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One completely consistent divide I’ve observed over the years: anyone who has actually managed a community knows not to feed trolls. The people who think that drawing attention to trolls is helping have never managed a community.
“Don’t feed the trolls” was a mantra for early web communities because we saw what happens when you don’t. When you draw attention to trolls, you create more trolls. They’re drawn to it like moths to a streetlight.
Note that “don’t feed the trolls” does NOT mean “don’t do anything.” On the contrary, you have to do something. It’s just that the things you do must be invisible to the troll. If they know they’ve got your attention, they will never let it go.
See also: Trump grabbing the attention of the media. He hasn’t let go yet. (I understand you have to pay attention to the president. That’s why we shouldn’t elect a troll.)
So what can you do about a troll? If you’re a user, you can report them. If they’re particularly bad, you can encourage friends to report them, too, so long as that encouragement is invisible to the troll. And you can resist the urge to point at them publicly and make a stink.
If you’re the platform, you have many options. You can kill their account, but that only works in environments where accounts are hard to come by. If accounts are free and easy, you have to be more clever. (And you should also reconsider how easy it is to create accounts.)
A clever response is what I called the “cone of silence” in my book nearly 20 years ago, and what is often called “shadow banning” now. You let the troll post, but you make their posts invisible to everyone but them. The idea is to make it look like their trolling isn’t working.
This works because it starves the troll of what he wants most: the response. No response and the troll will move on to other waters. (Reminder that “troll” doesn’t come from “bridge,” it comes from “boat.”)
This is assuming there are other waters to try. One of the problems with today’s web is that we’re really down to three oceans: YouTube, Facebook (incl Insta), and this shitshow right here on Twitter. But the technique still works: you limit the food to make a predator move on.
Just remember: a troll isn’t just a jerk. A troll is a player in a game called “capture your attention.” Anything you do to show them you’re thinking about them is a point for them. They win when you get upset.
Don’t let them win.
Don’t let them win.
This thread continues here because I am good at Twitter.
What I don’t think people fully understand is that there are people who get up every day and have a goal of getting their message in front of as many people as possible.
A great way to get your message in front of people is to go find someone with a lot of followers who would disagree with that message and tweet your message at them. Be sure to say something stupid or set up an obvious joke.
If you do this enough, eventually that well-followed person will retweet it with a quip or an eye roll or even a call for everyone to go beat up on you. It doesn’t matter what they say because you just won. You got your message in front of a huge new audience.
Maybe you get your account yanked, but who cares? You can create a new one in seconds. You probably have dozens ready to go. The point is, you get your message out.
The people that do this are the enemy. And they win when you retweet them. Stop doing it.
This is also a structural problem with Twitter: accounts are too easy to create, so losing one isn’t actually a deterrent. Twitter could have the best rules and the best enforcement (they do not), and it wouldn’t matter so long as the barrier to enter is so low.
Twitter’s complete failure at moderating its community at scale has pushed the problem into our laps. So WE have to do it. That’s why I’m talking about these issues here.
And because, in spite of all the trouble, I still kinda like this place.
And because, in spite of all the trouble, I still kinda like this place.
Further reading on trolls: medium.com/fertile-medium…
