The Christian's Social Media Policy
Don't feed the trolls and don't be a troll
Perhaps you read or heard about the Josh Buice situation. If you haven’t, I recommend you do so; not to be up to date on the latest controversy within the evangelical—and specifically Reformed—world, but to understand what happened and how you can pray for everyone involved and ensure you don’t fall into the same trap. Hence, today’s blog.1
Social media can be a cesspool. And that’s not because it’s inherently bad, but because we make it so. Left unchecked, we resort to name-calling, slander, and anything else simply to either bump our numbers up or somehow make ourselves feel better. This is why we must be intentional with our social media usage. But herein lies the problem: social media, at that point, is simply a medium to express the sin in our heart. Social media isn’t the problem; the problem is our need to feel important, to feel validated, to feel superior to others.
But, alas, that’s not the big point here. My main goal in this post is to have a social media policy about how we interact with others online.
Don’t feed the trolls.
Don’t be the troll.
Very simple and straightforward. (This policy of sorts has nothing to do with the amount of time spent online, what you view, or the like, but is strictly about how we treat others.)
We shouldn’t be feeding trolls on social media, regardless of platform. There are countless trolls online that their sole purpose is to stir up drama, to conjure up division, to point out the worse in other people. In can be very tempting to respond to such people—don’t do it. It’s simply not worth your time. You don’t need to take the bait, because that’s exactly what it is. Trolls want you to respond, to react, to get upset because that feeds their ego. Ignore them and they’ll eventually go away.
More importantly, however, we must not be the troll. Must we remember that we’ll give an account for every word we speak or type (Matt. 12:36)? Should we bring to attention the countless Proverbs that exhort us to seasoned speech, to gracious words, to building up and not tearing down, to using our God-given wisdom and discern when to speak up or when to remain silent?
“Do your tweets often stir up debate? Do you often have to mitigate fallout after your posts? Do you often dog-pile onto other people’s post,” Rob Brockman asks. "Are you drawn to controversy? If so, ask yourself - what is motivating your posts? In many cases, there may be a sinfulness behind it.”
Too many times I fear we put our social media blinders on and ignore the commands in Scripture regarding our speech, our actions, and how we treat people. May we never be the instigator; may we never be the one to stir up strife, to create drama, to start slandering faithful brothers and sisters in Christ for our own selfish gain. May we remember that God hates slander (Prov. 6:16, 19). May we always assume the best of other people unless the opposite is blatantly obvious.
One of the biggest reasons why I finally left Twitter/X (as if anyone cared) is because of the constant bickering, the incessant arguing, the non-stop fighting among professing believers. And, yes, there are a plethora of anonymous accounts just like Buice used. (And many of those are likely pastors that also need to step down.) To the average Christian, it is quite obvious that there are major problems with running accounts like those, definitely from Christian leaders.
So, don’t feed the trolls and, more importantly, don’t be the troll. The command to glorify God in whatever we do includes our interactions on social media.
My point here is not to add another voice opining about the situation (there are plenty who’ve already done that), but to bring our attention to how we handle ourselves on social media.
Such simple, helpful advice! Thank you 🙂