Thread by @AlexandraErin

Here is a thing about "don't feed the trolls, don't react, don't announce you are targeted because that tells them that it's working, just block and move on" advice that is going around...

It can work. It does work, sometimes.

It works great... right up until it doesn't.

And whether it's going to work or not is not up to you, and it's not apparent to you.

You know the guys who get really offended when they find out that women text a friend their license plate, or have check ins, or don't want to meet them in private for the first time?

"I'm a nice guy, you shouldn't treat me like I'm an axe murderer or rapist!" doesn't work because an axe murderer or rapist doesn't look any different than a nice guy.

Same thing with the trolls who will get bored and move on vs. the ones who will escalate if ignored.

I know where the "Don't announce you're being targeted!" advice is coming from. I really do. According to a lot of the bigger troll circles mythology, they only pick on "lolcows", people they can milk for reactions.

But you the targeted victim don't get to decide how they take it if you don't play along... if they have already decided you're a worthy target, you can't prove you're *not* a "lolcow" to someone who is determined to be proven right.

Sometimes you react and they escalate because you reacted. Sometimes you ignore them and they escalate because you ignored them.

In fact, skip the "because".

It's their choice every time.

Often made before you do anything.

I get way less trolling than most people who are trans, disabled, outspoken, and at my level of visibility have. Part of that is how disengaged I am from - high filters, no DMs, and I don't read a lot of replies.

You shouldn't have to do that.

But people who take all the same precautions I do still get harassed. And these aren't precautions I take against trolls, they're precautions I take against ordinary social burnout. Its just a useful side effect, but it's not a magic bullet or forcefield.

And honestly, I think the real reason I don't get harassed more is the same reason I don't get queried more, don't get verified, don't get interviewed or quoted in proportion to the level of attention I can command:

I don't fit anyone's algorithms or categories.

It puts a weird perception filter over me where no one knows quite what to do with me.

I can't teach anyone how to do that and I don't know why I'd want to. Again, you shouldn't have to do it.

And if I could teach it... I mean, if everybody who was on the troll radar behaved in ways that confounded their expectations, they would change their expectations, not give up trolling.

It's their choice to harass.

It's always their choice.

I can't choose not to be harassed.

If you see that PSA going around that is saying to not announce when you're being targeted... here's my advice. Don't do anything reflexively. Don't block reflexively, don't engage reflexively. Don't announce reflexively, don't hide reflexively.

Instead, take a moment.

It might not feel like you have any time to think, but if it's happening online, you definitely do. Unless it's a read receipts situation (and turn those off. Just, always. Matter of principle), the person targeting you doesn't even know how long it's taking you to react.

So take a moment and decide what you're going to do about it, so if you put the troll on blast or put out a call for aid, it's a deliberate choice. If you're deciding to block or mute and act like nothing is happening, it's your choice.

Now, it being your choice doesn't magically make everything okay. It doesn't eliminate the potential danger if you got an "axe murderer" troll insead of a "harmless" troll.

But it can mitigate the feeling that you have no control over what's happening, that you're cornered.

No one can tell you as a universal rule whether you should be blocking, warning others, whatever. No one sized fits all solution exists.

So carve out a moment of time and space where you can look at the situation and listen to your instincts.

It won't stop an abuser from harassing you, which isn't your job or something you can do. It won't make the problem go away.

But it can help you deal with it.

At the end of the day, I feel like a lot of the same people who say "Don't feed the trolls!" when they see someone engaging would also say "You have to stand up to bullies!" when they see someone retreating, and never realize the dissonance...

...because at the end of the day, what they're doing is reacting to a situation that is *not* under the victim's control, which means whatever the victim is doing "isn't working", and if one way doesn't work, the other way must be right, right?

You can control what you can control, you can't control what you can't control. Sorting out which is which is about the only thing you can do in the early moments of an unfolding disaster.

AND HOO BOY YES.

The dynamics completely change in ways that abstract advice-givers can't reckon on at the point when your info is up on a forum somewhere and people with no connection to the original information are coming in, in waves. In shfits.

https://twitter.com/Karnythia/status/1174537116870684672

"Don't engage and they'll get bored of waiting for a reaction." They're not waiting, they move on and someone else takes over. And the twenty messages a minute that you're ignoring are crashing your app. And you don't have time to block them before more are there.

And then you've got people in an IRC channel, none of whom have ever interacted with you, competing to outdo each other in ways to hit you. They're not waiting for a reaction from you because they're performing for each other.