Edit, since people are now seeing this post who did not see the the reason for it:

At the time of creating and posting this, there was an account that was created using a well known username and spamming extremly transphobic hate posts. Some users were starting to interact with this very obvious troll, so I thought it might be a good idea to generally remind people how to treat these trolls. This is not about some light hearted banter or good faith jokes, this is about trolls that are truly only about spreading hate.

  • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
    62·
    9 hours ago

    Have you got any examples? Because in my experience a lot of the time people who are block happy just happen to have extreme views they refuse to have challenged and rather just stick their heads in the sand so they don’t ever have to entertain the possibility that they’re wrong.

    Blocking just creates echo chambers, leading to group think effects and fanaticism.

    • Signtist@bookwyr.meEnglish
      3·
      7 hours ago

      Yeah, even in instances where one side is clearly right, it’s still important to be challenged often enough to know exactly why it’s right. As soon as you’re comfortable enough with “knowing” something is right without being able to explain why, you risk believing things that “feel” correct but might not be. You don’t have to actually argue with trolls, but you should still see and process their arguments enough to formulate a counterargument in your head that would stand up to a hypothetical person arguing in good faith.

      • ageedizzle@piefed.caEnglish
        3·
        5 hours ago

        I agree with you wholeheartedly. But in this case I one of the two trolls was spamming pornographic images, in which case I don’t think theres any issue with blocking

      • cepelinas@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        7 hours ago

        I saw another account from the same instance spamming porn, it probably is one trolls self hosted instance the instance should probably be banned.