There's trolls and then there's predator trolls, and according to an expert, they're occupying the darkest corners of the internet.
"It's sustained, they're real-life threats of harm. It's violent, it's sexual, and it's designed to do harm - psychological harm and physical harm possibly."
Ginger Gorman is an Australian author and journalist. She's spent years researching trolls and even became a target herself. She told Today FM Investigates host Wilhelmina Shrimpton that trolls operate across all walks of life.
"There are groups of extreme left-wing trolls, for example, there are women trolls. I came across a transgender troll in my travels, there are trolls that are people of colour."
And she said they don't always operate alone.
"It's very much like a bikie gang. They often had presidents and vice presidents, and they were very organised."
"They were going to do raids against people. So they would pick a target, research the target, and very very deliberately plan cyber hate events against that person."
Gorman told the Today FM Investigates… documentary UNSOCIAL MEDIA: Following the Trolls those people are usually female politicians.
A recent University of Auckland study revealed former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern faced online vitriol up to 90 times higher than any other public figure. Other female Ministers and MPs have also spoken openly about the abuse directed at them.
Ardern has always maintained the reason for stepping down as PM was because she didn't have enough left in the tank. But Gorman said she'd be surprised if the online hate wasn't also playing on her mind.
"Now we don't know why Jacinda decided to leave, she hasn't publicly said that this was part of her decision. But I cannot imagine that it would be otherwise."
"Having received those threats against my kids myself, the terror is extreme. It leads you to lie awake at night in a cold sweat thinking, did I just put my kids' lives in danger because of my job?."
She said women from all over the world have approached her to share their stories of abuse, some who've decided not to enter politics as a result.
Gorman believes the trolls are a threat to democracy.
"Female politicians contact me all the time and want to tell me about the extreme cyber hate against them. The most recent really disturbing case is a British activist who wanted to run for politics. Folks who didn't agree with her agenda created deep fake pornography, using her face and body and sent it to her family."
"She just said to me today, I'm never ever going to run for politics because I can't cope with this and frankly, why would you?"
Christchurch City Councillor Sara Templeton was the target of relentless trolling on Facebook.
"It had been really full on. I'd lost a lot of sleep, I was taking sleeping pills to sleep at night, and I was struggling with my meetings."
There were even points when she felt physically unsafe.
"Because I bike a lot, and I've had threats to run me off the road, that kind of thing online."
It hasn't scared her away from politics but said many women she's spoken to … are reluctant.
"A couple of them have gone on to stand, and some have been successful. But most of the women have said it looks really valuable, I could probably do the job, but I don't think I can deal with the trolling."
"That's really sad because these women would have been fantastic around any table."
Not only is our democracy at stake, but troll expert Ginger Gorman believes our physical safety is too.
She said what starts as a digital threat, can often have real-life consequences.
"Almost universally the kind of terrorists who are predator trolls, who then go on to do real-life harm, are talking about it on the internet."
"All the ones that I've met in my work, and also the Christchurch killer."
Gorman said the Christchurch terrorist had been posting extremities in the lead-up to the attack online, and while many would like to believe he was a lone wolf, she said he had backing from many on the internet.
"It suits us as a society to think that this is a lone wolf because it's less terrifying."
"I think, you know, the Christchurch massacre was a moment when we had to sit up and pay attention to the idea that this person was not a lone wolf. This person had a whole cohort of people online, behaving in this way and egging him on and in fact, supporting that behaviour."
"And you know, these are the same cohorts that are attacking Jacinda."
Gorman said a lot of responsibility rests with the social media companies that are publishing hate fuelled posts.
"And in fact, it suits their profit model. So when a cyber hate event occurs on a platform like Twitter, or Facebook Live where that massacre was broadcast, people jump onto the platform, so they make money from cyberhate."
"It's absolutely mad that they're producing products that harm and kill us, and we haven't regulated against it."
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