I do think this is extremely problematic in the long run.
It's turtles all the way down, where each turtle is yelling at the one on top.
And I kinda get it, I was there for it as well and to this day will make shitposts on the internet with no intent to actually engage with any replies <_<
'twas ever thus - some people just like arguing. Give them an amplifier and they'll never stop. Usenet was the same, back in the day, so its nothing new.
It's a small community, but it's an interesting experiment at what online communication could be.
My online posting life got a lot less stressful once I realized that the world will be exactly the same if I neglect to rebut some twitter user's bad/uninformed point of view.
Maybe you have a ton more social clout than I do, though :P
The winning move is to seem like the winning side of discourse in their space.
The truly winning move is to own a media conglomerate including social psychology people in communications.
That said, if you are playing, the winning move is not to play their games. Don't engage with their attempted straw man arguments, or end up in endless discussions about semantics. Some of the best debates I've seen / read were people not playing games and not reacting to bad faith arguments / tactics, but instead cleverly pointing out something else.
I get involved in conversations, but not in heated debates. I don't even dignify bad faith responses with an answer.
Participation is optional. If it's pointless and unpleasant, I don't bother anymore.
It's just not what public debate is. You see rookie politicians do it, but it's generally a mistake.
A huge part of what political debate is, is dominating the frame. The frame. The key facts, alternative or otherwise. The key question being debated.
Once those are established, the conclusion tends to be trivial.
There is no flow of information and I could not see this form of acts as "communication" - it seems to be more like a kind of art/show/performance.
So a key part of such debates becomes influencing or provoking others to talk about things that advance your cause and avoiding discussion of things that hurt it. E.g. if someone says "you eat babies" and you respond with extensive evidence that you don't, then that public debate becomes a debate about you being a baby-eater and not whatever you wanted to promote.
I mean not always, but I do wonder if the posts that LOOK like they're in good faith are also misleading as such.
Best thing to do is to not spend the energy. Don't engage with anyone if they don't have an open mind or are acting in bad faith. If it's more neutral, you can always ask "What will it take you to change your mind?"; the answer of that will determine if it's worth spending energy on. And the answer to that could be done in bad faith as well - for example, if the other says "I will change my mind if I see a scientific paper disproving me", but then proceeds to not actually read any scientific paper sent to them, they were acting in bad faith all along.
[0] The annoying popups you get when you scroll too far without being logged in, do at least prevent me from doom-scrolling
I feel the same way! When they come up, my reaction is "nice"+cmd-w. Thanks, twitter!
To your response: I mean, there are some curious people on twitter. Curious people don't engage in the problematic dynamics outlied in the article, so some exchange of information happens there. That's clearly not representative of the bigger picture though, simply because the most people can't afford curiosity, courtesy of their cognitive functions (if you subscribe to Jungs model) and/or their position in maslows pyramid.
This extends to a lot of politics these days. There are well-financed parties out there whose goal is to destabilize, mainly targeting the US and Europe but I'm sure it happens everywhere. These are the ones behind Trump getting elected, Brexit proceeding even though only 28% of eligible voters voted in favor of it, the referendum being bad for only having two options, and the referendum only being advisory, and countries like Hungary and Poland shifting hard to authoritarian right, breaking with the separation of state and justice.
These forces have the destabilization of post-ww2 unions in mind on the one hand, and people focusing on each other internally instead of internationally on the other. Think things like JK Rowling's trolling, Trump coming out with something that all of twitter and the media pounce on, Reddit brigades.
What do you think ‘stay on message’ means? It’s as old as rhetoric itself.
Cathago delenda est!