Euler wrote: ↑Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:22 pm
I'd be interested in your views on how best to deal with the sort of abuse you get on social media.
Trader Pat wrote: ↑Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:00 pm
northbound wrote: ↑Mon Mar 19, 2018 6:39 pm
That's why a video about the reality of trading could set the record straight.
Couldn't see it making any difference. At the end of the day people believe what they want to believe and they're not interested in anybody telling them otherwise.
This. I strongly disagree with some of the advice on here.
@Euler
Ignoring is efficient, but I do think addressing comments has its place.
Have a little faith in the neutral viewer to reach the correct conclusion, and deal with the comments in whatever way makes you sleep best.
1) Why you shouldn't try to convert haters (or create a video with a similar purpose)
Let's run a best-case scenario:
Even if you were to convert your most brutal of 'haters' into a believer and made a video on the whole process;
- convincing them to pop in to the office
- showing them your plethora of historical statistics (something fakes will not have past a basic level)
- having them shadow you for a successful day of trading
- capturing footage of them apologising and confessing everything is legit
This isn't going to affect the beliefs of other haters (all haters are their own person and very much separate and disconnected from one another).
Even if they find the video, all evidence regardless of accuracy will still be dismissed/ignored.
You could go out of your way to point people towards such a video, but their brain is still going to fill in the gaps to achieve alignment with their beliefs (that's how we stay sane).
Whilst doing this shows you're being honest and transparent, it also shows your hand -- the fact that you care [enough about these comments to directly address them]. Your reasons for caring, are, unfortunately, another area which people will subconsciously read into and can become further ammunition for these people to use.
The conclusion haters would draw from such a video will be something like:
"That guy was never a hater in the first place, he probably works for BetAngel or was a hired actor"
"The comments in question are from not that long ago, so this must have been planned recently"
"The purpose of this video is to trick more people into buying their software"
They probably won't even watch the video...
I'd argue this is completely ineffective, or even counterproductive
2) Why the legal route is helpful but not worth it (especially so if the goal is to 'make an example' to put others off in future, as someone said)
This is way more serious than the previous approach and shows you mean business, and are coming from a position of strength. This would have the knock-on effect of mitigating that ammunition from the previous point.
"Would a fake really take it this far? Probably not"
Perhaps you're aware that over the last few years, people have actually been imprisoned in the UK for abusive social media comments, notably tweets (2014 was a big year for this). The victims have mostly been political figures and as such their main benefit came from the show of strength which accompanied the play, rather than the actual impact it had on preventing future comments.
This stance also presumes fear of repercussion will prevent future comments. Due to current technology, its availability, and competitive pricing, it's incredibly easy to have untraceable accounts made (or learn how) and post what you want without that fear. Even if the hater doesn't have the technical skills or care to watch a tutorial on how to do this, the level of risk of repercussion for leaving an abusive comment is still relatively low even after you've targeted an individual previously (or perhaps they aren't aware this happened / don't even consider the risk).
This approach would likely get some results, but only to a small degree. You could take legal action on a further individuals to boost the effectiveness, but still I find it extremely hard to justify the necessary effort(resources) required, given your particular circumstance.
(unless you or someone very close to you is familiar with this specific legal process)
Argument for ignoring + affect on credibility
As the reality is any accusations from haters are false, neutrals will not be able to conclude that what the hater's written is true.
Taking an aloof stance on the whole thing indirectly shows that you're not invested in entertaining such hilariously wrong accusations (position of confidence/strength). I'd suggest that fakes would be more likely to be concerned with disproving their haters, often going out of their way to do so (and making sure everyone knows they've done so, for example, if you created a video addressing the issue and pointed people towards it).
Personally, I would argue hater comments have very minimal impact on your credibility at all. This is because whoever's viewing your content and stumbles across a hater comment, will likely have also stumbled across contrasting comments of praise. Not only do these praise comments massively outweigh the hater comments, but when our brain receives conflicting information, it seeks to reach a conclusion. And the evidence is heavily in your favour, having well over a decade of content in various places.
Neutrals will probably reach their own conclusions unconsciously and extremely quickly, but if someone truly cared to [consciously] determine which was fact, you'd have to expect that they'd conclude you were indeed legitimate (signing up 8 days after the launch of betfair? and still keeping up a ruse 18 years later? that'd be some foresight). If a conclusion is not reached for whatever reason, then by default the comment is neither true or false (
actual credibility unaffected, only
potential credibility affected). These neutrals will also probably have experienced countless occurrences in life where others have made false claims and know that an empty claim or accusation should not be taken as fact. The joke is often made about some people believing anything they read on the internet, which I think is true to some extent (if people believe
all websites are reputable sources of information), but the difference here is a social media comment comes from a
user, meaning the neutral won't outright believe the comment. Fortunately for you, the western world has been brought up to believe that the stranger isn't telling the truth, and that hopping in his van isn't a good idea.
I've also noticed that a lot of haters have a tendency to discredit themselves (or spark doubt as to the truth of their statement).
Often their own post discredits whatever they said, it's quite comical actually. In your opening post, I'd pick out the misspelling of
unlikely, and the statement that betfair 'know fine well that once you put your money in you never take it out' -- anyone who has ever withdrawn anything from betfair will now definitely not believe that comment.
If the hater has discredited themselves in some way, they've done the work for you, and you can ignore their comment.
When to address the hater
Addressing haters can be a solution, it just needs to be done in a very low-effort way (so no video)
If the hater doesn't discredit themselves, has made a significant accusation, or has some kind of folllowing, address it. You can simply ask them why they think that, or offer to prove why this isn't the case (no need to detail how). If they respond to the why, whatever evidence/story they come up with will likely now discredit them. If they take you up on your offer, well I'll leave that one up to you, but I doubt they would.
(see husband/wife example near end of post)
Personally, I like to address and 1-up the hater. I find genuine joy in picturing the hater reading the response and getting all worked up
.
You've essentially dealt with the issue by doing so, and how you structure your response can help aid those neutrals reach a conclusion as to whether or not to believe the comment. If they were to reply further, you can just ignore them (continued low-effort).
Here's an example, I'm not too sure what he's on about, but I noticed that obscure smiley was his favourite so I was sure to include it
.
HaterComment.JPG
You Peter, like me, are very
logical. Your natural response is to disprove what the hater's said. But I've found this to be inherently pointless [and I suspect you have as well] as the hater is very
emotional. I know you're familiar with how the right brain can hijack our thoughts/actions.
Picture a heated argument between husband/wife, where the husband's trying to convince his wife why he did not, in fact, sleep with Sarah from down the road, and is giving a logical timeline of events why that would be empirically impossible. But for some reason the wife isn't absorbing any of it, all she can focus on is how the scent of a very uncommon perfume which the husband seems to have picked up during the day matches the one she knows Sarah always wears...
"Should I just have a laugh at the stupidity of it all?"
Yes. As there's no convincing the not-so-rare breed known as the hater, you may as well treat it like any other opportunity and make the most out of it. Find a way to turn their negativity into your positivity, whatever form that comes in. If that's constantly offering to prove why they're wrong and managing to shatter the limiting beliefs of 1 hater in every 20, great. Or having a laugh at their expense, then why not? You may have to do it internally though, or find a friend to laugh about it with and not wind them up publicly, if you care about your level of professionalism
.
Haters have shortcomings, and I feel sorry for them. You can't really blame them for being like they are, and its too difficult to convince them all of reality. Perhaps we should simply be grateful our lives have panned out the way they have, and that we don't have to bear the same limitations.
...
p.s. Let's all spare a few moments for the wrongfully convicted criminals whose lives were ruined due to the beliefs of jurors (Google Darryl Hunt for a prime example; 19 years in prison before exoneration! Also, I like to think Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men was a professional trader...
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