Debate Guide: Social Media and Trolling

For a guide to trolling techniques used against MAPs, see this archived blog post.

Social Media platforms such as Twitter require a different debating strategy to bulletin boards, due to the fast-moving, character-limited type of discourse that is permitted. This page has been written as a guide to using Twitter, and therefore it goes into some technical detail about how to avoid censorship and other challenges. This is a shortened version of our advice given to Twitter users who want to make a positive contribution to the destigmatization effort.

We have also written (in essay form) a guide to trolling techniques in general. This essay also works as a primer for alternative-right trolls who seek to take advantage of MAP discourse and chan culture, as well as allies who need to enter the mindset of said individuals to fit in with their group.

MAPs have been visible on Twitter for most of its history

Twitter Guide

Fancy the idea of putting these techniques into action, or just discussing them with an actual person? See Joining PCMA chat

Due to its size and openness to Liberal minorities, Twitter is one of the better platforms for MAP Activism. Even then, Twitter suspends accounts without any notice/warning/reason, and randomly requests phone verification, usually every few weeks on an active account. MAPs and Allies have successfully evaded censorship against these stacked odds, and avoided account suspensions by using some basic tips and tricks while tweeting. Some have surpassed 1500+ tweets, when using a more cautious mix of pro-c and anti-stigma content. Following initial suspensions, Twitter users can employ virtual numbers to verify a new account, and these come as cheap as $0.1 per verification. An entire industry has sprung up around phone verifications. Care must still be taken to use your account prudently, and it should ideally last for 300+ tweets. The longer it lasts, the more followers you gain (if you do some moderate “organic” following – say 15 MAP/Ally accounts per session) and the more reach you will have within this group, and possibly even beyond it.

Remember, when we are debating, our aim is not to directly convince the 1-2 people with whom we are conversing in a thread, but to broadcast our message to passive readers. These undecided “lurkers” may not be interacting in the thread but will still be reading our tweets.

Precautions

• 1) Always clear your cookies (from Twitter and T.co) when switching between/creating new accounts, or even better, open Twitter in Incognito mode, so that it does not save cookies and tracking details. If you happen to open a new account once a previous one is suspended, you ought not to be running the same IP or cookies and give your game away. Consider a browser fingerprint emulator/extension like Chameleon, to hide your digital signature.

• 2) Always use a VPN, there are many free VPNs available. Also, remember that for each account, you should always connect to the same country’s servers whenever you log into the VPN. This helps prevent Twitter’s algorithms getting suspicious and asking you to re-verify. This also hides your real IP address and adds an extra layer of security.

Account creation

High-quality accounts (with serviceable email verifications) can be purchased in bulk for as little as a 50cents a piece from websites such as AccFarm, and we will often have them lined up in chat, ready to go, so just ask.

Manually creating an account on Twitter is also simple, when you use our phone verification facility. Twitter will ask you for a username, password and phone number. You can use whichever name you want, or use this website to generate a random username. Try to pick a username which doesn’t have many trailing numbers, as it looks suspicious and such accounts are more likely to get suspended. If you are modifying an account you purchased, remember you are free to change the username a few times, and probably should, initially.

Have the phone verification service (e.g. SMSPVA.com) open during your account creation, so you can hire the number as you go through the process. You will need the number to proceed, and it may cost as little as 5 cents of credit. The country of the number you hire usually doesn't have to correspond to the IP address you are using. Remember, before logging out of your first session with the new account, you must immediately delete the phone number from Twitter control panel. This is because you will not be able to re-verify with the same number. Removing your number forces them to come looking for a new one, once the time comes to reverify (usually every 6 weeks or so). Twitter may ask you to solve a few small puzzles during or after account creation. This is to verify that you are not a robot.

For your bio (biography), unless you are aiming for “MAP Visibility”, avoid writing anything like ‘MAP, NoMAP, Pro-C, Anti-Contact’ in your bio. Ideally, a “normie” account should read like a list of interests. Common phrases include "opinions my own" and "RT does not = endorsement". Other useful identities are "researcher" or "academic", although these are harder to fake for obvious reasons. If you are impersonating a MAP, civilian or MAP-adjacent person (proshipper, zoofur, anime fan) go with a popular character from a fandom, maybe (for your display pic). This way, you can blend in with existing communities on Twitter, if you have reasonable knowledge of them. If you want to use a fake “real” identity, use the notorious trolling tool TPDNE to create a random face. Please note, however, in the past, some haters have figured out when others have been using AI generated faces as profile pictures. So, in order to avoid that, put the image into a free photo editor (photoshop CS2, GIMP, etc) to remove color, increase shade, distort the angle, or rotate slightly to put the eyes off-level. You can also add noise and very slight blurring effects with such photo-editing tools – making it look more like a user-shot photo. Alternatively, just claim upfront that you are “anonymous researcher/student” or “citizen journalist”, and use a silhouette, TPDNE face, avatar or random object as your display pic. Anonymity is entirely plausible and realistic, given what you are going to be using the account for!

Engaging

When you first get started on Twitter, start following the account of prominent researchers and organizations (Prostasia, Virped, James Cantor, Michael Bailey, Michael Seto), then your fellow team members. Tackle new frontiers every day, and keep it fresh. Don’t reply to tweets that are too old, as not many people are likely to view them. There are ways to find new places to engage:

• Search Query (advanced), e.g. With the brackets as the search box[ pedophilia min_retweets:1 ]. You could alternatively filter results such as [ pedophiles min_retweets:1 ] [ pedophilia min_retweets:1 ] [ pedophile min_retweets:1 ] [ MAP Pedo min_retweets:1 ] [ "minor attracted" min_retweets:1 ] [ CSA min_retweets:1 ] [ "Child Sexual Abuse" min_retweets:1 ] or introduce more parameters, e.g. [ pedophilia min_replies:5 min_faves:5 min_retweets:2 ].
• Check your associates' Twitter accounts and see whom they are engaging with/followed by.
• Automatic feed or private list. When you follow people with similar agendas, you are likely to get their tweets in your feed automatically, you can start out from there. Or just set up a “list” with selected users (perhaps even antis), and save it as private; visible only to you.
• Search using Twitter’s explore feature.
• Look out for Quote Retweets. These are one major way information proliferates and metastasizes.
• Retweet useful content. If you agree with an argument, share it, or give your own take. The same if you strongly disagree. Try not to waffle or fence-sit.

Debating strategy

Take a look at your fellow MAPs and allies and see the conversations they are engaging in, the tweets they are replying to and join in with a conversation thread – perhaps a fork that has not yet been answered. Try to reply to the latest tweets. Check a Debate Guide/Debate Script, as well as checking for any relevant info-meme or research excerpt graphic that suits the situation. Try to reply to some of the Tweets for which you have a good comeback, as Quote Retweets.

The most effective way of debating as an activist is to quickly establish the truth claims or assumptions of your opponent, and then baldly refute/discredit them without support, pointing to the fact that research or common sense says otherwise. This looks more plausible and more “disinterested” than forming a full, fact-based rebuttal in that one instant. If and when you are challenged, unload all the relevant research (including info-memes and research graphics) within 2-4 consecutive tweets, before your opponent can even reply. State upfront that you are not there to debate, just to correct bad assumptions, and aim to leave the conversation at this point. Move on to a new target. New targets will bring in new passive readers. Over-long “marathon” threads achieve very little for every half hour of time we invest in them, and risk dragging viewers away from your substantive arguments at the top of the thread! Long, tiring threads tend to betray the participants’ (including your) emotional investments and logical flaws, while casting no new light upon the subject at hand.

On the value of infographics

You can use the linked Infomemes and Research based excerpts above, free of attribution. Use them in the relevant place as much as possible. They are a good way to attract viewers to your tweets, and overcome character limits. Don’t forget accounts and testimonies (including your own experiences). People are far more likely to believe an argument, if it is attached to an emotive anecdote and a human face.

Sidestepping the censors

Censorship has been the biggest hurdle facing MAPs, not only on Twitter, but on all other platforms. Here are a few basic rules to avoid censorship:

• The first rule is to avoid using the word “child(ren)” or “kid(s)” as much as possible (most "CSA" involves 12-16 year olds). Use words like “they”, “them”, “minor/youth/young person/teen” instead of “children”, especially when juxtaposed to “adult”. Avoiding “child” (or its synonyms), “adult” and “sex” in the same tweet allows prejudiced viewers to “assume the best” of your argument, and is less of a red flag for “selfish” “pedo-logic” or someone who is thinking with their dick.

• Try to focus the debate on the topic which you are arguing, like brain development, Age of Consent, psychological harm, etc. In this way, you should not be drawn into using words like “child” or ”children” by an opponent, thus conceding their misplaced assumptions about the very young age of the subjects, and losing the debate. When needed, make use of numerical ages instead of saying child, i.e. “13y/o” or “someone who is/was 13”. Instead of “sex”, use words that do not imply penetration (relations, sexual activity). Point out when they try to introduce hypothetical infants, etc as an absurd device.

Example - rewording:

If you want to say - “When a child has sex with an adult, it does not always cause trauma”:

Research and anecdotes indicate that when they are sexually active with an adult, harm does not always follow” or...
Many youth, even those who don’t initiate the activity with an older person – do not show the stereotypical signs of trauma”.

When they state that "a child cannot consent to sex":

“Consent” is essentially when a minor's agreement to sexual intimacy is deemed valid by the law in his or her jurisdiction. Who sets these rules?

• Avoid directly “glorifying pedophilia” (it’s counter to the terms and conditions). Don’t say “pedophilia is normal and natural”. Instead, go with “sexual intimacy is a natural thing; unrelated to arbitrary age limits for most of human history”. In general, try to limit the use of the word ‘pedophilia’, unless necessary. Also, whenever possible or whenever reference is needed, try to use the word “adult” instead of MAPs. This reduces any undue attention on the identitarian group; after all minor-adult sex is a topic for the whole of society, and doesn't "belong" to MAPs.

• Use info-memes (linked further up) when appropriate. They cannot be easily detected and interpreted by algorithms and they are almost immune to censorship. They also attract attention (increasing engagement/clickthrough). Info-memes help bypass the word limit on Twitter, and you can use your tweet to summarize what is inside.

• Similarly, to bypass the character limit, just write your reply in a document (word/notepad) and insert the screenshot as an image. You can use tools like LightShot, which makes it easy. And you can insert the screenshot as an image in your tweet.

• Sometimes it might happen that you get noticed and people start a mass-reporting campaign against you. If you feel that the risk of a ban is high, first block whoever is doing this (and their associates) and then change your username – even going "private" in your settings.

• Use mass-blocking tools (or ask our group admin for the most recent blocklist). Unfortunately, we are not aware of any app that allows *community* sharing of blocklists, and automatic blocking from a raw list. One such script is Twitter Block With Love.

With MegaBlock, you can not only block the user from an account that has published a tweet that has been offensive to you for any reason, you can also do the same with all those who liked the tweet. Usually when someone is a violent and arrogant type of enemy, all their followers are of the same kind. They will often co-ordinate to harass you, so you can block people along with all their followers with the Chrome Extension, Twitter Block Chain.

Tips

• Do not follow more than 10-15 accounts per session (especially in one fell swoop), Twitter perceives it as suspicious behavior and may ask to verify the account.
• Do not reply to tweets in quick succession in a short period of time (particularly with identical replies). Twitter sees this as spamming and this is the quickest way to get your account suspended. Limiting yourself to around 1 tweet per minute also allows you to compose more intelligent and less bot-like responses.
• Do not engage in flaming, i.e. abusive or violent words, this is again another way to lose the account quickly. We have to be assertive but civil as we are already on probation for our beliefs.
• Pick and choose your battles carefully. You will find various kinds of people on Twitter, there are some you need to avoid, some you need to engage.

• Avoid: You will find people who encourage violence (‘go kill yourself’ or ‘pedos deserve to die’) or engage in/incite mass-report campaigns against “pedos”. Such people are not worth engaging with. BLOCK them, unless you feel that you are uniquely able to bait some truly atrocious/bannable behavior out of them while remaining civil. If they have made a bannable comment, you may also REPORT them (particularly if they are high profile) – we had success using this function against the influencer Marina Camacho (aka Holistic Honey). Remember that Twitter takes comments encouraging suicide very seriously.
• Engage: There are some people who are willing to partake of civil discussion. Others will be so ignorant as to make you look good by comparison. These are the people whom you need to target.

• If you are getting too overwhelmed with the number of replies, limit yourself to 1 reply per person (with an adequate graphic and/or link), or choose the low-hanging fruits, whose arguments you can easily counter. Don’t stress yourself too much, and don’t hesitate to use the block button.
• Keep checking your analytics once in a while for now many people viewed your tweets, also don’t get disappointed if the impressions and engagement is poor. You can check it for both individual tweets and also for your complete profile. To check the individual tweets, click on the three lines on the right most side below your tweet.
• If any of your tweets blow up and get lots of comments, encourage others to join into the conversation via your DMs or thru a chat client.
• Take screenshots of your best tweets and their analytics. Re-use the rhetorical methods in the more successful examples (see the section on baiting in the below trolling guide).
• Don't spam or squat hashtags, but be aware of their potential uses. Perhaps invent a catchy hashtag and promote it as a meme. Viralization of a tweet increases the risk of a suspension or a ban, but ultimately, we are here to create a buzz around our topic.
• Work with others - i.e. one friend can make baity comments, while numerous others take advantage of the commotion by interjecting with intelligent commentary and rebuttals.
• It is recommended that you refer to the classic Debate Guide before you begin, or at least the scripted version.

Trolling Guide

Trolling is a strategy that has worked for some MAP Activists, and not worked for others. Always pay attention to the T&C and norms on the platform you are using.

Jim Burton's essay, Pedophile trolling for beginners, written with assistance from PCMA, serves as a comprehensive guide to trolling techniques.