Game Of Trolls
We fight fire with fire by recruiting trolls to join our ranks, and train them in ‘positive trolling’ to respond to hateful reporting and hate speech.
In 2018, MDI – the lead partner of Get The Trolls Out! (GTTO) – became one of a handful British NGOs selected to receive support from Facebook under its Create Versus Hate initiative. Thanks to this support, GTTO’s innovative Game of Trolls campaign – produced by the professional creative agency Poke – was born.
The Problem
Facebook is overrun with hate and extremism, which disproportionately affects minorities. Conventional and algorithmic moderation is not up to the job.
The Aim
Arm the youth audiences with ways of fighting the hate speech they see in their daily media consumption, in an instructive, actionable way.
Fighting Fire with Fire
Game of Trolls recruited trolls and trained them in positive trolling, as an effective and innovative strategy to respond to and combat online hate.
Phase 1: Campaign Teaser
We used Instagram Stories and Facebook videos to recruit our troll army and build ‘hype’ around the campaign. These six-second videos aimed to capture attention by mysteriously hinting what our campaign will be about and using striking design - large typography, cinematic effects and dramatic special effects.
Phase 2: Action
We deployed a three-stage strategy to educate participants on ‘positive trolling’ to show them how to respond to trolling and hate speech in a constructive way:
Launched “Trollface”, the animated mascot of the campaign. Users were able to learn more about the campaign and how to be a part of it.
Run an Instagram Stories Carousel ad to showcase our positive trolling techniques in three click-through videos. Each of the 15-second videos presents a specific rule of positive trolling. Users could also swipe up on our Stories Carousel to learn more about the project.
Encouraged would-be positive trolls to use the #TrollWithLove hashtag when responding to comments by a troll or an inflammatory headline. This gave users the chance to see how positive trolling could work in action.
Phase 3: Longform Legacy
To document the campaign’s legacy and provide a resource for the future, we created a mini-documentary ‘Game of Trolls’ to explain what was done, why and how.
Social Media
Here are some examples of the variety of social media content we and our partners shared online, during various stages of the campaign.
Campaign Outcomes: Driving Engagement
This campaign proved an astounding success for GTTO. Some of the deliverables include:
Phase II of reached over 3 million young people in the UK
Post engagement was over 1.5 million
After the campaign ended, engagement rates on GTTO Facebook continued to soar, reaching 38.1%
Likewise, in July-September 2018, our website had about 6,000 visits – a staggering 65% increase compared to the previous quarter.
Disclaimer: All creative and media costs for the campaign were covered by Facebook. Facebook also provided the services and expertise of Facebook Creative Shop and offered free Content Resource Management Training to GTTO staff, thereby improving their ability to maximize the ad credit that was awarded with the grant.