Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

Are you suggesting that there are populated places that you can visit in real life where loudly shouting an arbitrary statement could not attract abuse?

If I went to a model train convention, carrying a giant sign explaining how childish and stupid I think model train enthusiasts are, do you think I would be subjected to a "constant barrage of callousness" until I left?

In the UK, "trolling" has been entirely defined (by a media and political class full of blue checks) as any angry response of the public against the wise observations of blue checks. It's entirely class-based. You don't have to threaten, you don't have to swear, you don't have to be ethnically, religiously, or sexually bigoted. You just have to strongly disagree. In fact, the more biting and incisive the comment, the bigger the perceived offense.

Entirely about nobodies embarrassing somebodies in public.

edit: this is a special meaning within the UK media and political classes. Generally, "trolls" are people who like to cause arguments online, and who can be judged by the ratio of the number of characters they type to the number of characters they cause to be typed. "Trolls" are not people who have an honest belief in what they are saying. It's only in the UK (AFAIK) where "troll" is defined by disagreement and exacerbated by tone.

I think poorly written and inconsistently applied laws is a big part of why the UK has become so selfish. Easier just to worry about me and mine rather than what I think society wants.

Did you not go to school with other children? Name-calling, exclusion, and what adults would call assault and physical abuse are par for the course among small children. Human beings have an instinctive ability to empathize with other people, but consistently applying that to all other people, even when it conflicts with other desires, is not part of our genetic programming, which is why it is a backbone teaching of all major religions. We start as tiny children who reflexively, instinctively hit and call names to express their desires, and we don't grow out of these tendencies so much as reduce them (on the one hand) and refine them.

Habitual bullies discover that they enjoy it when their bullying earns positive attention from other people, and they adjust their targets and tactics accordingly. In a setting where people like seeing sexual minorities persecuted, that's who they will target. In a setting where people like seeing racial minorities persecuted, that's who they will target. If you harbor any aggressive itch you are too timid or too "civilized" to scratch, you can bet the bullies in your social milieu will seek your approval by scratching it for you, and if we're against bullying, that's who it matters to call out, the people who are working for our approval.

I've worked with people who have been fired for "cubicle farm in the financial services industry" type of behavior, and it's becoming less and less acceptable as time goes on.

In high school a group of boys was expelled for writing homophobic slurs on another student's locker.

I lived in NYC for a period of time, and it's a cake walk compared to spending time on social media. I did feel in danger at one point on the subway, but I was also helped out of that situation by a bystander... and the police were able to ID the individual with security footage (who had a history of causing problems and who I later provided testimony against in court).

With the anonymity of the internet, levers like this are often non-existent. Local police often don't even have the capability to understand it, let alone investigate it. I attempted to report death threats (which contained my home address) at one point and was referred to the FBI (which as far as I know, did nothing).

The mechanisms we have for handling problems like this IRL certainly aren't perfect, many people fall through the cracks, and mechanisms like the police can be very problematic in their own right... but the only time I've felt entirely helpless was when dealing with anonymous online harassment. It became very clear early on that no one was going to do anything about it, and the only way out was to attempt to "not exist" online.