Don’t Feed the Trolls

I’m at a library meeting in Bangor today, so I’m short on time, but I wanted to hop on here to write a quick post about an article I saw yesterday. In a nutshell, Russian bots have been flooding Twitter in the aftermath of the school shooting yesterday, furiously Tweeting out pro-gun posts.

Even taking all the different arguments out of the equation, I hope we can all agree this is bad for our country. It’s clear Russia thinks it’s bad for us, since they’re certainly not doing it to try to help us out. (How despicable is it, that someone would use a horrific event to try and further their own designs? Though it’s such a hot button topic, many are doing it more subtly.)

What can we do to combat this? For one thing, I’d encourage people to share more than pithy articles. Engage in real debate, not generic articles that happen to fall in line with your preconceived notions. My stance on gun control remains firm, and I’ve written extensively on it. I personally feel it’s only a matter of time until the bulk of the country agrees with me, and we at least start trying some potential solutions, instead of merely wringing our hands and doing whatever the NRA wants us to.

But again, this isn’t about politics. (Not this post, at least.) It’s about recognizing that our country shouldn’t be so easily swayed that Russian bots can cause a serious problem to become even worse. Real discussion and discourse needs to take the place of retweets and shares.

Or maybe I’m just idealistic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $8/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.