Clara Balaguer

Format	recording
Language	english
Context	cultural worker, research on online trolls

Clara Balaguer is a cultural worker interested in the decolonization of cultural production most especially through the lens of contemporary vernacular.

Clara’s interest in online ideological trolling prompted her project Troll Palayan in 2016. This work connected different people to respond to toxicity in cyberspace through discussion groups, performances and workshops. Clara has also experimented with trolling in her social networks to comment on the Philippine political landscape. Our recorded conversation concerns her assuming the role of the troll during this period.

A lot of online communities try to reduce trolling behaviour, and their user policies reflect such concern:

Mediawiki “Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).”

Noisebridge “Don't talk about politics or religion in a way that may be considered trolling within the community.”

Queer Code "Unacceptable behaviors include: trolling, i.e. sustained disruption of conversations, talks or other events"

But what is trolling? Can Codes of Conduct reduce the presence of trolls? Should we respond and engage with them? Do we feed the trolls?

Keyframes:

• The troll no longer lives underground. What is trolling?

Rafael Durão composed the jingle for this project.