Taking the high road: Effective counter measures against "Short FUD"

[SebastianR]

I agree. Let me clarify.

I believe this is an asymmetrical conflict. It is a propaganda war on one side that must sow disinformation to advance its cause. But on the other side, it is simply a struggle for a company to bring good products to market and execute on a worthwhile vision. So disinformation and harassment strategies do not serve this side of the conflict.

And we need to be very careful not to be baited into falling into trolling tactics. This was seen clearly when Musk was baited into making his "pedo guy" comment. This was a huge trolling success to get Musk to stop to that level.

Very well said. I couldn't agree more. So here is the "what's next?":

Perhaps it would be good for us to discuss counter-strategies.

As I've pointed out, journalists are prime targets for manipulation. Trolls will harass them one way or another to bias journalists against Tesla. What can we do to counteract this?

I've got a few ideas, but I'd like to hear from others first.

Let's collect a few ideas here. Mods, pls. merge if you feel this is better placed elsewhere.

In my experience countering FUD on Twitter / in Forums is only helping so much. What is helping more is pledging (and following up with) specific actions that support the mission as a response to Tesla FUD.

For instance in some German forums I pledge to donate based on the number of bad comments spreading Diesel FUD to exactly the NGO that exposed the Diesel FUD. When I posed the proof that I actually donated, FUD comments dropped.

I suggest we pledge giving a certain number of test drives to friends, colleagues and others based on the number of Tweets from Mark B.S. or Montana S. etc. this links troll activity directly to something that's useful for Tesla/EVs without engaging in pointless flamewars. We could also pledge to write to our representatives to advance EV causes etc. based on troll activity etc.

What other ideas do we have?

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Crowdfund buying an ad. That’s what news media are selling.
Advertisers are the customers, not us, and The Customer Needn’t Always Be Right But They Are Always The Customer.

 

[SebastianR]

I like the crowdfunding idea. However, I'm afraid, this would be the game we can't win: I don't see us collect millions of USD to be even close to being at the same level of funding as the traditional car makers.

EDIT: What about events like this? r/teslamotors - The UK Owners Group gave 10,000 test drive experiences to VIP/Media at Silverstone this weekend

They sound like great fun, get the message out and should have some multiplier effects. And if you do a sign-up campaign based on number of FUD posts?