Want to Be an Anti-Troll on Social Media? Here’s What You Can Do
Do you ever wonder why somebody doesn’t do something about the trolls on social media, interfering with intelligent discussions?
Well, you are somebody and you can do something.
Those of us who use social media have found ourselves even more immersed in trolls than usual, as we get closer to the election. I’m not a tech person, so I don’t analyze the technical aspects of what trolls do or how their comments spread. But I can see the big picture patterns in front of my face better than most can.
By the way, if you doubt that trolls have an effect on social media users, then have a look at whistleblower Christopher Wylie’s book Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America. Social media propaganda works. It helped Trump get elected.
The main type of social media troll on political Twitter now is the “Both parties are the same” troll. In fact, when you see them, you might tweet this information to the other people in the discussion — that such trolls are so common now that they could drown out the rest of political Twitter & other social media, if we don’t combat them. You can block the troll first before saying this to the others in the discussion. If they don’t see your tweet, they won’t be triggered to harass you.
I imagine these trolls come from many different sources —some domestic, some foreign, and all of them trying to help Trump. And there are people on social media who say these things but don’t intend to help Trump. They’ve been targeted by the trolls and convinced to believe in and spread the propaganda. As a result, they do help Trump.
We can do things to change this. I do. I will explain how. Please join me.
The “Both parties are the same” trolling is Right Wing propaganda aimed at liberals — not conservatives. It’s aimed at people who are not going to be voting for Trump. Trolls try to convince voters to stay home from the polls — or to vote for a 3rd party candidate — rather than voting for the only person who is going to defeat Trump, if anyone is.
There are so many of these “Both parties are the same” trolls on Twitter that I’ve been mistaken for one myself. Anyone who criticizes Democratic leadership in any way can be mistaken for one. Since such trolls do criticize Dems, some people mistakenly think that criticism of Dems is the trolls’ main characteristic, which can be used to identify them. Not so. Not everyone who criticizes Dems thinks both parties are the same.
How do you tell the difference? One way is to ask people who criticize Dems what Dems should be doing — instead of doing the thing for which the person is criticizing them. Trolls, or people persuaded by trolls, usually have no reasonable answer.
A good followup question afterwards, if the person does have a sensible answer, is: Well, are you willing to call your Dem representative in Congress and ask them to do that (e.g. to phone Pelosi’s office, since she is Speaker of the House, and ask that she subpoena the Postmaster General, who seems to be trying to using the Post Office to interfere with mail in voting)? I am willing to, and have done so.
This is a good action for all of us to take. If we want our district representatives, or the Speaker of the House, to act differently, we should call them and say what we want.
Getting back to your social media conversation with a possible troll — If the person critical of Dems wants e.g. for Dems not to accept large corporate donations, then you might ask When is the last time a president got elected without such donations? No one has, recently. And when is the last time a Congress person got elected in the district you are referring to, without them? In the vast majority of districts, no one has recently. There may be plenty of Dems already sticking to small donations in plenty of districts — and losing their elections. If so, we don’t hear much about them after they’ve lost. But there’s no point in demanding Dems do things that will lose them elections. If Dems don’t win, we get Republicans in office instead.
Some people claim that Trump’s donations from big corporate donors in 2016 were a much smaller percent of total donations than is the case with Hillary Clinton. However, Trump received billions of dollars in free media time alone, that Hillary Clinton didn’t get, because TV networks considered Trump to be entertaining. Of course, Right Wing TV, radio and news publications were nonstop free advertising for Trump, in the time before the election. Other Right Wing groups and organizations also helped Trump, without contributing directly to his campaign.
I wouldn’t spend too much time conversing with the troll. After all, they may be unpersuadable, or they may not actually believe this at all, but may be doing it because they are getting paid. As I mentioned before, you might even block the troll before responding, leaving your comments only for the others on the thread to see. You can also tell the people on the social media discussion with the troll “This troll is lying. I’ve blocked them, but here is what the truth is.”
Another thing I do, and that you can do, on social media, when confronted with a “both parties are the same” troll, is to point out the differences between the parties. For example, there are numerous differences between Biden and Trump, and between the overall Democratic agenda and the Republican one. Here are a couple of articles on the Dem and GOP platforms to show you some of the differences.
Here’s what the Democratic platform looks like, so far.
The GOP is using the same platform for 2020 as they did for 2016.
On the economy, Democrats have done a lot better than Republicans. Republicans blow up the federal debt. Democrats come into office and fix it. Here’s a book on the parties’ economic records from 1910 to 2010.
THEY'RE NOT EVEN CLOSE: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 by Eric Zuesse
Of course we know Trump exploded the deficit since he came into office.
Please feel free to leave links in the comments section here, to other articles that may help to low information voters who are trying to tell the difference between the two parties. If you are knowledgeable about politics, you may think that other people don’t need such help. But if low information voters knew the differences, those of us on social media would not be swimming in “Both parties are the same” propaganda right now. And we certainly are.
