On the internet, no one know’s you’re a dog. Nor does anyone know if there’s actually a person behind a social media account. It might be multiple. It might be a sock puppet account. It might also be a bot. And since the only currency in social media are likes and shares, it’s not that hard to fake your way to the top, to appear bigger, more successful, or influential than you really are. The so called “alt-right”¹ knows this, and has mastered it: The Outline’s Paris Martineau on how alt-right Twitter tricks the media into panicking by appearing like an influential media outlet with considerable influence, when in reality it might be mostly smoke and mirror.

In reality, the metrics of likes or shares tell you little about the actual success of a post, regardless of the political spectrum of the source. 10.000 followers does not translate into 10.000 people who are actually reading every post, and 5.000 likes does not mean there were really 5.000 people who thought your post was great. Instead, we have gamified social media posting, and it’s way too easy to cheat the system.

What’s more, this gamification also means people are no longer discussing, but instead try to “win” debates, using questionable tactics. They’re no longer interested in an exchange of ideas, and instead treat mindset as a weakness to exploit, and to pander to their own egos, or their audience, so they can spread their views more easily.

And right now, they’re winning. Partially, because negativity is so much easier to create, even if it doesn’t remotely reflect the actual reality of an experience. Or since all we care about are the number of shares, then sharing an article because its bad still helps spread its message by implying popularity. A share does not record why it was shared, only that it was shared, making it easy to twist.

In turn, we might need to learn that we don’t need to treat everyone with care and deference, especially online. We should start to call people out on their bullshit, and not couch our words and opinions, because they sure don’t. Instead, they exploit our inability or unwillingness to be mean to them. Or, as Alex Nichols writes, it’s fine to be mean to racists and ghouls. They don’t deserve it otherwise.

Other interesting links from around the web:

• Women’s Pockets are Inferior — Surprisingly, women’s pockets aren’t very large (via The Verge)
• The Original Ghostbuster — Apparently, you’re gonna call Mr. Vic Tandy
• The Time China Had a 12 Day Long Traffic Jam (YouTube)

📖 Weekly Longread 📚

How to spot a perfect fake: the world’s top art forgery detective

🦄 Unicorn Chaser 🦄

Paul Bronks on Twitter: “Otters on a keyboard, I know, I know, it’s serious. #WorldOtterDay… “ (Video)