For purposes of this post, I’m defining a “troll” as someone with no relationship to a post’s original author who makes comments/tweets/etc. in bad faith (often anonymously). A troll doesn’t so much seek to engage the author as to vent or instill outrage, and a troll will never change their mind or concede regardless of how much data or analysis you send their way. A troll’s goal is not so much to change minds as to ramp up emotion. With this definition in mind, let’s get into it…

So, a funny thing has happened over the past week, and I have no idea what sparked it: a handful of my older posts have drawn the attention of some disagreeable commenters. Now, one of them actually seems to want to convince me of their point (as evidenced by some digital pearl-clutching), but the others feel quite trollish. There’s a piece of conventional wisdom that floats around the internet for these situations: “Don’t feed the trolls.” That is, don’t engage those sorts of comments because nothing good ever comes of it. Just walk away.

What the conventional wisdom ignores, however, is that one good thing does come of it. Because of how search engine algorithms work, when I engage trolls on here, it actually drives up my site traffic. By replying to their comments and encouraging them to respond further, I generate more possible hits for search engines to find barchaplain.com, which in turn means more people find and click and get to learn about the bar chaplain concept. So yeah, despite the conventional wisdom not to do so, the algorithms actually reward me for feeding the trolls.

Admittedly, I’ve known this for a while. Several years ago, I met progressive Christian blogger and pastor John Pavlovitz at the Wild Goose Festival, and he shared that this is unfortunately part of how web traffic works. The Bar Chaplain blog was only just getting off the ground at that time, and one piece of advice he offered (besides taking care of myself, leading from compassion, etc.) was, “If you leave your comments sections open and just let the trolls come, it actually generates a lot more views and gets your message out to that many more people.” Weird, huh? Of course, John’s comment sections at that time had more trolls than the complete folktales of Norway, but he was correct: his message was getting out there all the more because of it. (I should note, if you visit John’s site today, you’ll see comments disabled, and I don’t blame him for that one bit. While engaging with a few individual trolls yourself can be a fun challenge, it’s tough trying to moderate a whole community.)

So now we face a conundrum: by seeking to hurt, trolls inadvertently help. They increase the visibility of the very posts they’ve been lambasting. So why wouldn’t I want to feed the trolls?

Because feeding the trolls means yielding to a system which we should probably be resisting.

I’m a big believer that social media algorithms fit the mold of the New Testament’s “powers and principalities“— rogue amoral forces which may help or hinder the world and which we usually do well to resist. Our social media algorithms don’t so much focus on good and evil (or factuality) as they do on “engagement”, and for better or for worse, emotions like fear and anger certainly promote engagement. Simply put, the algorithm inherently pushes content it thinks you’ll find interesting, and the easiest way to grab your attention is usually to piss you off. All this is the reason Facebook and Twitter (excuse me, X) have become such cesspools; with minimal factchecking and easy ways to manipulate “linked content” systems, you can suck people into all sorts of vortexes of rage and misinformation, and it’s reached a point where it’s actually changing our brains. “Feeding the trolls” gives this system that much more power, but I wonder if we can also undermine the system by introducing genuine human compassion into the algorithms and outrage.

Despite having been online for quite some time now, I’m still pretty early in forming exactly how I want to engage trolls. Still, there are a few principles I try to live by:

1. Take nothing personally. These people don’t really know me, and their comments are based solely on their perceptions of one thing I’ve written. Why should I take anything they say personally? I might as well have a little fun with it.
2. Keep it light. Look, even though the internet grants a certain amount of anonymity, a determined enough troll could still probably cause some trouble for you in real life. If you’re going to hit back at a troll, be careful how far you push them. It’s safer to keep the engagement light when possible, and that being said…
3. See if they’re willing to engage with emotions other than anger. While outrage is the internet’s most abundant resource, there’s a lot more out there emotionally. For instance, while they may come off angry or cocky, a lot of conspiracy theories are really fear responses. A prime example: the anti-vax movement is all an emotional response to the idea that autism or other conditions could just happen; in their fear of the world’s unpredictability, anti-vaxxers string together whatever unsubstantiated data they can to create a little more certainty in their worlds, even if it’s ultimately based on a lie (which the infamous Wakefield study was). COVID-truthers and anti-maskers use the exact same tactics for the exact same reasons. While these folks may lead off with outrage or condescension in their comments, getting them to acknowledge the fear might start to chip away at the prisons they’ve built for themselves out of spurious data.
   Side-bar: The exception here is the flat-earthers. I’m convinced they all know better and are just f**king with us.
4. Know when to draw a line. Very seldom do I delete a comment, but if a commenter has explicitly targeted an underprivileged group or used clear hate speech, that comment is gone. As a helpful guideline, I allow virtually all the four-letter swear words (crap, shit, f**k— you know, the fun ones based around sex or excrement); however, I delete comments with the six-letter swear words (the N-word, the R-word, the other F-word— all the words which target people for race, sexuality, disability, etc.). In my opinion, these things cross the boundary from trolling to outright hate, and I have no patience for hate.
5. Know when to call it quits. If they’re getting legitimately heated, you’re pretty sure they’re not going to change their minds, and you’ve already stated your point well for the benefit of others who may be reading, it’s okay to call it quits. It’s kind of hard to disagree with “Look, it doesn’t seem like either of us are budging on this, so let’s consider our blood pressures and walk away.”

Again, this is just a handful of helpful suggestions should you choose to feed the trolls. While doing so may make helpful content more readily available through search engine algorithms, it also feeds into a system which encourages unhealthy levels of outrage. So should we feed the trolls? Honestly, I’m still forming my opinion, and that statement alone will probably anger a few people.

See you in the comments.