Since Russian trolls are omnipresent, do we do anything to counter-troll them? [View all]

[ck4829]

A signature line like mine would be a start IMHO.

"Sergei Magnitsky's cause of death: Heart attack. No, fall on head. No, pancreatitis. No, abdominal rupture. No, Bill Browder did it. No, self-inflicted."

Why do we need to start counter-trolling them?

I see this in many places, I'm calling the whole internet out, all sides, all factions. When someone makes an unorthodox argument, says something that defies social conventions, or says something perceived to be shocking or deviant... they get called a Russian troll or an agent of Putin trying to divide us. This should have become a dead horse when I saw a defender of Michael Flynn saying it, saying that people supporting accountability for Flynn are just doing Putin's work, but no, this circumstantial ad hominem or ad fontem argument is still with us. So let's not call someone a Russian troll just because we don't like what the other person is saying.

Also, the need to counter-troll them does not ignore or exclude the reality that Russians are indeed manipulating our political system. And if they are engaging with us, then maybe we can engage back with them. It's funny, we're supposed to somehow convince Republicans who subscribe to conspiracy theories about Pizzagate and QAnon and believe Democrats are now "socialist" and "socialist" now means valuing human lives over confederate statues or not wanting to get shot in school to vote for us in 2020. If we CAN convince those people to vote for us, then I'm pretty sure we can convince some Russian trolls to become assets against Putin as well.

So instead of just saying Russian trolls are around every e-corner and the source of every opinion you don't like, what are you doing to counter their influence or even turn them into activists against Putin?