There are five main ways to respond to bad faith comments on social media. Depending on the situation you’re in, you’ll need to take one or more of these approaches:
Ignore
Engage
Argue
Smack down
Peel away
Why am I writing about this now?
Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a bunch of people do a less than impressive job at handling bad faith comments on multiple social networks.
I’ve been participating in (and later managing) online communities for over twenty-five years now. So I figured I should share this list of tried-and-tested approaches because less experienced folks might find it useful.
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
1. Ignore
You can’t ignore bad faith comments, especially in smaller communities and especially if it’s the first comment on a post. If you do, you risk people thinking the commenter’s assertions are the majority view. So you have to publicly challenge what they’ve said, and ideally as quickly as possible.
The only time you ignore bad faith comments is when the bad faith commenter goes on and on, and you know that all they’re trying to do is waste your time. So, if you can’t block or ban them, you have to ignore them.
(Don’t feel that when you’re ignoring bad faith comments you’re taking a passive approach to the situation, by the way. The whole point of bad faith comments is to muddy the waters of the discussion and to waste people’s time. By ignoring their repeated comments, you’re actively not doing what the bad faith commenter wants you to do. This is a good thing!)
2. Engage
If you earnestly engage in bad-faith comments, then the bad-faith commenter has ‘won’. That’s because their whole point was to waste your time.
That said, your first response should probably be an earnest reply. This is just to verify the bad-faithedness of the original comment. Sometimes people aren’t good at expressing themselves online. If you start by responding openly you can check if they meant well but spoke poorly.
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3. Argue
You only argue with bad-faith commenters if you have the time and if you enjoy doing so. Trolls and shit-posters live for this kind of thing. (Absurdist shitposting on bad faith comments is probably my favourite approach.)
4. Smack down
If done right, a smack-down response will end the conversation from your end. Any subsequent reply from the original commenter will just make them look worse.
It is important, though, that you stop responding after you’ve delivered you smack down. You have dropped the mic; you should not pick it up again.
Also, a smack down doesn’t have to be an angry or antagonistic retort. You can be funny, wry, sarcastic, indignant, or something else entirely. You just have to say something that will make any subsequent replies from the bad faith commenter look whiny and slightly desperate for attention.
A word of warning though: smack downs do tend to make bad faith commenters angry, so be prepared for them to lash out or worse. People have been doxxed when trying to smack down bad faith commenters online.
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5. Peel away
The ‘peel away’ approach takes time and finesse but is fun. You basically keep asking the bad faith commenter to explain why they’re saying what they’re saying. Once you’ve peeled off enough layers, the absurdity of their argument becomes apparent to everyone.
(This is also a good approach for when people make sexist and racist jokes. You can always respond to those with “wait, why is that funny?” and take it from there.)
This is not the easiest approach to take though. It takes time and it has the potential to go off the rails. So maybe leave it for seasoned community members and managers to execute.
Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash
Which approach do I take?
My first response is usually an earnest one, especially if this is first time I’m hearing from someone who I don’t know.
Then, based in the response to that — and on how much time I want to dedicate to this discussion — I either go the smack-down or the peel-away route.
After that I ignore all further responses from the bad faith commenter.
I do continue to respond to other comments on the post, by the way. And I have had cases in which a bad faith commenter has chased me around the rest of the comment thread trying to get me to engage with them again. Fortunately, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I find it super easy to ignore people like that :)
Do you have a preferred approach?
What do you think of my list? Those might be the fine mains approaches, but there are several others. What’s worked for you in the past?
And what’s the first thing you do when you see a bad faith comment?
Let me know.