Dan Pfeiffer’s newsletter discusses the right wing trolling strategy being deployed by various GOP luminaries like Cruz and Green to gain attention from appalled liberals and make the Trump cult love them and send them money. He suggests that we try not to help them and offers this advice:
“Don’t feed the trolls” is an easy thing to say and a hard thing to do (just look at my Twitter feed). It’s easy to get mad online and react without thinking. But it’s always important to remember that your attention is your greatest weapon. Think strategically about how you want to allocate your attention. Many of the worst people on the Internet wake up every morning to hijack your attention. They want to use your outrage to build their brand and amass political power. Denying them the engagement they so desperately crave is how we fight back against the politics of “owning the libs.”
Anil Dash, a very thoughtful leader in the Tech community, shared very good advice on how to think about online engagement in a Twitter thread last year:
A reminder that may not be obvious: amplification on social networks has monetary value. Twitter’s algorithm counts it as engagement even if you shared a tweet to criticize it or mock it and uses that signal to amplify the tweet further. Only RT what you would pay to promote … Do not reply to, retweet, or quote a tweet from a fascist unless you would give them your money. Apparently, some people would rather make that gift than change their behavior online, and I don’t know what to do about that.
In other words, quote-tweeting or hate-sharing Cruz’s content is the same as contributing to his campaign. If you wouldn’t do the latter, don’t do the former.
Whenever I talk, tweet, or write about ignoring the trolls, people respond with some version of the Washington Post’s pretentious marketing slogan — “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” The gist of this argument is that the only way to stem the rising Republican tide of racism, authoritarianism, and conspiracy is to shine a light on it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The point is not wrong. We cannot ignore these dangerous trends in Republican politics. But how we shine that light matters:
Quote tweet your friends, screenshot your enemies: This is an online engagement rule from Dash: If you need/want to push back on disinformation or highlight a dishonest or dangerous statement, using a photo of the statement allows you to make your point without giving the troll the information they need.
Don’t spread disinformation: If you respond to disinformation for the purposes of debunking it, you are inadvertently instructing the algorithm to show the offending disinformation to more people. You can either use the screenshot trick above or separately share a fact check or article that debunks the conspiracy theory.
He points out that many people believe (and I am one of them) that you have to expose this stuff because it grows uncontrollably anyway and the only thing that’s accomplished by ignoring it is to let it go unchecked. But his advice about social media practices is correct. I will make a concerted effort to follow those rules from now on. It’s important to inform people of what they’re up to but it’s also important to do it in a way that doesn’t boost their engagement on social media.