this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Always remember to never feed the trolls. It's a very basic Internet rule that we should have continued to follow. Block and move on
i think in this case we also want to consider...
... as the article states, it is the traffic, itself, that they want.
Even better. Don't click on Twitter and don't engage with trolls in any format.
Don't they want to reduce traffic since they can't pay their bills?
It's not just block and move on though, I can't find the article that explains a study of it. If the person is a simple troll, then yeah, do it that way. But if they're a nuanced, giving false info, and sound convincing troll, give one response and then stop engaging and downvote. That gives a person who doesn't understand that the troll is full of bs a counterpoint to at least not take it as fact. It's a counter to the "get there first" strategy of trolling.
Sounds like a surefire way to get Donald Trump elected again.
Ignoring the trolls caused 2016 to happen. At that point, it became clear that the trolls have gathered in power, have organized politically and have explicitly made their methodology into the leading political force for the Republican party.
Ehhh… more like the opposite. The mainstream media engaged the trolls on a mass scale and the golden turd won.
Exactly. Don't feed the trolls
All the ignoring you or I did does nothing.
That concept isn't what got Trump elected.
Cambridge Analytica got him elected. The superior data they had got him elected. He went out and promised the rust belt, among others) exactly what they wanted, and they took a chance on him after decades of being lied to by the Democratic party. Then combine that with the blatant gerrymandering, and you have a win for the greedy morons.
While that was happening the Democratic party was on a fools errand to try and flip Texas blue.
Good theories. But it doesn't match the present reality. Why is Donald Trump still the frontrunner today for the Republican Party?
Koch backs others. DeSantis has plenty of backers. Etc. etc. Its certainly not money or data anymore.
There are probably ways to counter misinformation without giving the bad actors involved any additional platform.
They already have a platform. Its called Twitter.
They'll have that platform whether or not you post a reply.
But posting a direct reply will give them additional attention, from your own followers and from algorithmic boosting.
If simply replying to bad actors with facts and demanding decency helped in any way, they wouldn't have gotten as relevant as they are.