How to deal with online trolling

Royal Media Services Journalist Victor Kinuthia has been the
recent victim of online social media trolling or say bullying.

He is an Inooro
TV correspondent who reported in English in a live link on prime TV and was
trolled for broken English.

The ruthless users on Twitter had him trending, with people
attacking him for his imperfection in the language.

Lucky for him, his employer and fellow
journalists including Yvonne Okwara and Hussein Mohammed supported him saying
everyone starts somewhere and he will soon catch up and be better.

Social media users on Twitter have been known to cyber-bully
people with no mercy and the habit is nowhere near the end.

Kinuthia is not the
first individual to be trolled. For people who have been ‘attacked’ online with
hurting comments, it can be stressful dealing with the experience.

For some
individuals, they mute their accounts, delete them, or leave for a while.
Others decide to fight back and deal with the bullies head on by taking a
stand.

It is helpful to find healthy ways to deal with trolling no matter how
bad it is.

One way to do it is to use your flee mechanism. You avoid
reading the comments. It is not easy reading disheartening messages without
feeling the urge to respond but it is doable. Even when you are tempted to
check your account, read a few posts and switch off. Do not obsess over who is
saying what.

If you decide to ‘fight’ the critics, then simply send one
‘loud’ message and let those who have time to bully you waste their precious
time, because you are not online anyway.

Do not respond to every post because
social media has made the world so small. You will have thousands of people
picking at you including those you have never met in person.

People can be cruel. We live in a word where you do not have
to be popular for others to bully you online.

When you find yourself being
trolled, stay positive and talk to people who care about you. You do not know
many of the people who follow you online, so do not let them stress you. Just
know that it is them who have a problem and for many cyber bullies, they do not
know how hurting it is to be bullied until it is them in the ‘hot’ seat. Besides,
they take advantage of the virtual nature of social media.