之处变得更加清晰，我们就可以开始更多地了解拖钓是什么。我认为拖钓行为的核心是严肃性的概念，以及它在拖钓者、他们的目标和拖钓行为的任何旁观者之间的相互作用。通过以这种方式查看拖钓，我们可以更好地理解拖钓行为的修辞性质，以及为什么我们经常最终会面对我所说的拖钓困境——也就是说，在很多拖钓行为中，回复的方向要么是认真地回应某个言论而被拖钓，要么承认它是一种不严肃的拖钓行为，因此将其视为纯粹的拖钓。

虽然远非对拖钓的言语行为的完整描述，但我在这里提出的是将拖钓理解为系统性分裂行为的基础。在拖钓行为中，被拖钓者瞄准的观众仅仅是为了娱乐拖钓者及其旁观者而被操纵的道具。不同受众之间的这种内在划分使得喷子成为一种特别强大的政治手段，而喷子的困境使得对喷子的反应变得困难。因此，当我们考虑到该行为本身本质上是分裂的并且难以有效应对时，我们就可以开始理解为什么以分裂为生的政权和运动成功地将拖钓作为一种宣传工具。