[strogonoff]

The very uncoordinated cooperation you’re talking about happens a lot in the other direction these days, and is perfectly possible in this direction as well. The problem is that “free” ad-based social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) feeds on user engagement, and the more of their users feed the troll the higher their ad revenue.

While not feeding the troll is perfectly reasonable and there’s enough people with sufficient common sense, we all are quite vulnerable to letting GUI patterns slip past our logical thinking and speak directly to system 1. The GUI is powerful in this way, and arguably it’s never really neutral. In case of “free” social media, it promotes action, it makes the “like” action the most effortless, it feeds likes into recommendations, and so on. Not feeding the troll goes against everything it stands for.

I’ll probably never shut up about it, but I believe making social media paid rather than ad-driven is what has the power to address this issue in the most reasonable way. Paid social media should be normalized.