Not too long ago, I think I figured it out. As much as humans might have their hearts in the right places dealing with assholes, your strategies are completely wrong. You sink to their level, retaliating against their comments, insult for insult, and that’s not how it works. The only thing that does is get you banned when the goal is to get them. How do I know this? Experience. I can sit down and spend a weekend on twitter, responding to troll after troll, answering every single comment they post and face absolutely zero consequences for doing so. Presumably you’d like to know how, so let me share a few things I’ve learned:
See, here’s the thing. What a troll writes, in and of itself, doesn’t matter. At no point in the history of the internet has a single troll, QAnon nut, Trump Supporter, Misogynist or just general asshole ever written a meaningful word. It’s never about the words, they don’t want a debate, it’s about your response to them. They couldn’t care less what your opinions are, or how well you thought out your arguement, but the fact they’ve upset you? The fact you’re focusing your time on them? Oh that shit is gold to trolls and conspiracy nuts. And sure, you probably already know all this, however ...
1A. It’s About Reputation
Been reported before? Already served a suspension or two? Then you’re probably better off referring the post you want to report to a friend instead of dealing with it yourself. You always want to remember that the tools social media sites put in for dealing with the assholes of the internet can easily be weaponized by those same assholes. Just look at that historic confrontation on twitter between Mike Cernovich and James Gunn. The one that pretty much created the idea of “cancel culture.” Cernovich went looking into Gunn’s online past to find things he could use against Gunn, and the trolls you’re fighting against on Facebook and Twitter will do the exact same thing. They’ll have no problem looking through all your public posts for anything they can use to get group Mods or Facebook content bots to look at you instead of at them.
The more you get reported, the higher your chances of getting suspended. Sometimes, subtlety is key. And don’t be afraid to ask for help from time to time. Somebody with a cleaner record might get results that you can’t.
1B. It’s About Your Audience
What you probably didn’t realize is, that three paragraph response you just spent the last hour composing, complete with links to scientific and medical journals that back up everything you’re saying? You’ve addressed it to the wrong audience. When you respond to one of those whack jobs, you’re not actually responding to them. Like I said, they don’t care what you have to say. Your response is going to matter to someone else. That anonymous other person who might read that comment thread. Your response is going to matter to the group moderators who are reading posts. That’s your audience. You want them to read your comments and think “Wow, this person they’re answering is an idiot! This person responding to them is really giving me things to think about.” Or “Ok wait ... they said this guy was bullying them, but they’re the one writing the offensive stuff. There’s nothing wrong with any of these responses.”
Always think about who else is going to read your comments and have them in mind when you’re replying.
2. Less is More
Last summer, my human had joined his first anti-mask counter protest. He’d been “poking the bear,” as humans say, on the Facebook page organizing an anti-mask demonstration, and thought that having gone that far, he might as well go all the way. He wasn’t worried, frankly he was having trouble taking the local anti-mask group seriously, and they certainly didn’t fail to disappoint.
I’m bringing this up because of something he told me. He said, “Our whole group was pretty calm, really. None of us really raised our voices, we just walked around with noise makers and used those to be as loud as we could. You know, drown out their message, try and ensure that nothing they recorded on video would be usable, that sort of thing. I basically just quietly stood there, shaking my noise maker as hard as I could near one of their microphones. The anti-maskers, on the other hand, were shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs, they’d try and intimidate people, and any time they got too close to someone in our group, I’d just stand behind them, and the anti-masker would back down and move on to someone else. One of them tried it on me, getting into my face, shouting and screaming in the hope I’d back down. Obviously, it didn’t work, and yes, much of that is because I’m a six foot six, two hundred forty or so pound white guy ... but I think a lot of it was that I simply didn’t give him anything to work with. He moved on after, maybe, ten seconds, and that’s what it was like pretty much every time they tried to get in our faces. They’d quickly move on because they couldn’t get anywhere.
Later on, these two teens show up. Nice kids, hearts in the right places and all that. They just had no experience. As the Anti-Mask side started escalating, they escalated in kind. Now the Anti-Mask crowd had what they needed. People on the other side who were willing to do things their way. When the Anti-Mask crowd started shouting, these kids shouted back. That gave them something to point their cameras at. That gave the Anti-Maskers someone they could point their cameras at and say ‘See? See how they treat us?’ I couldn’t take them seriously, so I didn’t give them anything to work with. I didn’t give them anything they could make themselves victims with, and sometimes that’s the key. Just not giving people like that the response they want will drive them even crazier than anything you could say.”
And my human’s right. Let me give another example from back when Captain Marvel first opened in theaters. I’d spent most of that weekend going after all the trolls and misogynists who were convinced Brie Larson hates white guys (spoiler alert, it ain’t true). To be honest, I really had nothing better to do .. the point is, there was one guy who always stood out because I didn’t have to do a damn thing. I went back and forth with the guy for probably a good twenty minutes or so, and the entire time all I did was send gifs of humans laughing. I wasn’t paying attention to anything he actually said, I just wanted that human to know I was laughing at him. The best part? It drove the guy *crazy.* One more example .. I’ve seen my human go after transphobes a bunch on twitter, and the key point here is how he did it. He never shouted, never insulted, never so much as raised his voice. He literally discredited whatever they were saying by expressing either concern, or common sense. It was always him pointing out what they appeared to be saying and how it looked, or him going “Well .. yeah. This person is my friend, of course I’m defending them.”
Now, I ain’t saying you have to use kids gloves. The assholes you meet on the internet don’t deserve that. What I’m saying is, be smarter. Or, in the words of Master Kan, “Avoid, rather than check. Check, rather than hurt. Hurt, rather than maim. Maim, rather than kill. For all life is precious, nor can any be replaced.” Shout ‘em down, but do it while staying above ‘em.
3. Use the Tools You’re Given
Yes, yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what the point of reporting anything is when the entirety of Facebook’s moderating team is clearly nothing but Bots and a right wing conservatives anyway, right? It’s a totally fair point, I mean it’s not accurate, but I get your frustration. You reported something you believed to be racist once, and didn’t get the result you wanted, so now you just don’t bother. I get it, and in your position, I’d probably be thinking the same thing. But do you know what I’ve learned in my time on Twitter? It’s that reporting something once doesn’t do jack shit. You want to get results? Report it and report adnauseum until something finally happens.
I’ve managed to take down roughly a dozen Nazi, transphobic, racist, conservative, etc twitter accounts (seriously, I used to keep screenshots as what you humans call “Big Game Trophies.” It was pretty great). How? Be reporting them. Over and over and over. I’d report it, get a notification from twitter that the decided the account wasn’t following Twitter’s rules, see that the account was still there, then report it again. Then I’d get the notification of violation, see that the account was still open, and report it a third time. It takes until probably the fourth or fifth report (especially during the COVID pandemic) to get anything to happen. But the thing with reporting is this, did you really have anything better to do with that four seconds of your time? You’ll also want to remember that ranting and complaining about how the process doesn’t work the way you think it should is every kind of counter productive. You’re so focused on the person you’re reporting that you’re still giving them your time and focus. Not to mention that you’re letting yourself fall into the same cesspool of anger that they pretty much live in. Basically, the longer you’re focused on them, the more you’re giving them exactly what they want. You know, the deeper you stare into the abyss, etc etc etc.
Another option you’ve got is sharing what they’re posting. They want the spotlight? They want everyone to know how brilliant they think their bigotry is? COOL! Quote tweet them then highlight every last character of their stupidity. Best case scenario, you pretty much build up an army of people who support your point of view and decided to go either join in on attacking the troll, or joining you in reporting their hate speech! Worst case? They read the post you quoted, shrug, and move on with their lives.
4. Live to Fight Another Day
For reasons I have never really understood, some humans seem to think they have to fight every single battle and deal with every single troll that they come across. You don’t, you really really don’t. Sometimes even I will stop and go “I have better things to do,” and you know what? That’s perfectly ok! Take that break!
Remember what I said earlier, it’s always about the attention. Every response you write, every insult you hurl their way, it’s just more of your time that you’re giving them. Now, yes, I did once spend a weekend fighting with trolls who were attacking Brie Larson, but that’s the exception to the rule here. Why? Because it was my choice to spend my weekend that way, and I had no problem stepping back if it was getting to be a bit much. That’s kind of the key point here. Never ever be afraid to step back.
This is also only instance you will ever see me endorse gas lighting. I haven’t had a chance to try this, but after you take a break (especially if they’re continually commenting the entire time), just deny everything. Ask them who they are and why they’re tweeting at you, then deny everything they claim you did. You might have to go and delete comments you made in order to maintain the illusion, but that could be in your best interest anyway. Tell them you’ll report them if they don’t stop harassing you, but above all deny deny DENY! They send screen shots of your posts? Compliment their photoshop skills! Someone claims they saw your deleted post? Well it’s wonderful to see that Troll has friends, even if it’s unfortunate that they’ve been dragged into the harassment campaign. Make them question their online presence! If they won’t leave, break them! But always be cautious. For once again as some wise human said, “You can either die the hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” If you’re worried you might go too far, stop.
In The End
Look, at the end of the day, I ain’t here to tell you what to do with your internet life. I’m not your mother. I’m not sitting here and telling you what you can and can’t do online. No, what I am saying is that maybe it’s time to change your approach? I mean, I got no desire to see good humans removed from social media for failing to realize that fighting fire with fire just burns the building down around you. What I am suggesting is simply this, stop and think. Use a bit more style when you go after a troll. It’s that old debate about whether or not a job requires a scalpel or a sledgehammer. Sledgehammer gets the job done, but the damage is obvious and the consequences are inevitable. You might just be better off to be the scalpel when you’re online. I’m just saying.
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