This is just used to shut people down who have legitimate complaints. Like, replace ‘sealions’ with ‘black people’ in the comic, and I would be surprised to find many people who still think it’s ok.
Pyro@programming.dev 1 day ago
TIL
Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.[5][6][7][8] It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”,[9] and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.[10] The term originated with a 2014 strip of the webcomic Wondermark by David Malki,[1] which The Independent called “the most apt description of Twitter you’ll ever see”.[2]
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 day ago
It’s actually a strategy of spreading bullshit and then somehow blaming the person who asks you to back it up.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Yeah I’m kind of mixed on this concept, because there is nothing wrong with asking for a source and/or asking someone to explain their position. And it seems like a really bad idea to discourage people from asking questions like that.
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 17 hours ago
Seems to me that’s the point of it: to stop people asking questions in good faith and then persisting on challenging lies and disinformation.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Source?
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 day ago
Yeah. I strongly dislike this whole classification that politely asking someone to back up what they said, or asking basic questions about it, is proof that you’re a terrible person and grounds for immediately quitting the conversation.
It also strikes me as relevant that the same people who say it is a sin, also tend to have no problem with overtly toxic behavior like slinging extreme abuse at anyone who disagrees with them or otherwise being an asshole.
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 day ago
I mean there are some keywords and phrases in the actual textbook definition here like “trolling”, “harrassment”, “incessant bad-faith invitations”. It’s a legitimate thing, but I almost always see it being used illegitimately by someone to attack another who is simply asking them to back up their statements. For example:
A: statement
B: What is your source for this statement?
A: sToP sEaLiOnIng!!!
geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I think the difference is that sealioning is a pattern of behavior, rather than just occasionally asking for a source. It describes the lack of intent to engage in good faith discussion and instead just is a method of trolling.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 day ago
Yeah. There are genuine types of sophisticated trolling which involve pretending to be overtly polite while refusing to engage in any respect with the substance of what the other person’s saying, using politeness as a shield to sneak bullshit and bad-faith engagement into the discourse while making the other person look unreasonable if they start getting irritated about it.
In about 100% of cases where I’ve seen someone accused of “sealioning,” though, it is just that they are trying to engage with the conversation and ask for sources, if you have a certain way of approaching disagreement, that’s kryptonite to your argument and so the only response is to start whining about sealioning.
inlandempire@jlai.lu 1 day ago
Do you have a source for this ? Just trying to understand
🤡
frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 1 day ago
A lot of people don’t know what it is which the sealions use to their advantage so recognising it is a sealion’s kryptonite lol. glad it helped!
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
The problem I’ve always had with the term is that you can’t really define a term by pointing to a comic and going like, “It’s like when someone does this sort of thing.” Like there’s a bunch of things the sea lion is doing, one is:
Like if you get a grudge against a user and constantly hound them in every thread about a topic they don’t want to discuss, that’s pretty rude (and if you do this offline like in the comic, it’s straight-up harassment). That’s bad regardless of what form it takes. Another is:
“Feigning ignorance of the subject matter,” is also part of the Socratic Method, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s inherently bad to be like, “What specifically does this term mean, and why do you think this specific case meets the criteria?” If you believe something, you ought to be able to state things in clear terms, and that’s an important part of a healthy debate, it helps the other side to identify the point of disagreement where they disagree with your reasoning. Otherwise, how do you even go about having a productive conversation with someone you disagree with at all?
In my opinion, even when these sorts of internet neologisms are dangerous even if they are addressing a legitimate thing, because once it’s out there, you can’t control who’s going to use it. For example, “mansplaining” was intended to refer to a specific type of thing where a man assumes he’s an expert on a subject and explains in a paternalistic way, while often being ignorant of the subject matter, like random guys on Twitter trying to lecture a female astronaut about how space works. But there are also people who use it/interpret it to mean, “Whenever a man explains something” - even if he is actually qualified to speak on the subject, which provokes a backlash (and obviously the problem is made worse by people trying to exacerbate the backlash, including through sockpuppets).
The ambiguity of the term “sealioning” allows it to be used to shut down good faith questions and discussion, while leaving the accused without a lot of options to defend themself. “What do you mean by ‘sealioning?’ What specifically did I do or say that meets that definition, and why should that be grounds to dismiss what I’m saying, or to conclude I’m acting in bad faith?” is generally going to be met with, “That’s more sealioning.” If critically examining the concept of sealioining is sealioning, then I’m just inclined to dismiss the term entirely.