Lolz not Trolls…
Click on the 360 interactive image below and scroll around to see some of the insults that are being traded online… zoom in and out with ‘shift’ and ‘-’ keys, or pinch-zooming the screen.
Research shows a third of young people aged between 14 and 18 have been the victims of online abuse in the past six months. Most of this abuse is aimed at physical appearance. 29% of those questioned lost confidence in themselves as a result of the attack.
Charity group vInsipired carried out the research, and they are launching a new campaign – Lolz not Trolls – to tackle the issue. This is backed by stars including Lauren Goodger, presenter Caroline Flack, singer Delilah and band The Wanted.
To put this in perspective Terry Ryall, chief executive of vInspired, said: “We have all heard of cases where youngsters have harmed themselves due to troll attacks – so writing a trolling message isn’t harmless fun, it’s potentially deadly.”
To illustrate this vInspired invited me to photograph an anti-trolling installation under the Imax bridge in Waterloo. What you see in this picture are real quotes of messages people have sent on the internet. Use your mouse, trackpad or touchscreen to move around the 360 degree image and read the insults. It’s striking seeing them all together like this, and it’s worth remembering that they have a serious impact on people. So think twice before you send those nasty messages people! Lolz not Trolls…
