Alerta Machitroll
In 2015, Colombian civil society group Fundación Karisma invented the term “machitroll”, a mashup of “machista” (male chauvinist) and troll, and created a humorous campaign against them called Alerta Machitroll.
Users were prompted to take a screenshot of online content they deem to be misogynist and then stamp it with a label, indicating that the content’s author is a “machitroll”. Early in the campaign, there were two labels to choose from - a wild-haired caveman of a machitroll, identified in text as beyond redemption or impossible to re-educate, and a better groomed one who might be reformable, in the view of the person reporting his content.
Since then Karisma has diversified the labels and there are now six, each depicting a particular sub-species of machitroll, such as the “fashionista” type who humiliates women based on their physical appearance, or the “conspiracy theory” machitroll who believes that feminism is a barely disguised plot to run the world and submit men to a matriarchal inquisition. The submission page also asks for a link to the content being stamped with one of the labels. Lastly, users are asked to place the content into one of seven categories: discrimination, discrediting intellect or capabilities, threats, doxxing, cyberbullying, gender stereotyping, or censorship.
The labeling is crowdsourced - Karisma neither reviews nor overrides the public’s decisions to brand content as “machitroll,” though some of those decisions are dubious. Early in the project, for example, a newspaper cartoon making fun of a man for being sexist was mistakenly stamped with a “machitroll” image.
Amalia Toledo, Project Coordinator for Fundación Karisma, said the project’s main goals are to “raise awareness and provoke reflection” about sexist violence on the internet. Toledo also noted that in some people’s view, Alerta Machitroll doesn’t go far enough. “We are not proposing any solution- we know we aren’t.” She added later, “Our goal is just to start a conversation.”
Accordingly, when they offer content of ostensible “machitrolls”, users are told that “the object is to generate reflection about digital violence against women and nonbinary people. We don’t look to respond from the same place of violence that the machitroll started. Humor is a good way to make problems visible, call attention to them, and create awareness, which is why we opted for it.”
Alerta Machitroll stamp options
Once submitted, the screenshot, link, and categorization appear on an “alerts” page on the Alerta Machitroll website.
