I'm realising, much thanks to @HarryJosieGiles, how much internet conflict essentially is quite literally a non consensual PvP computer game for a lot of people (with admittedly very real world consequences in terms of having cultural, epistemic and policy impacts).

The problem with a lot of the engagement we do is that it becomes content for people who are bored. This creates huge challenges for us trying to raise any awareness about harms being done to us. Their emotional impact on us is content for them. The time they take is content.

I think one of the most obvious toxic signifiers of this tendency is the "you block = I win" thing which I've seen both sides of this, as people our side gradually consent to the implicit rules of the game and find themselves griefing the other side back.

We need to be clear that noone is winning here. This conflict has already done immeasurable harms to a lot of trans people in our rights and also by wasting so many of our time, time we should value and spend carefully, because it's what our lives are made of.

I think the thing that I've been struggling to get to grips with is that more sincere engagement isn't much better either. I spent years trying to talk to TERFs, some of whom appeared sincere in wanting to meet on the issues and find ways to reduce harm, and yet it never happens.

I now think it's just a fluffier way of ending up producing content for our antagonists. The baseline issue is that this really is a non consensual online PvP computer game. As the parties under attack, we hold no power in the domain of the conflict *here* to get people to listen

There's always this imagination that it matters to show we are right for some hypothetical audience but noone who isn't already a player themselves is really interested. What we need is to reduce the game theoretic elements dominating how we address the underlying social issues.

This also doesnt mean complacency. The other place I'm seeing this happening is in eg yesterday's gr0yping incident where Keir Starmer was caught out by a white supremacist woman calling in to LBC to make use of the platform to spread Nazi memes.

I agree that Keir should have robustly rebutted the great replacement bs, but it's just as clear from the celebrations had on Nazi telegram and from previous (where they celebrated reaction vids) that their criteria for winning are not what people think. https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3exp3/groyping-far-right-propaganda-tool-alt-right

This sort of trolling which the trans community is subject to, which opposition leader politicians are subject to, weirdly, is a form of viral advertising for these groups. It's hard to counter, and we're not going to succeed with individual solutions.

Other observation: both the things here rely on asymmetric conflict tactics. This doesn't mean they're always weak, but that online trolling campaigns when successful rely on approaches which aim for low cost high yield. Things that don't fit that profile are abandoned.

In the case of the TERF wars the groups involved have been building think tanks and consultancy groups in the background (higher cost, moderate yield, more sustainable) because trolling trans people needs to be converted into social capital somehow.

There's no real way to win being victims of trolling but we can try and mitigate the degree to which being targeted like this helps them build an empire on top.