Taming your inner troll: The 4 rules of sharing political opinions responsibly on social media

This is the second in a 2-part series.  Read the first part here.

 Source: https://xkcd.com/386/

Remember that time the Internet lost its mind? It might have been about holiday cups at Starbucks, a satirical racial joke by Stephen Colbert, a lion or monkey being killed, some actor saying something offensive or a journalist asking a politically incorrect question.  While each issue has its own degree of legitimacy (large or small), the tidal wave of outrage it triggers represents the destructive potential of social media.  The smallest perceived offense can ignite the Internet’s fury.  

On the flipside, remember when we had a presidential race that featured candidates with such loose relationships to reality that people simply stopped being outraged.  Like the proverbial frog that let the water heat to boiling around him, so too have many people come to expect, or worst accept, this toxic political environment.  The deluge of unreality has blunted our ability to react appropriately. 

Both of these examples of outrage and apathy demonstrate the importance of social media as a tool for social conversation.  In my last post, I discussed how social media can help us as a society decide what is right and what is true.  Knowing this will help us deal with outrage and apathy appropriately.  Yet these examples also demonstrate that social media can be destructive and actually push us further apart. 

To turn social media into a constructive force, we need guidelines to harness its power.  Here I will discuss the 4 rules of using #SocialMediaForSocialGood.

The 4 Rules

These rules are taken from Daniel Dennett’s book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking in which he relays debate rules that he received in conversation with the accomplished mathematician and game theorist, Anatol Rapoport.

1.     You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”

2.     You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

3.     You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

4.     Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Let me take each of these one at a time. 

You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.

This one is key on social media.  The vast majority of Facebook arguments I have either seen or participated in became contentious because people were arguing against things their opponent was not saying.  The format of social media lends itself to miscommunication because it is so constrained.  You have 144 characters on Twitter or clunky comment boxes on Facebook to express yourself.  You need to focus on the specific point the person is making and not argue against a conclusion you think they will make three logical steps down the line. 

Suppose I post something negative about Trump like “whenever Trump talks, he lies a lot”.  My conservative friends will immediately respond with how terrible Hilary is.  The conversation is already off to a bad start because I didn’t say anything about Hilary, they just assumed a conclusion that wasn’t made. Re-expressing the argument helps to narrow the scope of the conversation to a manageable topic over social media: “I think your point is that Trump says things that are untrue, for example during his political speeches, well if you look at the context…” and so on. Now we are on the same page and won’t be talking past each other. 

One last note, this rule also implies that the original poster is the person setting the scope of the debate.  If Trump’s lying makes you want to say something about Hilary’s emails, then either take the time to logically connect the original point to the emails, which will probably take multiple back-and-forth posts, or post a new topic yourself. The conversation will be pointless if we continually talk past each other or bury each other in an avalanche of disconnected opinions. 

You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

This is an important point for both participants in the conversation.  It serves to close the ideological gap by allowing all parties to realize what they have in common.  This also helps to further narrow the scope of the debate so you both know what is already considered true in this particular conversation.  It also has a nice psychological benefit of lowering the oppositional barriers the participants might be feeling that are inherent in disagreements.  Keeping with our Trump lying example, you as a Trump supporter may say something like “I agree that many of his comments are untrue at face value, for instance there is no way Mexico will pay for the wall.  But he says these things to make a larger point about immigration policy….” and so on.  Now we both know our common ground and where the disagreement begins.

You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

The point of the discussion is to get closer to what is right or what is true, so hopefully you are learning something along the way.  You have not somehow “lost” the discussion by learning from your opponent.  This is actually evidence of the back-and-forth process at work and should be encouragement for further discussion! Like the second point, this also has psychological benefit because it breaks down the divide between participants and reframes the experience more as two humans trying to decide what is right or what is true together rather than as a competition between two opponents.  

Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Now we both understand what the argument is about, where we are beginning from, and what the benefit of the conversation has been.  So now, its time to tussle!

Let me make a few concluding observations:

·      These steps do not necessarily have to happen in order or with every reply or post that is made.  Some of them can happen a few times throughout a conversation or sometimes you can just check them yourself mentally.  The point is that these guidelines should provide structure for how you approach discussing sensitive topics with another human; how you actually employ them is up to you.

·      During political discussions, we are ultimately arguing about what is right and what is true (see the last post).  We shouldn’t be trying to “win” or “defeat” an opponent. It also helps to assume good motives in others, for instance that they too want to better understand what is right and what is true

·      However at times it becomes clear that some people have bad motivations, such as trying to belittle your point.  I would argue that it’s not worth engaging these people because it will quickly degenerate into a rhetorical competition.  The only level in which you could engage them is to argue that what is right and what is true should be the purposes of their arguments.

·      Emotions play a big role and need to be observed mindfully throughout a discussion.  Sometimes its just better to sit on that message overnight before pressing send.

·      Be responsible, don’t drink and tweet. 

So there you have it, my (actually Daniel Dennett’s) proposed rules for debating politics and other sensitive topics on social media.  With these rules, we can overcome the cycles of clickbait outrage and sensational apathy and instead learn to thoughtfully use #SocialMediaForSocialGood. 

More people need to post their political opinions on social media. There I said it.

I’ve heard many people say social media is not a good place to discuss politics, but I think they are mistaken.  I think social media is the place to discuss politics in the 21^st century.   Here I will make the case of #SocialMediaForSocialGood. 

Many of the great societies in history had iconic spots where people would meet to exchange ideas: the Greeks had the agora, the Romans had the forum, the French revolutionaries had their cafes.  With the creation of motorized transportation, our society has become considerably less centralized.  As a result, we’re losing the iconic meeting places of the past.  Yet despite this geographic distance, our ability to communicate has been preserved and enhanced by the Internet and other telecommunication technologies.  So while we’re more dispersed from physical gatherings, an exchange of ideas unprecedented in world history can now take place.  The Roman forum still exists, its just now virtual and you can participate while sitting on the toilet. 

Social media facilitates much of this communication, which comes in various forms.  Baby pictures, cat videos, listicles, cryptic messages about some people being haterz, those weird toy unboxing videos that kids love are all perfectly acceptable uses of social media.  It’s clear the world is a much better place now that a gif exists for every situation.  Yet if we argue, as I’ve heard many say, that political opinions do not belong amidst this raucous procession of human expression, I’m afraid we’ll lose something vital to the proper functioning of our democratic society.

Exchanging ideas is extremely important for society

This rowdy election season has surprised many people with just how diverse the United States is ideologically. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have unearthed angst from their political constituents that many people didn’t know existed, with the former driving ideology further left and the latter blowing up the established right.  Add in the combustible mix of global terrorism, racial inequality, economic hardship, etc., and it is clear there is a growing political divide straining our social fabric much like the tension on a trampoline’s springs when a rhinoceros jumps on it.  It doesn’t turn out well. For the trampoline at least. 

The only way forward, the only way to add strength to the springs, is to close the ideological gap by exchanging ideas. To discuss how to do that, let me first make the observation that much of our political disagreement surrounds the ideas of what is right and what is true. If you grant me this, we can discuss how social media helps us approach these issues. 

How a society decides what is right

One of the preeminent moral and political philosophers of the 20^th century, John Rawls, developed a process of moral evaluation known as reflective equilibrium to help us decide what is right.  A person comes to a moral conclusion by first considering what her moral judgment is telling her and then considering competing and affirming arguments for this view.  She has come to a state of equilibrium when this process of back-and-forth has resolved the inconsistencies in the competing claims or, if this is impossible, when she learns how to hold the opposing views in tension. 

Consider a thoughtful person deciding whether the United States should accept more Syrian refugees.  She sees the suffering of the Syrians and knows that life in the US could drastically improve their standard of living and her moral intuition tells her we should accept many refugees.  She encounters an opposing view that holds some of these people, even if a very small number, could be terrorists and one day murder Americans. She accepts this argument as true, there is no way to ever screen out every potential terrorist when accepting refugees.  So her choice is to reverse her moral stance and think that we should accept less or no refugees or she can hold the two ideas in tension, acknowledging the risks but keeping her moral conclusion the same. 

If you read that example and thought of supporting or counter arguments, then you’re continuing the process of reflective equilibrium for yourself.  If you tell her why her conclusion is wrong, then you’re now part of her reflective process.  In this view, evaluating competing and supporting claims is essential to deciding what is right.  If this truly is the way to arrive at moral conclusions, then you can see how social media can play an important role in moral judgments as it facilitates this back-and-forth between people with opposing views. So exchanging ideas over social media, if used correctly, is a powerful engine to move the process forward.

How a society decides what is true

A similar process holds true as we evaluate the second component of political disagreement, truth.  Knowing truth is very difficult.  Incredibly difficult.  Most of the time, when someone says, “I know this is true,” it is shorthand for “this idea is consistent with any fact, feeling, or other coherence mechanism I possess.” But does that make it true? It depends on the quality of his facts, feelings, or coherence mechanisms.

While we possess a variety of “truth-making” mechanisms such as logic, intuition, and sense perception, science has placed itself as the leader of this process.  Since the Enlightenment, the scientific method has proved itself the best way for us to establish facts about the natural world.  The process of science is to organize information into consistent ideas that we call facts and from these facts to establish truth, but this path to truth is not as straight as its description makes it sound.  We make discoveries through research then argue about the quality of the research, who funds it, how statistical methods were applied, and whether it fits or overturns established theory.  The process is a back-and-forth exchange, much like reflective equilibrium for morals.

The scientific process reflects our own thinking.  Each of us participates in this process of back-and-forth, comparing facts and ideas to decide what we believe to be true.  This is incredibly important in this election.  For both parties, it can seem like the other side has a loose relationship with the truth (whether its truer for one side or the other, this article will remain agnostic but it is worth noting the author believes this to be a question that can be answered through factual verification).  Through an exchange of ideas, we can better understand the facts that the opposition espouse.  If the facts are wrong, then a process of back-and-forth may demonstrate that.  If the facts are right, then we will be forced to modify our own views.  Like moral reflection, social media can be a powerful engine to propel societal discussion toward a better collective understanding of truth.

Through this discussion, I’ve proposed that while society has become geographically decentralized, it has gained an ability to exchange ideas that is unprecedented in world history.  At the same time, we’ve become ideologically and politically polarized with much of our disagreement swirling around what is right and what is true.  Social media can be used as a tool to facilitate the back-and-forth communication necessary to lessen the polarization. The examples of reflective equilibrium for moral conclusions and scientific debate for establishing facts demonstrate social media’s potential to close the political gap and provide clarity for many of our most jumbled issues. Social progress is an uphill journey.  Social media is a combustible force that can help propel society forward in the difficult road ahead. This is why we must use #SocialMediaForSocialGood.

Where to go from here

At this point I would bet many (or most) readers are thinking that while this sounds nice and possibly true in some academic utopian fantasy, in the real world it will never work.  I mean, have you ever read comments on YouTube?  It is well known that anonymity unmasks our inner trolls.  If social media is combustible, as I say, then could it blow up society instead? It’s possible. But social media is also not going away anytime soon.  After humanity discovered fire, we had to figure out how to make it work for us before it burned down our village.  Perhaps we are at a similar place with social media, we need to learn to harness its energy before it tears us further apart.  So next post I am going to propose rules for #SocialMediaForSocialGood that will help direct its energy into something constructive. 

To tread the next part in this series click here.