Thread by @mariliacout

1/ About the digital right-wing troll attack on liberal accounts today/tonight through the "Lib Slayer Operation" (I am purposefully avoiding their hashtag):

=> I have done the basic homework, blocked the list passed on to me but I investigated further

2/ All accounts are fairly small and troll-type. The content is shallow, ignorant, typical uneducated white nationalist anger. What does that mean?
=> horizontal, anarchic action
=> organizational fringe (folks that satelize extremist organizations but ...

3/ ... don't actually have hard ties to them. It's the American white nationalist MO: it's inefficient, but works by critical mass volume)

4/ Their main strategy, as it has been since digital trolling was devised, is engaging the victim until they lash out and then report. We've all seen/been there.
So...
=> NEVER ENGAGE RANDOM RIGHT-WING ACCOUNTS. "Oh, but the conversation..." => there is no conversation that way

5/ There is another way to harass liberal accounts but that requires the upper rank of their groups: to carefully screen our contents for ideological consistency and find one or two that violate a certain item of the social media community standard contract. And then report.

6/ That takes skill, a minimum mastery of discourse analysis (basic, basic) and patience. Believe me: I've done it. It's not a one-day thing. So this is not what is at stake here.

7/ There is no reason for alarm unless we suspect management complicity with a certain political strategy, as was the case with Facebook. Facebook openly sided with the Trump electoral campaign. It is futile to report even the most violent violations on Facebook.

8/ Proof of that is that #Facebook content that could have helped prevent domestic terrorist attacks were not even brought down by the company. I personally reported, a decade ago, a page that doxxed feminist for the purpose of "revenge rape". Their response: "it doesn't violate

9/ ... our community standards". That's complicity. Twitter... not so much. Maybe because it's too much on the spotlight, who knows. I'd say the danger is not that great AS LONG AS folks follow the basic guidelines:

10/
=> don't feed the trolls
=> avoid violent language and profanity when addressing one of the public right-wing accounts

11/ Is that enough? No. If you are a far-reaching, original content and minority activism account anything can happen like a futile violation (background music copyright, for example). It's rare, though. It's also a pain in the ass to appeal.

12/ My recommendation, having kept updated on studies about internet misuse for years, is just chill, report violations, follow the guidelines and help viralize important CALLS TO ACTION. That's all. Have a great Friday.

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