“Don’t feed the trolls” sounds great in theory, and for your own personal sanity it makes sense. Unfortunately ignoring people like this doesn’t make them go away though. Instead, the lack of any pushback to their vitriol and lies just pulls in even more people and makes their message stronger.
If you were in Nazi Germany, would you push back in a forum personally set up by Hilter to make you look like provocateur then cut you off? No. That would be stupid, and even worse, validates the platform with your presence.
I think George Takei gets a pass. He’s there as a warrior, buddy. (edit ok but not alex cole who is that guy lol, and I forgot that’s George’s bluesky account. I’ll just shut up now. slinks away)
i’m gonna be honest, i give takei a pass because he’s takei. we’ve all gotten to know him parasocially over the years. i can think of a hundred excuses for him, but honestly he just seems like a righteous dude. he doesn’t need an excuse for where he chooses to online, as long as it’s not stormfront or krasnovsocial he’s cool.
No, and broadly we have to stop expecting better of people. It’s in our instincts to latch onto narratives, either for or against them.
Instead our task as the better people should have always been to create better narratives, and since this generation of social media warriors all learned how to craft narratives from like, freeform erotic isekai K-pop furry fanfiction roleplay in private discord channels, I am not holding my breath that we’re going to take the stage anytime soon.
Twitter is not a fair forum, it’s an engagement -> profit engine. It does not show posts fairly. The entire premise of it being a tug of war between narratives like some free speech dream is a fat lie.
Even if ‘this generation’ were Mensa narrative makers, that’d feed the troll engine all the better, like how I’ve seen people say they stay on Reddit to ‘fight back.’ The only game to play is to the bottom. The only way out is not to play.
I dunno how to communicate that en masse, but we did it with cigarettes, so it’s not impossible.
For yourself, yes. If you have realized all of what you said and want a better outcome for yourself, absolutely stop playing, you will have a better life.
But the vast majority of people are not stopping. The vast majority of people are falling deeper down the slippery sides of the pitcher-plant because this is what we are as a species, we are narrative-seekers, that is my point, we cannot escape.
Even if you shut it all off and live your best life, the decisions that some asshole in power makes will still impact you at some point, because he read something someone posted once and it changed the way he looks at the story. We don’t get out. We can buy time, but there is no real escape. I’m sorry.
I mean, I think Twitter is more fragile than you think.
It doesn’t have THAT many participants; statistically, normal people don’t really use it. It’s not that far from losing the public eye and being a self-indulgent (but not publicly influential) zoo kind of like 4chan is.
When I refer to the internet narrative-scape, I include everything. Facebook, Reddit, turthscoial or whatever the right-wing ones are, all the way back here to Lemmy. These are the places where the people growing up to make tomorrow’s decisions have their attitudes and beliefs shaped and reshaped.
I mean, the ones who grow up at least. That seems to be falling out of style.
I think some are less explicitly optimized for political rage-bait though. Facebook is pretty bad, but things like say, Discord or Telegram (popular destinations) are awful in different ways.
Truth Social will always be niche. I know it’s very ‘year of linux’ but I’m convinced Reddit is near its immolation stage. Lemmy and federated social media won’t be ‘influential’ for a long time, they’re in for the long run.
I mean, no one educated should be on Twitter.
Seriously. Do people not understand ‘don’t feed the trolls’?
“Don’t feed the trolls” sounds great in theory, and for your own personal sanity it makes sense. Unfortunately ignoring people like this doesn’t make them go away though. Instead, the lack of any pushback to their vitriol and lies just pulls in even more people and makes their message stronger.
You can push back.
Just not on their turf.
If you were in Nazi Germany, would you push back in a forum personally set up by Hilter to make you look like provocateur then cut you off? No. That would be stupid, and even worse, validates the platform with your presence.
You go somewhere else. And bring people with you.
I think George Takei gets a pass. He’s there as a warrior, buddy. (edit ok but not alex cole who is that guy lol, and I forgot that’s George’s bluesky account. I’ll just shut up now. slinks away)
i’m gonna be honest, i give takei a pass because he’s takei. we’ve all gotten to know him parasocially over the years. i can think of a hundred excuses for him, but honestly he just seems like a righteous dude. he doesn’t need an excuse for where he chooses to online, as long as it’s not stormfront or krasnovsocial he’s cool.
Very good points!
No, and broadly we have to stop expecting better of people. It’s in our instincts to latch onto narratives, either for or against them.
Instead our task as the better people should have always been to create better narratives, and since this generation of social media warriors all learned how to craft narratives from like, freeform erotic isekai K-pop furry fanfiction roleplay in private discord channels, I am not holding my breath that we’re going to take the stage anytime soon.
THIS is the fallacy!
Twitter is not a fair forum, it’s an engagement -> profit engine. It does not show posts fairly. The entire premise of it being a tug of war between narratives like some free speech dream is a fat lie.
Even if ‘this generation’ were Mensa narrative makers, that’d feed the troll engine all the better, like how I’ve seen people say they stay on Reddit to ‘fight back.’ The only game to play is to the bottom. The only way out is not to play.
I dunno how to communicate that en masse, but we did it with cigarettes, so it’s not impossible.
For yourself, yes. If you have realized all of what you said and want a better outcome for yourself, absolutely stop playing, you will have a better life.
But the vast majority of people are not stopping. The vast majority of people are falling deeper down the slippery sides of the pitcher-plant because this is what we are as a species, we are narrative-seekers, that is my point, we cannot escape.
Even if you shut it all off and live your best life, the decisions that some asshole in power makes will still impact you at some point, because he read something someone posted once and it changed the way he looks at the story. We don’t get out. We can buy time, but there is no real escape. I’m sorry.
I mean, I think Twitter is more fragile than you think.
It doesn’t have THAT many participants; statistically, normal people don’t really use it. It’s not that far from losing the public eye and being a self-indulgent (but not publicly influential) zoo kind of like 4chan is.
When I refer to the internet narrative-scape, I include everything. Facebook, Reddit, turthscoial or whatever the right-wing ones are, all the way back here to Lemmy. These are the places where the people growing up to make tomorrow’s decisions have their attitudes and beliefs shaped and reshaped.
I mean, the ones who grow up at least. That seems to be falling out of style.
thank you for seeing me
I think some are less explicitly optimized for political rage-bait though. Facebook is pretty bad, but things like say, Discord or Telegram (popular destinations) are awful in different ways.
Truth Social will always be niche. I know it’s very ‘year of linux’ but I’m convinced Reddit is near its immolation stage. Lemmy and federated social media won’t be ‘influential’ for a long time, they’re in for the long run.