“Fighting for Understanding”: An Advocate’s Checklist

If you’re a farmer on Twitter, chances are you’ve come across #farm365, the agricultural advocacy concept that was hijacked by radical vegans, with sadly predictable results. After the first week, I was inspired to share a short list of “tips” that I hoped would guide conversations in positive directions. It generated a lot of supportive feedback at the time, and over a month later, I still the image popping up here and there. Some people have argued that there is value in “engaging radicals” in order to inform the silent observers – I would agree to a point, but this is where knowing when to “pull the plug” is essential – it’s far too easy to get sucked into a downward spiral of negative messages.

A few folks suggested that the tips applied to social media in general, so I’ve “photoshopped” the original image – it fits in nicely with last week’s post about “fighting for understanding.”