To Feed Or Not to Feed the Trolls, That Is the Question: #pizzagate
People who spend an average amount of time on the internet will probably have come across the phrase “Don’t feed the troll”.
If you didn’t know, according to Urban Dictionary, a troll is a person who “posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument”.
So the rule “don’t feed the troll” means that if you read such a provocative message, you’d better ignore it. Trolls, after all, thrive from the attention that is payed to them, and only then can they really cause harm. It’s the snowball effect; The more people get involved, the more trolls appear and steer the situation on, and in the end, the whole thing can have real life consequences.
This is exactly what happened with #pizzagate. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s far from harmless and actually prompted a guy to open fire in a busy restaurant on December the 4th. The whole “affair” (If you want to call it that) is quite complicated and, frankly, stupid, and I don’t want to explain it to you; the New York Times did a very good article on this, if you’re interested. But effectively, the NYT broke the don’t-feed-the-troll-rule by publishing that article.
Was that the right thing to do?
Should a newspaper as big and influential as the NYT really give an outlet to such ridiculous allegations? Of course, they are being critical and they tear apart the pseudo-evidence, but still, they are adding a very strong voice to the mix. For trolls, this is the ultimate goal. Not only do more “innocent” people get involved, any troll who had not already contributed to the story might now take it upon themselves to do their job and troll on some more.
For trolls, the only goal is to get a reaction, and whose reaction is better than that of the NYT’s?
Besides, a NYT article about it sort of legitimizes the affair, at least to some; “If the NYT writes about it, there has to be some truth about it”. In that case, it doesn’t matter that the article is clearly disproving #pizzagate. “They are just trying to cover it up”. A good conspiracy theory can be a lot of fun and this one deliberately has all the juicy stuff in there: politicians, paedophiles, pizza… And all conspiracy theories have a common mantra: Don’t trust mainstream media.
And finally, if you’re willing to believe all that conspiracy bullsh*it that #pizzagate is spreading, is a NYT article really going to change that? You’re either a troll yourself and find the whole thing hilarious, or you’re extremely gullible and/or susceptible to this sort of agenda — and then, you won’t care about that article, will you?
So why do I still think it’s good that the NYT published this article?
For one, because #pizzagate is not just about trolling. If it were, then it wouldn’t be so dangerous. But in some parts, there is clearly malicious intend behind the allegations. A true troll only wants to annoy as many people as possible, and from where I’m standing, this is true for a lot of the #pizzagate contributors.
But there are those people who try to discredit single politicians (Obama, for instance) or a whole party, in order to advertise the politicians they prefer.
There are those people who defame others just for the sake of it, using allegations that have the potential of destroying lives.
There are those people who trivialize paedophilia and human trafficking or make fun of a real child abduction case, which of course is going to cause the parents some pain.
And of course, there are those people who think the best solution for the problem is to storm a restaurant with a loaded gun.
Trolls do things “for the lulz” but #pizzagte isn’t funny anymore. So it’s a good thing that people are taking it seriously, even if trying to debunk it means you are feeding some trolls.
Still, people who post bullsh*t should be called out. And the worries that some have need to be addressed. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that human lives are at risk.
