Engagement tactics - trolls/fake accounts.
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Why do trolls & fake accounts argue so much, when it's so obvious what they're saying is garbage?

What's the point?
Surely this doesn't change minds (or votes)?

1/20

It's demonstrable that organised networks of trolls and fake accounts use consistent tactics to generate engagement on twitter & thus propagate their messages & narratives.

Here's a superficial look at how some of them work.

2/20

Few of these tactics are psychologically sophisticated, but they don't have to be, because they play on attitudes and expectations that are broadly shared by people who are trying to tweet in good faith and with good intent.

3/20

First, remember that not everyone who posts shit is a nefarious sockpuppet controlled by the Kremlin (or Dominic Cummings, or Saudi, or Mossad, or ...)

Some are real people, genuinely convinced of the Brexit (or MAGA, or whatever) cause. Or genuine racists, of course.

4/20

But, if someone is so convinced, the chances are that they have also absorbed the tactics and (especially) language of actual state (or corporate) controlled propaganda & disinfo.

Picking apart the two is challenging, to say the least, and never definitive.

5/20

A basic approach is to play on our tendency to want to correct others who we see as misunderstanding us, and in doing so to assume good faith on the part of the other.

That assumption is a virtue but also a vulnerability.

6/20

This is rarely an exercise in subtlety. A simple (fictional) example follows ...

Good faith account: "I'm worried by Brexit, & think we should be cautious and slow things down".

Bad faith account: (1) "Why do you hate democracy?"

7/20

GFA: "I don't hate democracy, I think the referendum showed we have a problem, but really you only have to read the yellowhammer documents"

BFA: "The vast majority of the people voted for Brexit, you're in the pocket of the unelected Brussels bureaucrats"

8/20

GFA: "Well hang on it wasn't the vast majority and anyway you obviously have no idea about the EU's governance if you say that"

BFA: "Typical elitist remainer, just because I'm working class you sneer at me because you think I'm too stupid to understand"

9/20

GFA: "Not at all, I have no idea what you know about the EU, I suppose, I'm sorry"

BFA: "Changing your story now are you? I'm sick of being told I didn't know what I voted for by middle class pricks from London like you"

10/20

GFA: "I don't live in London and I went to a comprehensive, and there's no need to be abusive"

BFA: "That's just projection, you know you're the one being abusive"

... and so on, ad nauseam.

11/20

(1) is a form of the classic "Have you stopped beating your wife?".

Looking like a question, it functions more like a statement/accusation, but also has the benefit of not following in any comprehensible way from the initial statement.

12/20

The *instant* you respond to this, you've stepped through a trap door into the Narnia of bad faith interaction.

If you carry on now, the noose will tighten round your neck and you will jerk and twist in increasing rage and powerlessness.

13/20

If you get an account offering this sort of (sometimes more subtle) interaction, my suggestion is to exit gracefully, and immediately, with a block or mute, & have a nice cup of tea instead.

14/20

The interaction as a whole has a purpose, but it is to generate heat and not light.

The GFA's replies are essentially irrelevant, & the BFA has complete control over the narrative it wishes to propagate, so long as the GFA reciprocates in any way.

15/20

In our example, the narrative is:

"Democracy is being betrayed by untrustworthy elitist snobs, the EU is undemocratic, the working class are patronised and condescended to, and remain are abusers."

16/20

Note that "Brexit" can be anything: Muslims, immigrants generally, "white genocide", Zionist conspiracy, Tommy Robinson, Israel ... essentially, who or what ever is desired to be targeted.

17/20

The interaction is not for your benefit, it is for onlookers.

It raises a narrative as a desired common currency of debate, and sets up that narrative as somehow factual ("proven" by the GFA's replies).

When thousands of accounts do this, it enters the public sphere.

18/20

The narrative will be discussed as if it is real, on Newsnight, on QT, on LBC & 5Live & talksport. Listeners will ring in about it. Commentators will debate it.

In fact, of course, this is *exactly* what has happened.

Beware, therefore, being an unwitting participant.

19/20

This is just one tack they take, and nothing's new here.

Classical rhetoric, Aristotelian logic & the work of JL Austin, HP Grice & Erving Goffman (Frame Analysis), let alone more modern researchers & analysts, all address these kinds of devices.

Here endeth the lesson.

20/20