Help Desk

:( Help!

I am a grad student and consider myself a proud feminist. Lately I've been getting into a lot of arguments on Facebook about a topic I feel strongly about, where many feminists disagree with me. I would name the topic, but then I'd be compelled to write literally 1,000 words about it.

The person I've been arguing with most recently is a colleague. I couldn't resist commenting on her Facebook wall when she posted what I consider to be an ignorant article. Suffice it to say, this did not go well. How do I stick up for what I believe in without alienating people? Or getting dragged into 40-comment-long threads that swallow hours of my life and involve more and more insanely specific research to keep up with?

– Do I Seem Like I Know Everything?!

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No one likes to admit they're wrong in public, DISLIKE, especially not in front of everyone they know. That's what you're asking your colleague to do when you pick a fight on her Facebook wall. Take a good, long look in the mirror and ask yourself which you would rather correct: A) the person or B) the argument she's making.

If you really think the colleague is out of line and needs some negative feedback in the form of comment-thread angst, go ahead and tattoo her wall with virtual graffiti. But realize that the bombs you throw will likely blow up in your face, too, in the form of the alienation and lost time you describe. Better, we think, to agree to disagree in public. Maybe later you can approach her privately, where the stakes are lower and your respect for her is clearer, and try to see eye-to-eye.

If your deeper concern is that her argument is wrong, then be strategic. Your acronym, DISLIKE, points to an important natural law of Facebook. Some things are just not possible there, due to the architecture of the site. "Disliking" a post is one. Successfully defending an unpopular position on the hostile territory of someone else's wall is another.

If you truly believe in your argument, look beyond her wall. Try old-fashioned, offline ways of getting involved with and organizing on behalf of your pet issue. In the online sphere, you have other options too. The obvious one is to make your argument on your own wall. We know how frustrating it can be to see your colleague rack up the "likes" while your posts languish. But that doesn't mean you're failing to convince people. It just means that your argument is less popular to begin with. Slow and steady wins the race.

Elsewhere on the Internet, if you don't mind going toe-to-toe with opposing arguments and evidence, Genius.com is beta-testing an innovative product that allows users to annotate passages of controversial online articles. Annotations can be up-voted and down-voted, and expert voices are highlighted. We'll see if it catches on and works as intended, but it's a worthy effort to supplant Facebook – a platform built to encourage consensus and impede dissent and "dislikes" – as many Americans' primary online venue for substantive political debate. :) HD