You Did Start It

(Slide from Benjamin Brown)

Time columnist Joel Stein writes that Trolls are Ruining the Internet:

Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the “lulz,” or laughs [blogger's note: at another's expense]....There’s also doxxing–publishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts–and swatting, calling in an emergency to a victim’s house so the SWAT team busts in.

I first became aware of dangerous "pranks" like SWAT-ting when it was being done to conservatives in 2011:

Conservative bloggers say they are being terrorized by a potentially deadly prank in which phony 911 calls bring armed cops to their doors in search of criminals, all in retaliation for their blog posts.

At least two conservative Internet pundits have reported being victims of “SWAT-ing.” In at least one incident, the caller claimed to be the resident of the home and confessed to shooting his wife, according to a recording of the call posted online.

“It’s a phone call that could have gotten me killed,” Patrick Frey, a deputy district attorney at Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, wrote of the July, 2011 incident on his blog, Patterico’s Pontifications.

Now that trolling tactics are being employed against leftist politicians, journalists, and celebrities, the problem has become worthy of a Time cover.

For the record your humble blogger views these tactics as despicable, regardless of the target or the perpetrator.

They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.