The establishment media is quick to brand most Pro-Duterte supporters as trolls to discredit them and to justify their decision not to take a serious look at allegations made by Pro-Duterte supporters against the Liberal Party opposition. Rappler’s thought leader Sylvia Estrada Claudio recently published an article titled “Block a Troll Today“. In this article she outlines how to detect a troll argument and argues that we should block a troll when we see one as our patriotic duty.
In this post I will try to show you that this so called patriotic duty Rappler’s thought leader is trying to sell is nothing but a con. The media, particularly Rappler, has been very vocal about their crusade against “trolls”. I will argue that this so called “crusade” is nothing but Rappler’s attempt to bully other sources of information into submission. Rappler wants to maintain a monopoly on information dissemination online. Rappler and the establishment media tries to achieve this by branding competing ideas as troll arguments to discredit them but they refuse to use the same standard and branding against Liberal party opposition attacks against Duterte. Let me show you how the media’s double standard works and unmask Ms. Claudio’s inner troll nature.
How to Detect a troll argument and forget about my own trolling.
- The Argument ad hominem.
According to Ms. Claudio this is a logical fallacy where the troll attacks the motive, character or attribute of the opposing party instead of rebutting the substance of the argument. She gives some very specific examples of this:
One thing clearly apparent in her list is the fact that none of them are anti-Duterte. No mention about the fact that pro-Duterte supporters have been branded as Dutertards as a way to discredit them and put them down. I guess she was just giving us a list of things people have called her so she can be excused for not listing anti-Duterte ad hominem attacks but as a journalist she should have at least talked about attacks against pro-Duterte supporters online. Since she did not bother to do this, I took at look at her twitter timeline so see some of what Ms. Claudio have said about Pro-Duterte supporters and allies on twitter:
Clearly Ms. Claudio is also guilty of ad hominem attacks. Is she a troll? I don’t think she would agree to such a characterization.
- The Rinse and repeat argument.
According to Ms. Claudio This is used when the trolls have to face incontrovertible evidence that what they have claimed is not true. She gives us an example:
The problem with this argument is that it does not move the argument forward. How different is it from this argument Ms. Claudio made:
Here is a link to the twitter conversation she had that resulted in this tweet. What you will notice is that @jimerdioneda never said testimonies in the Naga Leaks were better. Jim’s argument was this:
Instead of a engaging the argument head on, Ms. Claudio goes rinse and repeat. So is Ms. Claudia a troll? I don’t think she would agree with the characterization.
- The “you should have condemned this too and if you did not, than you are a hypocrite” argument.
According to Ms. Claudio this is not a valid argument because one does not excuse, rationalize or minmize the present evil by citing a previous or another one. She said these types of arguments are illogical in and of itself. I agree with her because my actions in the past cannot have any bearing on the validity of my arguments in the present. However she makes the same troll like argument too:
This tweet not only accuses hypocrisy but the argument in and of itself is illogical, plus an ad hominem attack (calling some people scum). Is Ms. Claudio a troll? I don’t think she would agree to such characterization.
- The outright insult or threat.
Ms. Claudio said this troll tactic is deplorable and should not be tolerated. She said an example of this is slut shaming Mocha and Leila De Lima to vilify them instead of engaging with their argument. According to Ms. Claudio insults and threats do not contribute to discourse and argumentation. So why did she say these things?
So if Ms. Claudio insults people on twitter by accusing them of abusing a prescription drug without proof and by calling a sitting senator a dastardly, sniveling coward, does that make her a troll? I don’t think she would agree with this characterization.
I would not characterize Ms. Claudio as a troll personally. I would call her a passionate anti-Duterte journalist. That characterization is not an insult. It is not to put into question her skill as a journalist. What I question is her self-proclaimed impartiality and aversion to bias. Yes she is biased, the media is biased, I am biased. There is nothing wrong with bias because it is natural. What makes it wrong is when a journalist or a media outlet proclaims to be the only source of truth by peddling their biased view of reality. That is the death of democracy and truth.
Yes there are deplorable people online. Yes people can say nasty things online. Yes people may be guilty of illogical arguments online. Does that make them trolls? The problem with Rappler and Ms. Claudio’s argument is that it makes people lazy and gives the media too much value in mediating the truth for society. I do not deny the existence of trolls online but the problem with such a simplistic characterization of trolls and a narrow-minded solution of blocking them proposed by Ms. Claudio is that it traps all of us in an echo chamber. As we have seen, Ms. Claudio herself is guilty of troll like arguments on twitter, using her own standards, people should block her too? I suggest we don’t block her and trolls like her. We should embrace them instead – like a fluffy teddy bear.
We should allow people to bring out dissenting opinions online no matter how deplorable it is. This is important in a democracy. Our patriotic duty is not to ensure “safe spaces” but to ensure and create “open spaces” for discourse. This means we have to be ready to hear opinions that we find deplorable and be willing to engage with these opinions and attack the argument out in the open. This is our patriotic duty, to get dirty in the messy world of free speech, not to set rules for decorum as a requirement for entry in to discourse. The act of blocking people who makes illogical arguments and labeling them as trolls is not patriotic. It is lazy.
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