by Professor Neil Levy; Cross-posted from Blog of the APA
Don’t feed the trolls arguments.
When someone is wrong—on the Internet or in the coffee shop—the temptation to engage can be strong, even though it often seems futile. While it can be satisfying and illuminating to argue with friends and some other people with whom we share some degree of trust, arguments with family members, acquaintances, and Internet strangers seem more often to harden positions and risk undermining the knowledge of third parties than to illuminate.
Engaging may actually be more effective than it appears. Political partisans do seem to respond to argument; their response is often invisible to us because it is (perhaps rationally) often very small. Given enough evidence, even conspiracy theorists seem to be moved significantly. Argument, even argument with committed partisans, is certainly not always futile.
On some topics, though, argument does seem futile. Why?
One reason often given is that conspiracy theories and committed partisans often don’t hold their views for reasons. Rather, their views reflect emotional commitments or are a reflection of their identity. Argument and the exchange of reasons are the wrong sorts of tools to change positions that are not based on reasons in the first place. You can’t reason someone out of a position they were not reasoned into, as the saying goes.
Despite its popularity, there’s no general reason to think that saying is accurate. There’s no reason to think that mental states respond to only one kind of cause. Even if it’s true that we (or some of us) don’t hold our views for reasons, reasons might still shift us. In any case, I’m skeptical of both the identity and the motivated reasoning accounts of belief formation.
I want to suggest a quite different reason why argument may be futile. It’s not that (some) conspiracy theorists and political partisans don’t have reasons for their beliefs; rather, they don’t actually believe what they say.
There are several different routes whereby someone can come to fervently argue for views they don’t actually believe. On some, they’re insincere. On others, they’re mistaken about their beliefs. I’ll focus on just one route to insincere protestation of belief: trolling.
Trolling, as I’m using the word here, occurs when someone reports (or implies) that they believe something because they think it’s funny to say it: because it upsets others, or gets a rise out of them, or to be outrageous. Trolling hasn’t been widely studied, but there’s growing evidence that it occurs.
One study examined reports that people were drinking bleach and other cleaning products to prevent or treat COVID. Eight percent of respondents (selected for representativeness of the population) reported they were. But a different picture emerged when “problematic respondents” were removed. Problematic respondents are people who are inattentive or answer questions in a way that indicates insincerity (for example, answering “yes” to questions like “have you previously died from a heart attack?” or “Can you name every US senator ever from memory?”) When all problematic respondents were removed, the number sincerely reporting deliberately drinking bleach dropped to zero.
Our own research provides convergent evidence for significant levels of trolling. We asked a representative (Australian) sample for their attitudes toward six familiar conspiracy theories: that climate change is a hoax, that COVID is a myth, and so on. We got responses that are pretty typical, with a substantial minority endorsing (i.e., reporting that they believed the theory was probably or definitely true) these conspiracies (ranging from 19% reporting believing climate change is a hoax to 10% endorsing the theory that the government is covering up the fact that COVID is spread by 5G mobile networks).
In addition, though, we asked about a novel conspiracy theory: “The Canadian Armed Forces have been secretly developing an elite army of genetically engineered, super intelligent, giant raccoons to invade nearby countries.” We found that reporting belief in this novel theory was a strong predictor of belief in the other theories. For example, only 3% of people who didn’t endorse the racoons theory reported believing the government cover-up of 5G story, compared to 66% of those who claimed to accept “racoons.” The mean number of theories other than “racoons” endorsed by those who endorsed it was 4.08; among those who rejected “racoons” it was 0.50 (see Williams et al. for a preregistered replication).
We think this is strong evidence of trolling. It strains credulity beyond breaking point to think that anyone accepts the racoon theory. Perhaps they really are that gullible? We don’t think that’s at all plausible, but we don’t have to rest content with intuition: we can point to the fact that 56% of people who endorsed “racoons” also endorsed two contradictory conspiracy theories (that COVID doesn’t exist and that the virus is spread by 5G towers) compared to only 2% of those who rejected “racoons.” This adds to the case for insincerity. We’re confident that trolls like these inflate estimates of belief across all conspiracy theories, but most especially for the more bizarre ones.
Once we bear the prevalence of trolls in mind, the political landscape looks rather different. I suspect that trolling is an important factor in the reported political beliefs of MAGA supporters (and of some politicians too). Reporting belief that “they’re eating the cats” or that Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist is funny to a certain sensibility. I suspect even far more plausible beliefs, like the belief that broad tariffs are good for the US economy, are sometimes reported as much to troll as to report sincere attitudes.
There’s much to condemn about trolling, most especially when it converges with vice signaling. There’s much to condemn about delighting in the vicious. But condemnation should be targeted at the moral outlook it expresses, not at the rationality of those who espouse such views.
Bearing trolling in mind also should guide us in how we respond to those who claim to believe these things. Arguing—presenting considerations designed to change minds—is pointless. It’s false that you can’t reason someone out of a position they were not reasoned into, but true that you can’t reason someone out of a position they don’t in fact hold.
How we should respond is a difficult question. Refusing to engage is probably more helpful than getting upset or arguing; don’t feed the trolls remains good advice. I suspect that at least some trolls don’t think it matters what they, or we, believe, because politics is not responsive to ordinary people’s concerns anyway. That’s a belief that they can be forgiven for holding. Rather than feeding the trolls, we should aim to change politics so that’s no longer true.
The conclusion according to which the statements „Climate change is hoax“ or „COVID is a myth“ are the representatives of the conspiracy theories is the dangerous simplification of the issue.
How many people declare that „COVID is a myth“? Not many.
But a lot of people or politicians say that the provisions that we made/make due to these two issues were inappropriate.
However such objections are instantly refused as immoral or stupid denying of COVID or climate change.
But if we insist that climate change or COVID request massive political infringements to people privacy and these provisions are simply necessary we shift from democratic polemics to kind of political ideology that is normative and ultimate. To ideology that declares the final solution.
But it is actually tragedy if people in advance declare some political AIM they want to reach. Because to reach it is simply impossible. The world cannot be totally recognized by human sense. This naive faith is typical just for the totalitarian ideologies.
Actually nobody can convincingly prove that climate change is caused by man or that we can through the political provisions influcence such change. Despite this unceirtanty we perform drastic provisions not regarding its massive negative impact on economics or privacy.
If we insist that people who objects the rightfullness of these provisions are the representatives of conspiracy theories there will be two consequences. First the chilling effect on freedom of speach, second: the bad solution of the whole issues. Both these consequences are tragic ….
Applying the “Three Principles of Happiness” to this article yields three levels of diagnosis:
The first principle of happiness (pursuing one’s own happiness):
The author reveals that the motivation behind the behavior of “trolls” is not a cognitive error, but rather taking “enraging others” itself as a source of pleasure – this is a distorted and low-level satisfaction of the “need to express”. They gain attention and a sense of control by creating chaos, which is actually an escape from true happiness, as they are unable to establish a constructive self-identity.
The second principle of happiness (not infringing on others’ happiness):
Trolling behavior constitutes a typical form of “expressive harm”. The author’s data shows that after eliminating 8% of the respondents who said they would “drink bleach”, the number dropped to zero, and 66% of the supporters of the “raccoon conspiracy theory” also believed in contradictory theories – proving that their remarks were aimed at disrupting public perception and consuming others’ emotional energy, rather than sincerely participating in rational dialogue. This kind of “vice signaling” directly erodes social trust capital (w value), causing damage to the cooperation dividends (e value) of sincere individuals. What’s more serious is that if children believe their remarks, they may be harmed as a result.
The third principle of happiness (co-creating a happy environment):
The author’s conclusion is highly consistent with this principle – “Rather than feeding trolls, it’s better to change politics.” When institutional design renders the demands of ordinary people ineffective, the logic of trolls (“Politics won’t listen to me anyway”) finds a parasitic habitat. The solution lies in rebuilding the “repairable δ threshold”: by promoting transparent decision-making and responsive governance to reduce public alienation, sincere cooperation can once again become a rational choice, thereby systematically compressing the ecological niche of trolls.
Redefining the applied definition of a label merely result in directing the reasoning behind that label rather than encouraging a fuller comprehension of any complete circumstances creative of tensions or visible reactions. In the Covid example it can be argued that the initial responses were guided by reports of the very high hospitalisation needs/mortality rates, and were subsequently altered as further information informed by greater experience (or resource constraints) became apparent. In changing circumstances those perspectives (and many others) provided in the article would be valid…frequently depending upon limitations of the time frame within which they are positioned. Accepting here that an applied time frame is generally chosen by an individually focused or directed perspective, and often begins and finishes there, without regard of a need to apply rational thinking.
Where political expediency in times of crisis requires a finitely defined scope in communications as a means of simply meeting the needs of a large community, focus inevitably becomes limited, but that would not excuse a lack of maintaining a broadly situated truth to strengthen future learning outcomes rather than pushing a limited and shallow history to suit given perspective(s) aimed at becoming accepted facts; Which appears to be the general trend in much of modern politics where publicly voicing different perspectives becomes perceived as a sign of confusion, insincerity and weakness for the cause, rather than a knowledge based strength capable of informing true empathy. One may disagree with a particular perspective, and avoid presenting it for particular reasons, but turning a blind eye appears socially unforgivable because of the weaknesses created. Because this is a point where the individual and social spheres join and the suppressed voice will not be heard.