Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Since the news of Jenni-Lyn Waton’s disappearance, tens of thousands of people turned to Facebook. Now they're back on the website to grieve through "in memory of" groups. But many people have called the Your Stories line saying the sites have had some disturbing messages.
We're told the particular Facebook page with all the offensive material was created by what is called an internet "troll".
Anthony Rotolo, of Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, says, "When something happens whether negative or positive in the news, part of the internet culture is that sometimes trolls emerge."
Internet trolling is when someone adopts a false identity, like the troll who created a fake Facebook page in memory of Jenni-Lyn Watson, which was littered with offensive material.
Rotolo says trolls do it simply to get a rise out of you, “…or it can be an attempt to get noticed, even though they're usually not using their own name."
Facebook says it’s really up to people to report pages like this, and that's what happened in this case. A statement released said "Facebook is highly self-regulating and we provide report links on nearly every page and encourage people to let us know when they see something they think might violate our statement of rights and responsibilities.”
Another scam was circulating in the form of a text message. A NewsChannel 9 viewer said she received a message with facts about Jenni-Lyn that were completely false. The text asked people to forward the message so that phone companies can make a donation to the family.
The telling signs that the message isn't real are in the false information and obvious spelling mistakes.
We contacted Verizon and they told us this is not something they would do. So if you get this message delete it from your phone and don't send it to anyone else. Verizon also asks that you report any other messages like these to customer service. If you are with another phone company, inform your provider.
