The next time you are tempted to get into it with an Anon who purposely slides into your mentions to "debate," pay close attention to what they're actually doing vs what it seems like they're doing.

I'm going to focus on one account but these techniques are everywhere.

Is the Anon actually making a claim, or are they just fishing for a response by asking open-ended questions, or looking for your "response" to a piece of media?

It's a huge red flag if they make no claim, but want to "debate" because there's nothing to debate without a claim.

Questions like "oh, so you don't think it's unusual that X thing happened?" is not actually a claim.

They're making you do twice the work here: first, guessing at what they're saying and then, trying to respond to it.

Questions, questions, questions. Hardly ever a statement. It's sealioning at it's finest.

Notice what happens when @WSS_Memorial rightly calls them on not actually making a claim: they drop it.

The same thing happens here: this time, it's in reaction to having accidentally made a claim and being challenged.

"There's no equivalent to Sharia in the Bible"
Okay, let's get the Old Testament & Quran and compare
"No. By the way, did you know X?"

That last part is really important. It's a course-correction. They went too far, and trapped themselves, so they're trying to refocus the conversation back to where they want it.

In both instances, there's also another technique in use: both times they lay the blame for why the conversation cannot continue on the other person.

Anyway, you see this again and again from this account.

Here's one where someone patiently explains why they're wrong about what 'defunding' means and they strawman it so hard, it's genuinely impressive.

When in doubt, always look at their sent tweets. Even spending even five minutes looking at this account's activity provides more than enough evidence they're a bad-faith actor.

Do not waste your time with accounts like this.

Your time is more valuable.

Postscript: an amazing tweet I found while looking through their feed

"I'm a reasonable person. I don't think only the Democrats are corrupt. There are Republicans who are corrupt, but they're not really Republicans"