Puppies: How I got my troll to apologise

WHEN it comes to online abuse, there's little you can do. But our tech editor may have found a solution. It involves puppies.

How rude!

ANYONE who regularly uses social networks like Twitter, YouTube or Reddit may have had the unfortunately common experience of having to deal with trolls, those wonderful human beings who take pleasure from harassing and upsetting others.

Last night I was the target of one of these attacks. There I was tucking into my dinner when all of a sudden I was bombarded with a series of abusive messages from a Twitter user (let's just call him "Richard"). "ARE YOU HAVING A GO AT ME, WHORE?," he tweeted at me five times. It only got worse from there. I won't go into the nitty gritty but let's just say "The C-Word" was involved. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty upsetting but, as an online journalist, I have grown accustomed to messages of this nature. Online abuse is pretty much par for the course in my line of work. I wasn't planning to write about the experience, but it concerns me that trolling has become such a prevalent aspect of social networking. When you are told over and over again by strangers that you are useless at your job, that you are worthless as a human being, that you're ugly, it's no surprise that both teenagers and adults alike have resorted to self-harm after being goaded by trolls. And short of ignoring them, there really isn't a whole lot you can do about it - particularly because Twitter has such a blasé attitude to abuse (more on that later). So I thought I would tell you about how I dealt with it, as a way to provide social media users with an alternative way of responding to trolls. Send them puppy pictures. Or cats. Or sloths. Or monkeys. Really, so long as it is cute and cuddly it should do the trick. That's what I did and after an hour or two of puppy therapy, I even received an apology. "Seriously, you seem to be having a hard day. Here let me help with that with this adorable kitty," I replied . Turns out kittens weren't really Richard's thing, so I switched to puppies. It took 15 puppy pictures, three cats, two chimps , a Tom Baker GIF and a My Little Pony before Richard replied with: "TELL YOUR HUBBY TO COME HERE AND SAY THAT, S**T". How rude. That's when I had to bring in the big guns - a video of a puppy pillow fight . By now a few of my followers had cottoned on to the dispute and began lending their own cute puppy pictures and videos. "SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A GO AT ME, WHORE," Richard replied, without any sense of irony. It was at this point we actually began to make some headway. "I started it? When have I ever tweeted you before today. I'm just trying to be friends. With puppies," I tweeted . I informed him that what he was doing was harassment for which I had grounds to take legal action. (It probably also helped I made it clear that I knew where he lived, worked and that I had his work number, and that if he was going to troll people, it was probably best that he do it under a pseudonym). To which Richard replied, "PEACE CLAIRE. NICE PUPPIES." He added: "Claire, I feel really bad now. I'm not a bad person. I'm really sorry hey. You are a nice person." He explained that he felt as though he had been a target of media scrutiny on social media and that "The Media" had been going after him since February. His Twitter account shows that I'm not the only journalist he has attacked. And if they had "gone after him" as he claimed, it's probably because he had been goading them into a fight. I have accepted Richard's apology, truly. I genuinely believe he doesn't know how to express himself properly, but I think this whole experience has been an instructive one. He seemed to accept that we journalists are not one amorphous mass with a singular consciousness. And once he came to accept the human aspect of this, everything else just faded away. And this, I think, might be the key to diffusing online trolls. Victims need to understand that trolls don't think of you as a person, they think of you as a concept, as this thing they are entitled to attack. Once they actually see you, and I mean really see you, it becomes harder to face. It is essential that your tone remains compassionate. Trolls love a good fight. Remember that they are expecting you to take the bait. Don't do it. If you can't have compassion for the person attacking you, don't respond at all. Really, most trolls are better off being ignored. But it's just so darn unsatisfying. Before you go in for the kill, make sure your various social media profiles are locked down. Change your password and ensure none of your personal details, phone numbers, email and home address are on display. If it escalates at least you know you're safe. And if at any time you feel unsafe, report and block the user. And call the police. And always take screen shots of everything. Twitter this week implemented a report button which can be found in the right hand corner of any tweet. You will be required to fill out a form with the details of your troll. Here is where I ran into problems. If your troll has deleted the tweets, you will not be able to successfully fill out the form as Twitter requires users to provide a link to the tweet. Nowhere on the reporting form is there a tool that allows you to upload screenshots of the abuse. Another problem is that the report tool only works on iPhones. It is not available on desktop, or Android and Windows phones - even though Android devices dominate the market. Twitter has been pretty lax when it comes to responding to complaints of abuse. I was lucky to have enough followers to warrant a reply from Twitter Australia who is looking into the abuse. Apparently, Richard has been notified that his behaviour violated Twitter's rules. But beyond that it seems as though there have been no consequences for his actions. Not everyone has been so lucky. Talitha Stone, 24 of Sydney, was bombarded with rape and violent threats after she joined a campaign to prevent US rapper Tyler the Creator from performing at an all-age gig in Australia, due to the violent and sexist content of his lyrics. After retweeting her concern about his lyrics, Tyler called her a "f***ing C-Word" at his concert in Sydney, which Talitha attended. Tyler the Creator verbally abused Talitha at his Sydney concert, saying: "F.....g b***h, I wish she could hear me call her a b***h, too, f***king wh**e. Yeah, I got a sold-out show right now b***h." Talitha said he also "threatened to grab me in an alleyway and force himself on me". She reported it to NSW police who told her they were unable to take any action against the rapper. She has also reported the incident to Twitter but received no reply from the company except for an automatically-generated email saying that her complaint did not violate its rules. T alitha has launched a Change.org petition to encourage Twitter to have a zero-tolerance policy towards rape and violence threats. So far it has more than 9000 signatures . The NSW police and Twitter have been contacted for comment. If people use Twitter to threaten or harass people, they should be barred from using the site. The block should not just apply at the username-level, otherwise trolls will simply create new accounts and start all over again. The block should occur at the level of the user's IP address - a unique numerical code assigned to your computer that allows your device to be identified across your network. Twitter should also be obliged to report this behaviour to the relevant authorities. Without proper consequences for their actions, this abuse is only going to get worse. But while Twitter gets its act together, make love not war. Don't fight fire with fire. Fight fire with puppies instead. Have you been attacked by trolls? Continue the conversation on Twitter @newscomauHQ | @ClaireRPorter