Edit for context:
My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing (they’re purposefully leaving the context out so my friend looks transphobic when what my friend really said was transgender is valid but transracial isn’t)
Disengaging does not help spread propaganda. Engaging and giving horrible ideas a platform does help spread propaganda.
Your “debate bro” advice is about ten years out of date.
You’re wrong. Completely wrong on so many levels. This is all about engagement. That whole “too enlightened to engage” attitude is exactly how the right managed to take over so much of the online space. Right-wing think tanks and PR firms invested in engagement, nonstop posts, repetition, platform saturation. And it worked.
People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.
It’s not because they believe it. It’s because that’s what they see. All the time.
The reason it’s gotten this bad? A whole chunk of people on the left thought disengaging was smart. That if they just ignored it, it would go away. It didn’t. It spread. And now we’re here.
You are 100% correct on this part.
The problem is, arguing with them magnifies that effect, it doesn’t challenge it.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t push back. I don’t mean smile and agree, or just ignore them. Deplatforming works, protests work, proud visibility works, civil disobedience works. Responding negatively works. Making it so that there is a social cost to being a transphobe works.
But debating them isn’t any of those things. Debating them is engaging with them, and in the act of arguing with you, they actually solidify the beliefs they already hold, and this is especially true of heavily polarised issues. Here’s some research on it https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01623-8 (PDF link), and an article that goes in to the topic a bit https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-is-it-that-even-proven-facts-cant-change-some-peoples-minds
As much as it feels right to argue with them, all you are doing is strengthening their already held beliefs when you do. It might feel like its helping, but it isn’t. You’ll read my response, and you’ll likely go “screw that, you’re wrong, I’m going to keep arguing”. And that’s the exact effect I’m talking about at play. Every time you argue with someone, they have that same internal reaction to your comments, no matter what you say, or how strongly you believe it.
If you debate people and onlookers find themselves agreeing more with the other guy than they were at the start, the answer is to re-evaluate your arguments. When you go to social shaming, while you may get people to shut up, you also solidify those people against you. You blocked off the mechanism for those onlookers to have their mind changed and created resentment for the social cost you impose on them.
Isn’t it weird how when you talk to someone online they generally won’t go against the grain, yet Trump now won a second term? And not only that, but he won the popular vote this time around with 14,317,752 more votes than he got the first time around.
That is what social shaming does. Instead of trying to convince people, you force them against you.