I have tried politely suggesting people think before texting/tweeting/etc. I have tried mildly poking fun at social media inaccuracies, or gently correcting them. I have tried appealing to people’s humanity, and even pointed out the discrepancy between demanding truth and posting lies. I guess it’s time for a different tack.
The amount of disinformation or just plain stupidity in social media is reaching some unequaled crescendo. It’s not just the politicians, who truth be told, have always shaded the truth, known as spin. Next it spread to the news media and talking heads, who carefully maintained an air of credibility and non-partisanship while clearly favoring one side or the other. Now it’s further democratized to the general public, where people known as trolls take it to a whole new level.
Who or what are trolls? They have always been with us, but in bygone days they were easier to avoid or shame, which regulated their behavior. Trolls are people who simply enjoy causing other people to get angry, especially people with whom they disagree politically or culturally. You might have had a family troll, your distant cousin or uncle who always showed up at family gatherings and brought up some contentious issue or piece of family history, ensuring a loud argument which could never be resolved. He did it because it was his idea of fun. Or she did it because it made her the center of attention. The reason is irrelevant in the end. It was a fundamentally anti-social behavior. But you could avoid being around that troll, or someone more powerful or influential in the family could warn them to STFU (Latin for “please don’t say that”).
Now they’re much harder to avoid. The algorithms which control social media notice who your trolls are, and feed them to you to get a reaction (remember, that’s how they win advertising dollars, by the amount of time and interaction you spend on their media). It’s designed to get you to interact with the trolls, or in internet jargon, “feed the trolls.” Now my wise friends are tut-tutting (love that phrase), “Pat, you know we’re wise to the world, and we would never feed the trolls.” And that may be true. Now you’ve become the trolls!
Yes, I said it, but this is an intervention. Too many of my wise, seasoned, and very lovable internet friends have become trolls. No, they’re not as bad as those family trolls, who were professional psychopaths. Rather, my friends are just practicing occasional troll behavior, which in some ways is more concerning. Other people quickly learn to ignore professional trolls, but when an average upstanding citizen does it, they take others in, too. Because your friends believe you would never troll them.
It’s not all my friends’ fault. Yes, our leaders set a bad example, but I remind that that has always been the case (read about the public lying between Jefferson and Adams, for Heaven’s sake!). And opinion leaders do it too. Fox News is full of it, in all senses of the phrase. Rachel Maddow is a Troll Queen who came to prominence promising to uncover Trump as a Russian mole. . . still waiting on that. These people aren’t stupid, they are businesses or entertainers who knows that outrageous claims=dollars in their pocket. And they won’t stop. But you can.
What evidence shall I present? To avoid unnecessarily calling friends out, I won’t be too specific. But time and again I see people either sharing sources they should know better, or posting garbage that a millisecond fact check would show as wrong. I’m not talking about sharing a New York Times editorial about whether tariffs help or hurt a nation’s economy: that’s arguable, and have at it. I’m talking about claiming Elon Musk is a grifter getting rich off insider government contracts. Or Canada is a fentanyl threat. Or government employees must liquidate Thrift Savings Program accounts to avoid Trump seizing them. Or all foreign aid is either fraud, waste, or abuse. Or the 2024 federal voting results were hacked. Or freeze your credit because DOGE has your data. Stop it already.
In case you’ve missed the news lately, it’s easy to doctor a picture, so any incriminating photo that looks absolutely incredible and you’ve never sent it before? It’s probably fake. Try using Google Lens (formerly Google reverse image search), which will tell you if a photo is AI-generated. Is it a text/tweet? Does it have a date/time stamp? can you access the account and check? Yes, yes, you can, if you care about the truth.
Listen, I’m not saying you can’t express your opinions. Many times when friends share something, I ask them to restate, in their own words, how they feel, and that comes across more reasonable and honest. Or I ask them to check what they are about to share: just type the first line in with the word “hoax” added, and see what Señor Google has to say. When you just share something because you know it’s going to “pwn the libs/Maga crowd,” what you’re really saying is “I don’t care about the truth. I don’t care about my social media friends. I don’t even care if anyone does something stupid because of what I posted.” That, mis amigos, is quite anti-social behavior. Troll-like.
Even worse (I know, it’s possible!), while troll-like behavior is making your “friends” dumber, it’s making you dumber, too. See, when you post something without fact-checking, or just because it makes you feel good to denigrate somebody else, that All-Seeing Eye (the algorithm) says, “hey, John Doe falls for this sh!t. Feed him more!” See, the algorithm doesn’t care about right and wrong, so if you choose to ignore what’s correct or real, it will, too. And you get a steady diet of social media stool. Enjoy!
Way back when, the comedian Jeff Foxworthy had a routine which always ended with the punchline, “here’s your sign.” The set-up was about the fact that stupid people should wear a sign indicating their status (stupid) so you wouldn’t be surprised when their stupidity showed up. It may seem a little harsh, but it was an effective joke routine, and the material to set it up was almost endless.
Next time you’re about to troll, stop, think twice, and remember; Here’s your sign!
Thanks Pat. When I read troll posts from friend’s and even family I fight the urge to comment or react. I am usually successful. It is not worth the time and effort to feed the trolls. I just smile to myself and think of the southern retort “bless their hearts.”