As an activist, advocate, and occasional educator, I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about how to use social media–in particular, I’ve been noticing trends on Facebook and tumblr that I think are worth discussing.[1] It is tempting to think that tumblr, and Facebook especially, will be a good medium for sharing thoughts and information about social change–after all, what other forum grants all of us such a broad audience at the click of a button?









It is a frustrating reality that attempts to combat these social issues can often only serve to highlight the need for discussion about these social issues–discussions that, sadly, often seem to turn into fruitless arguments. To my admittedly casual observation, it seems as though this occurs because one side (frequently, though not always, the original poster or a like-minded friend) is trying to make a concrete point about social change, while the other side is trying to have a philosophical discussion about an abstract point. This fundamental breakdown in the topic of discussion can lead to a whole host of larger breakdowns even in circumstances where both sides are operating in good faith (and let’s be honest, that is frequently not even the case).



Being a particularly bloody-minded and stubborn person, I would love to see solutions to this issue relate back to changes in how we use social media, rather than simply switching to new fora for active discourse. Simply put: I believe we all can do better than this. I am far from an expert, but I do engage in advocacy daily in my professional work, and I have found that some techniques work better than others for dealing with difficult or adversarial discussions. I’ve drafted some modest suggestions for how to keep Facebook interactions, particularly about social change, social justice, and information relating back to these topics, from degenerating into an all-out brawl. I am hoping to draft a similar document for tumblr, though that day is not today.







Suggestions for OPs

When a person posts something on social media, they are to some extent inviting comment. Commentary is an important part of dialogue and dialogue is absolutely crucial to social change. That said, angry screeds help no one, especially not the poor person who is left with Godwin’s law on their wall. Here are some suggestions for how to handle out-of-control arguments when you are the original poster:

Your wall is your own little corner of cyberspace. Since it’s your space, it should be your rules – don’t be afraid to treat a post to your wall like you are its moderator. This can mean anything from establishing ground rules to deleting comments you find offensive or problematic to simply encouraging civil discourse instead of name-calling. Sometimes it is appropriate to close threads. You are not somehow silencing the masses if you decide you have heard enough; I promise that everyone commenting below has more than ample opportunity to go scream someplace else. Direct messages are your friends. Sometimes it’s more helpful to take people aside and have a quiet word than to call them out loudly in a public forum. Facebook does have an option for that; it’s called the private message. I have no idea how often people use this option, but several conversations I have seen recently suggest that it is, sadly, not often enough. XD

Suggestions for Responders

The other side of the coin is how to behave on other people’s walls. Since I myself am an activist, these suggestions will be geared toward how to handle common misogynistic, racist, or straight-up trolling responses. I admit I do not have a particularly strong interest in helping trolls be better trolls; I’m confident that there are ample suggestions on 4chan and/or Reddit for that. At any rate, here are my suggestions for responders:

Hold yourself to the standards you wish to see. This is absolutely the hardest part about civil discourse; in order for it to stay civil, you have to stay civil. This means holding onto your cool as well as you can, even if people say truly awful things to you. When in doubt, ask yourself if you would want somebody to say it on your wall. If you don’t, you probably shouldn’t say it on someone else’s; sometimes the rules we learn in kindergarten really do apply to us as adults. On a related note… Avoid the temptation to be flippant or disrespectful. For some reason, which I am not fully clear on, misogynists in particular just love to use the tone argument. The solution to this is not to decide that you can use whatever tone you want because they are wrong; this easily backfires at least 90% of the time. The solution, in my opinion, is to not give them anything in your tone to attack. Stridency is not automatically the same thing as justice, and a polite and rational response is not automatically the same thing as rolling over. Name-calling is particularly discouraged, because it can encourage otherwise sane and rational people to start frothing at the mouth if you pick the ‘right’ insult. Relatedly… If you are having a bad day, or something is otherwise wrong, consider coming back to the thread later. Social change is hard work; moreover, it’s hard work that most of us are doing in our spare moments. Doing hard work when you are not feeling your best is, well, hard. Recognize your efforts for the hard work that they are, and give yourself permission to come back later at times when hard work would be particularly taxing. Remember that Toneargument McTrollpants is not who you are ultimately trying to reach. Many, many people read a facebook thread; that is why you are commenting in the first place! I have long ago made my peace with the fact that, as a Jewish woman, I am not going to convince male members of the KKK to like me. I can, however, convince other people around them that I should maybe not receive death or rape threats. As an advocate and an activist, you are probably aiming for the silent majority rather than a particularly vocal and chest-thumping minority. You are really speaking to a silent majority most of the time even when you are literally responding to Toneargument McTrollpants, so phrase your responses accordingly. Citations are everyone’s friends. Just as using a tone that brooks no argument, well, brooks no argument, citing your sources (and having reputable ones, or at least some reputable ones buried amidst the Huffington Post articles) can keep factual debate down to a minimum. Even better, when someone questions your citations, you can simply say “I am sorry to hear that you do not agree with [study] but I accept their validity” and move on. When in doubt, it’s OK to walk away. This is probably the second-hardest thing for socially-minded people to accept, because we often feel like if we aren’t championing every cause at all times, we’re not really doing good work. But when you’re thirteen comments in with some jerkface who keeps moving goalposts, won’t accept your sources, makes baseless attacks on your tone, and/or straight-out ignores your discussion points and substitutes their own, they are not operating in good faith and it is OK to stop engaging. Not everybody is here to honestly discuss topics; in fact, some people are just here to watch you sweat while you struggle to drag them back on point. Those people were not who you are trying to reach, are in fact unreachable almost by definition, and will seriously mess up your Christmas while you try.

I am not foolish enough to believe that this will fix all issues with social media overnight, but I’m hoping they are a decent starting place. Feel free to repost if you are so inclined; I had hoped to originate this on FB but their formatting leaves much to be desired. XD Hopefully, I’ll also write a follow-up to talk about tumblr specifically.

[1] Twitter, for whatever reason, does not seem to invite the same issues; perhaps it is because what you can see is so carefully controlled in that forum.