How to rally an angry mob, and how to dismantle it

I have a vivid memory from my school days, sitting through a fire marshal safety session and learning that for fire to happen, three components need to come together: heat, a flammable material, and oxygen. What was-and remains-attractive about this triangle is that it comes with a simple and effective conclusion: if you want to put a fire out, you just need to take one of the elements out of the equation.

In my line of work, I get to fight other kinds of fires, the ones fanned by online disinformation and polarization, which end up with masses of people vehemently hating other masses of people, all feeling “holier than thou.”

I wondered if there’s a similar triad framework that could bring clarity to the complex and  burning issue of online hate-and offer a way to diffuse it. Here goes:

My three ingredients are anger, a mob, and perpetual justification.

Anger: You might not like someone, but to spend time reading about it, writing about it, sharing about it, arguing about it, protesting about it, or even acting violently on behalf of it, takes a lot of energy. That energy - anger - while it may start with a deep identification with the values of your own team, really gains momentum when focused on hating the other.  And remember: angry mobs don’t fight for their opinions as much as they fight for their identity. That’s why their rage is so visceral

A mob: There are horrible things that can only happen in the context of a group. Almost all individuals see themselves as good, and their actions as justified. To make the leap into seeing “the other” as a member of a deplorable and “currpt cult”, you need to see that many people around you feel the same way. This is not only relevant for dynamics of opinions, it is also true for questionable actions -if everyone around you is doing them, then it’s no longer horrible, it’s the norm. This is why killing one person is a crime, but wiping out a battalion with your brothers in arms is patriotism.

Perpetual Justification: To have a fire in your belly is uncomfortable, and your instinct would be to wish it away. To keep the anger going and the mob united, you need justification. You need to be told you are right to hold on to your opinions, and you need to keep getting fresh and different doses of that justifying perspective over time. This is why influence campaigns are often well funded; it’s an expensive machine to feed. If you need people fighting for a cause for a meaningful amount of time, you must give them new and fresh reasons constantly—otherwise, life will draw them in other directions.

Now, how do you use that triad - The Brinker Triad - to dismantle a mob? You take away one of the elements-or ideally, more than one. Here are some tactics:

Disrupt the Perpetual Justification

• Create counter-content and aim it at the angry mob’s groups, hashtags, and influencers. Be proactive with your counter-messaging, not reactive, so as not to amplify the existing narrative. Use their platfroms, phrases and forms (meme’s, stickers etc) and make your message as relevant to specific demographics as possible. Be first to give your spin on real news events, before the poison-machine gets going.

  
  

• (Especially for X) Be active on community notes, as it’s a way to weaken the narrative at its core.

  
  

• Find the online networks that perpetuate a malicious narrative, expose their modus operandi, and who is likely accountable for them. Bringing their real intent to light can take away the power of their persuasion.

  
  

• Find the most impactful malicious influencers. The 20 percent that cause 80 percent of the chaos and work to take them of the platform

  
  

Break Down a Mob

(You don’t necessarily need, or should, break a group. The idea is to uproot the extreme narratives that take hold within it.)

• Finding and taking down bot networks removes many of those “people” who seem to feel just like you.

  
  

• Find existing doubts within group members and amplify them through voices that seem to come from within the group or use other means like targeted paid ads.

  
  

• Regulation: If we can lessen the innate filter-bubble effect that drives the business of social media, things will meaningfully quiet down, fairly fast. What one can actively do here is target politicians and educate them on their job.

  
  

Calm the Anger

• Engage with the mob, but don’t throw facts or objections at them-this rarely works. Neither should you use arguments that have been used a million times (no matter how strong they seem to you), because they’ve developed immunity to them. Instead, frame the argument in a way that appeals to the other side’s values. Use arguments that are objectively weaker but fresh to their ears.

  
  

• Legal action (especially effective with racists, who no longer see the need to hide their identify) You wouldn’t believe how fast a bully retracts when you bring a bigger stick in the form of a cease and desist. The key, however when pursuing this route, is to go for the clear, undeniable, blatant lies.

  
  

• In your messaging, stress what the group stands to lose from pursuing its agenda.

  
  

• Make the “other” human. Emphasize the person behind the stereotype—the familiarity and the common values. (Face-to-face interactions are most effective here.)

  
  

• And if all else fails, find the angry mob something else to be angry about.

  
  

I can see how the above list can potentially serve a malicious actor trying to cause chaos and promote distrust, but honestly, they don’t need me. They have been honing their craft uninterrupted for years.

Some Empirical Evidence

• A study from 2021 demonstrated how removing prominent, offensive influencers from X (Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Owen Benjamin) leads to their disappearance from discussion on the platform, reduces the impact of their ideas, and lowers the toxicity levels of the group - Jhaver et al., Evaluating the Effectiveness of Deplatforming as a Moderation Strategy on Twitter (CSCW/ACM, 2021).

  
  

• Carnegie Endowment research examined various ways to curb disinformation(fact-checking, algorithmic changes, counter-messaging, sanctions). It argues for a multi-layer approach rather than a single silver bullet, if you wish to be effective. It also notes that you can’t remain completely apolitical when working in the field of political influence Countering Disinformation Effectively: An Evidence-Based Policy Guide — Carnegie Endowment (2024).

  
  

• This APA piece covers proactive measures in the form of media literacy tactics- especially prebunking: educating users about how disinformation looks, its mechanics, what may come their way, and how to avoid it.. Countering misinformation through psychological inoculation” — review article (ScienceDirect, 2023)  Get a feel for prebunking with the award-winning “Bad News” intervention, a game that build psychological resistance against online misinformation: https://www.getbadnews.com/en/intro

  
  

The Long Game

Rallying an angry mob is a long game. It takes years to mobilize and then weaponize communities. Dismantling extreme movements also takes time; there is no silver bullet or quick wins—only a journey built on a multi-pronged approach, flexibility, and dedication. That’s how we win. That’s how we get our society back to a normal amount of crazy.