I read possibly the most rage-bait-y take yesterday, and I almost responded.

But I'm trying to get better about not getting sucked in to rage bait, so I didn't respond.

But I did click through to the author's profile and see that he wasn't just some random user, he's an executive at the non-profit that manages Mastodon software development.

He came in with a very motte and bailey argument, where he made an absolutely outrageous and indefensible claim based on very little evidence, and then quickly covered it with a more defensible and evidence based claim.

But all through his post and the replies was the paternalistic, guilt tripping, shameful tone policing, again clearly and intentionally designed to conflate his pet issue with larger issues and goad people into conversation.

I have very little interest in discussing the topic he was discussing (ostensibly "journalists using the fediverse" but actually "AI proponents feeling unwelcome on the fediverse") but I do want to talk about emotional manipulation on social media, because it's a growing problem.