Dealing with trolls on Twitter: #p2, #tcot, #topprog, #bipart, and a magic search query
One of the challanges with using Twitter for activism is one that’s all too familiar to anybody who’s spent time online: dealing with trolls and other disruptions.*Â Twitter hashtags are completely open, so anybody can post on them, which means we frequently see tweets like:
I should also state that some sissy liberal might find me MEAN spirited and rough but they usually like it .. #p2 #rebellft # …
Thanks for sharing, dude.
Of course an occasional tweet like this isn’t a big deal; they’re easy enough to ignore. The bigger problem is with posts that lead to heated debates that cause so much traffic everything else gets lost. Last night, for example, one person wound up accounting for over 75% of the traffic on #p2 (counting his tweets and others responses to him). When this happens, people start to tune out — and based on research from Susan Herring and others, women in particular are far less likely to participate.