Follow Epolitics on Substack, Bluesky, Threads, or Twitter/X. Top image by Salvador La Parra Rios via Pixabay. This post was also published on Substack.
Launched in 2006, Epolitics is written and edited by Colin Delany, who has helped nonprofits and political campaigns use digital tools to achieve their political and policy goals since the early days of the political internet. He is also a frequent speaker and trainer and the author of How to Use the Internet to Change the World – and Win Elections. Contact him at cpd@epolitics.com.
AI does not write for this publication.
Troll Invasion! Why I Rescheduled that GOTV Webinar for Tomorrow
Howdy folks, well, that was interesting. I tried to hold my digital GOTV training yesterday, but one guy (operating under different names) kept breaking quarantine. He would unmute to interrupt, and when I kicked him off, he reemerged under a different guise. His last act? To draw an obscene image that covered everyone’s screen and which I will not detail, though you would recognize it if it stared you in the face.
If I’d set up at the start to have someone else running tech on the call other than me, but I’d scheduled the training just a few days before. With presentations like this one, I’ve largely been able to let people unmute on their own to ask questions, but it was apparently a bit much to ask for that kind of neighborly behavior this time. In the moment, I did not have time to to into the Zoom admin page to auto-mute everyone or to figure out what turned out to be the “Annotate” tool.
So I rescheduled for tomorrow, Thursday October 15. The same registration link still works, and please help spread the word! I like to do these live so that people can interact in the comments or ask questions, though most people who register end up watching the recording instead. But in this case, the Annotate tool will be off and folks will have to ask to unmute.
Now you know! Troll invasions are now for online events, not for fantasy novels. Keep that in mind the next time you’re planning a webinar. Sad.
– cpd