Earlier today, I posted this on my Facebook.
"FYI, I no longer engage trolls. So if you choose to troll my posts, I will chose to delete trolling comments. I will keep disagreeing comments that show a willingness to engage in thoughtful, empathetic conversation. If your disagreement doesn't meet that standard, it will promptly disappear from my wall/posts."
I also promised to follow this up with acceptable, and unacceptable examples. I want it understood, that I'm not trying to shut down anyone disagreeing with me on social media. I am setting a boundary for what type of disagreement I will allow.
I don't like fighting with people, especially people I know and love. Things can get heated, personal, and end friendships in situations like this, and that is what I want to avoid.
What I don't want to avoid is thoughtful, empathetic engagement with other view points. I don't believe Facebook is the best space for that to happen, because most situations quickly loose their thoughtfulness.
I also, don't post things on facebook for anyone's benefit but my own. So wether or not you particularly agree with something I post, I don't think is generally my business, unless you want to be in solidarity of agreement with me, or share information that is respectful but broadening of my viewpoint.
For example, if I post on Facebook that 'Pizza is the best! And milk chocolate is disgusting!' This is my opinion. It's my wall, I can express that opinion. It's a valid opinion, and I don't feel like I have to defend my opinions to everyone that disagrees with them. I don't need to convince you of my view. I'm telling you what my view is, and you can agree, or disagree and that's fine. If you post a comment it shouldn't be disrespectful or invalidating of my opinion I posted on my wall.
You are free to post an opposite opinion on your wall, and hope I read it and rethink things. You can post a comment on my post in solidarity, or you can engage with me, and try to understand why I feel the way I do, and then perhaps try to change my mind. But before you try to change my mind, you should try to understand my mind.
So examples of what would be trolling my post:
"Pizza is horrible! You are disgusting"
"Milk chocolate is the best! What is wrong with you?"
"You're wrong! Milk chocolate isn't disgusting!!"
When stating disagreement online, we have to think first about why are we disagreeing.
1) we think the person is misinformed, and with the right information will come to your side, or at least move to a more middle ground
2) we have set up an us vs them situation in our head, and the fact that someone you love has posted something that you disagree with makes you feel betrayed, because they are not on your team
3) because you like to argue with people
4) because you want to create empathy for people with a different experience or opinion in life. (For instance if I also posted that people that love milk chocolate are less healthy and less intelligent than people that prefers dark chocolate)
So... If you are a #3 person, I'm gonna delete your comments. That's all.
If you are a #2, you can engage thoughtfully and not get comments deleted by saying something along these lines and engaging.
"Really? You don't like milk chocolate? This makes me a little sad, because milk chocolate is my favorite. It's a big part of what brings me joy in life. Did you have a bad experience? How does milk chocolate taste to you, that would cause you not to enjoy it?"
See what has happened here? You have engaged me. You have said your feelings, and why it's important to you, but you have opened a dialog to find out why I feel as I do, and also learn a bit more about me. Upon questioning me, you find that I struggle with the waxy and overly sugared taste of milk chocolate mostly occurring in the United States, but I will still eat a Snickers or a Twix, or European milk chocolate on occasion. I just like the bitter and more intruginge flavors of dark chocolate more. I don't like sugar as much as you do, but we have some common ground, and have gained empathy for eachother view points, broke down the us vs them mentality, and actually strengthened our friendship.
Actually, this example works for reasons 1 and 4 as well. If you think I am wrong in not liking milk chocolate, then you need to find out why I don't like it before you can ever hope to change my mind. If you find out the reason why, and see that it's the waxy sugar thing, but that's what you love about it, then we will never agree, but hopefully, because we engaged in thoughtful and empathetic conversation, we can appreciate our differences as part of the spice and diversity of life.
If you can't accept that I don't like that flavor and taste, and continue to try to force me to enjoy the same taste you do, it becomes trolling again, your comment gets deleted and the conversation ends, with a bad taste in both our mouths, so it may have been best just to hide my post, vent to a fellow milk chocolate lover, think I'm strange. And let it go.
Two other important senarios:
5- you are a good friend, teasing and joking with me. In this instance, please follow with a winky emoji ;) so I know your tone is that of a sibling, and you are just having some fun.
6- if in my comments I have said something that is ignorant and hurtful to a group of people that I am not a part of.
In which case, please comment publicly with kindness, and in a way that helps me generate empathy. For example
"Generalizing about the health of people that like milk chocolate is very hurtful. Some very healthy people also enjoy milk chocolate. Some people who are not in good health also enjoy milk chocolate, it brings joy to their life. Other people eat milk chocolate because of stress and things like that, and heaping shame on them makes their burden heavier.
(Right here is where most people calling people out go wrong- tell me something I can do to improve my comments, don't just rip them apart and say I am hurting people and I'm an insensitive jerk)
... It would be helpful if you could not make broad generalizations about people's health. I know you weren't trying to be hurtful, but this could have a real negative impact on someone in a very personal way, and i would just like you to consider how you would feel if you were them when posting.
Or something like that. Obviously, I'm illustratating this with things that are not very serious, and that probably wouldn't actually spark controversy. I chose this instead of something more decisive like political things, or the actual cause of this post - the United Airlines thing (I got multiple comments saying "you're wrong" or "this article is wrong!") Because I wanted to illustrate with things that aren't going to already have people up in arms just by the example.
I hope this had been informative and helpful to understanding my new rules and requirements for engaging disagreements on social media- primarily Facebook. I am not perfect in this myself, and I have accidently become a troll at times as well. Which makes me feel yucky after.
So let's just all try to improve in our engagement. I will be deleting posts that I feel are flaming, or trolling, or trying to incite contention, whether it was intended or not. I'm not going to sit back and watch things spiral out of control any more, it causes me too much anxiety.
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