As in, not known to you IRL.
I’ve occasionally brought it up before, but a while back in my reddit days I was in a thread where a “professional deprogrammer” had popped in and was talking about how to “deprogram” conservatives and get them to shift left in their views. It centered around restoring their sense of community and belonging with more balanced viewpoint folks IRL and away from their online echo chambers.
I asked them if they had any way to convert someone you encounter wholly online and they said that it was basically impossible, IRL you have a decent chance, but not online.
I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit, so now I’m curious if anybody here has actually gotten an online conservative to come to the dark side light side?
Sort of. I have s friend who I consider a RL friend but whom I’ve never met face to face (he’s part of an RL friend group, but he joined after I moved away so our only contact is online.)
He and I have discussed politics extensively over the last 10 years or so, and he’s gone from being a 2-time Trump voter to rejecting him outright and voting against him this time. He’s not s Democrat, but I still consider it progress.