It’s easier said than done, but it can be done. The key is to unleash your inner troll and embrace the “u mad bro” while being

I recommend engaging once or twice in good faith, then hounding them to make a hard claim you can disprove. If they don’t, start politely asking if there’s any part they’d like to elaborate on while dropping implications they didn’t read or understand what you said, and then asking about their beliefs on the topic.

It happened to me on Lemmy a while ago, I don’t think the guy was actually a troll (I think he just didn’t like what I had to say about the world bank and imf being the reason central and South America have stayed so poor despite incredible natural resources)

The dude got so mad he started going through my old posts and calling me a hypocrite. But he made a mistake, that was a hard claim - there was no contradiction in my beliefs and stance. I slapped him down a few times before realizing my posts from days ago were getting a lot of responses

Once I started recognizing the username and realized what happened, I started getting patronizing… It was oh so satisfying. I kind of wish he’d kept going for longer

I love reverse trolling trolls, all of the fun and none of the guilt