What Is Flaming?

Date First Published: 6th August 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Ethics & Sustainability

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn about what flaming is in this article.

Flaming is the act of sending personal abuse, insults, or offensive messages on the internet to other people. It is a hostile form of online communication, which is often posted on discussion forums, chatrooms, social media posts, email, or instant messaging applications and a violation of netiquette. The anonymity of online communication has led to flaming becoming quite common, so flamers can easily hide or disguise their identities online. This means that flamers might not actually be likely to say that to someone else in real life.

Flame Wars

A flame war is a type of flaming that involves multiple users and is not limited to only two users at a time. This causes a rush of negativity, insults, aggressiveness, and offensive messages within online discussion groups and rarely results in any productivity. Flame wars can get ugly very quickly and take the main focus off the main topic being discussed. Flamers often attempt to pressure others into adopting their own beliefs instead of respecting others beliefs. This often happens when discussing sensitive topics, like religion, politics, philosophy, and sexual orientation.

People often start flame wars by posting controversial things to get a reaction out of other people. For example, someone might write a post saying that the new iPhone sucks on a discussion forum with the topic "New iPhones to buy". People who enjoy using the new iPhones may be angry by those types of posts and try to defend them, which can lead to long disagreements. These types of posts are known as flamebait. Flamers may also use capital letters, images, and symbols to add emotion to their controversial posts.

A way of resolving a flame war is to acknowledge mistakes, and offer to help resolve the disagreement with clear and reasonable arguments. Some users may simply ignore flaming as the flamebait can often be quickly forgotten as discussions carry on. However, that can cause trolls to intensify their flaming activities and create more distractions.

Difference Between Flaming and Trolling

The main difference between flaming and trolling is that flaming is the act of sending personal abuse, insults, or offensive messages on the internet to other people, whilst trolling is a wider term that refers to intentionally causing disruption by posting off-topic, upsetting, controversial, or disturbing content or messages in order to get a reaction out of people. Trolling does not always involve sending abusive or offensive messages to someone else and flaming is just one form of trolling.

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