Among the Trolls

An urgent and gripping investigation into online trolling, disinformation and conspiracy theories by an award-winning BBC correspondent.

MY NAME IS MARIANNA SPRING AND SOME OF MY TROLLS SAY THEY WANT TO KILL ME

Threats and abuse litter my social media feeds. They infect my everyday life. Sometimes the people behind the messages try to find me in person. This seems to be the price of venturing into the world of conspiracy theories, hate and algorithms. And it turns out, I am far from alone.

In 2020, I became the BBC's first disinformation and social media correspondent, and since then I have been trying to understand conspiracyland. Where does the vitriol come from? What drives otherwise reasonable people to believe that almost everything - from the worst attacks and wars to global health crises and climate change - is a hoax designed to kill or control millions of us?

I decided to track down both the trolls and their victims, the people who spread the most harmful mistruths as well as those they hurt. I wanted to find out who was caught up in all of this - and why some of them are so full of hate.

In Among the Trolls I tell the first-hand stories of the trolls and the trolled, those behind the information battle that threatens not just the way society works, but also some of the qualities we value most about being human: respect, fairness, tolerance, integrity and kindness.