Case Story: Defend Yourself

Summary	Learning how to handle misinformation spread by others in online communities
Group / workshop	Digital Identities	Status	seed
Project details...

Situation

What was the setting in which this case study occurred?

I was taking part in a massively online multi user course, on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, with the tag CCK08.  This took place across a wide range of platforms, with a Moodle instance as a central hub.  Reflection tended to be done on people's personal blogs, whilst asynchronous discussion was normally in the Moodle forum.  Because of the large scale nature of the course, there were all sorts of people involved, some of whom had decidedly lower standards when it came to inter-personal discussion than others. One individual was particularly fond of making completely untrue statements about other people, which had the potential for degrading their Digital Identities.

Task

What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?

It was important to determine a good approach to deal with the misinformation being spread by others, apparently with malicious intent.

Actions

What was done to fulfil the task?

A review of techniques available was necessary.  Some people I know left the course altogether, which was an option.  Rational explanation that the individual was mistaken was tried, both publicly on the discussion forum and in private, but yielded no useful outcome.  Ignoring material which was not directly aimed at me personally was also an option, but the 'troll' in question would still interject with ludicrous assertions in conversations they had not previously been party to.  It was felt that just ignoring the troll would not work, as many people tend to read things and believe them if there is no attempt at refutation.

A 'Fire and forget' approach was tried, where a refutation of the 'troll' would be made and then any subsequent follow up would be ignored.

I backed this up with a reflective blog post about the issue.

Results

What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?

The 'Fire and forget' approach seemed to work best.  Once this approach was adopted, the number of directly inaccurate comments reduced dramatically, but those which did occur were still challenged.  Several people started to get in touch around this time, which may or may not have been related.  A couple said they liked the way I had handled it.

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the experience?

This is one of those cases where you have to adapt your behaviour depending on observations of the interaction.  In the past, other techniques (ignore/argue etc) have worked, but in this case they were not up to the task.  I did find myself drawn in to the 'flame war' on a couple of occasions, but I am not overly concerned about this - when analysing the image of me I got from reading the forums, I preferred it to the image I got of others who maintained a greater degree of detachment.  Discussion seems best to me when it is rational but with a dose of passion.

Licensing

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.