It’s all about trust at the end of the day. The easiest is if you have a position of trust already. I had an older brother, and while he was a dick a lot, he also looked out for me, and I could tell when he was being serious about something. He also loved science, and he wanted me to love science too. So I studied hard and learned how it works, and now I think he was right.

He probably saved me, since I myself have always found more rebellious positions very appealing. But once you learn what the scientific method is, how it works and why it was needed in the first place, that sticks with you. It’s a method, not a belief, and just like your method for tying your shoes or riding a bike, it just sticks, because it works.

If you don’t have a position of trust, you have to lean on things that don’t require it. Clean rationality/logic can be used, and make sure to very thoroughly go step by step. If A, then B. If B, then C. If C, then D. Don’t assume any like you’re talking with a peer, instead go extremely by-the-book.

If they’re religious, you can use bible quotes. It does just so happen that Jesus himself was a rather opinionated fellow and left us a lot of material to work with. The man was even downright reasonable sometimes.

You can also use history, if you’re strong at it. It gives numerous routes for dealing with these arguments.

None will work reliably, but I think it’s a numbers game, where we just try to save what we can. First and foremost though, if you have a younger sibling, please be a good older brother/sister. They’re probably not ready for this messy of a world.

Everyone who goes there was not vulnerable to being influenced by facts or knowledge. Anyone who values a sound methodology for arriving at those will have stayed well away from the place.

The gateway into that shit isn’t Truth Social. It’s attitudes that attack education spread at the grassroots level, and once adopted, it leads to distrust of any message that coincides with the establishment position.

I mean, you’re right, but destroying it won’t help. They’ll just go somewhere else, worse. You can’t actually “cure” them with facts though, it just doesn’t work that way.

Noooooo leave them all there. It’s a containment space.

I mean, look, they will always go somewhere, okay? This is the internet, trust me, there’s plenty of places. But that service makes for ideal containment, mainly because Trump is on it and it’s not connected to anything else. It’s perfect. Don’t fucking ruin it.

edit: I mean, you want to shut something down with shitposting, go for the legacy outlets that provide them with a lot of their ideas and shit. Go after daily stormer or something, the older shit. Where a lot of the ideas originate, and the hardcore extremists get radicalized from. Those are more like the brain stem of the thing anyway, where truth social and fox are more like the body, the bulk.

“causing reputational damage” to the EU is probably a bit of an understatement.