Following this thread, I see my own experience on Medium and social media in general mirrored. It’s hard to argue against cold, hard facts, especially when those facts are used to support a story that runs counter to deeply held beliefs and those beliefs are inextricably connected to your identity.

I can, and have spent hours and days fact-checking and researching every sentence I’ve written in response to comments made by a number of the prolific pro-Israel writers on Medium. They’re prolific because it’s easy to churn out volume when recycling the same talking points. What they’re not good at, however, is responding in any unscripted way when their arguments challenged. The best they seem to be capable of is countering with a one sentence retort to a single line they’ve parsed from the whole, while deliberately ignoring context and every other point made. But usually, they just quit responding because they have nothing to come back with aside from more hot air and indignation.