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The author tries to take a correlation ("crazy people say crazy things online") and argue it's causation ("crazy things online make people go crazy in real life

The author tries to take a correlation ("crazy people say crazy things online") and argue it's causation ("crazy things online make people go crazy in real life"). We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. The problem is that violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing. So even if this is "a thing" -- it's not a widespread trend. Personally I don't think the medium matters. If Columbine or Ruby Ridge or Waco or Oklahoma City or 9/11 happened today, I'm sure all of these people would have some sort of social media trail for us to look at and say, "a ha, this is why this person was radicalized!" followed by, "Twitter and Facebook and Google need to do a better job censoring their platforms."

fzeroracer 8y ago
The mistake you make is correlating the rise of the internet with the reduction in crime. That correlation could be better explained with the lead-crime hypothesis rather than assuming that the internet is somehow causing less crime. What we have seen is the number of hate crimes increase quite drastically over the past few years as well as the continued rise of school shootings in America.
- dnautics 8y ago
  The parent poster is not correlating internet going up with crime going down, poster is correlating internet going up with hysteria over crime going up.
- nostromo 8y ago
  > the continued rise of school shootings in America Contrary to popular belief, school shootings have been flat since the early 90s: https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ Full report here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf
  - iamaelephant 8y ago
    That's more horrifying, not less. For 20 years children have been getting shot at school in your country and you've collectively done nothing meaningful to stop it.
analognoise 8y ago
I'm ok with Facebook and Google censoring their platforms if it prevents people from being radicalized. If you want to host your own hate page, you can. I think there are a lot of negative externalities of the massive communication infrastructure that people are involved in now that aren't fully understood yet. Violent crime is down - the number of idiot antivaxers is up, for example. I think we all need to just admit the idea of connecting everyone to everyone else is actually a terrible idea - tech was wrong, the positive techno fantasy was as absurd as communism, and we need to now deal with the beast we've created.
stephengillie 8y ago
The the drop in violent crime correlates strongly with the drop in leaded gasoline.
- berbec 8y ago
  And Roe v. Wade. [1] 1: http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
guelo 8y ago
> violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing You are making a causation argument two sentences after calling out a causation argument.
- weberc2 8y ago
  You've confused correlation with causation. The quote is an observation of a correlation, not a causation argument.
jonathankoren 8y ago
>We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. It can look superficially the same doesn’t it? The difference between “Judas Priest causes suicides” and here is that that the mechanism is much more understood, and there are multiple instances separated by time, place, and culture, to better examine the hypothesis. We can look at Bosnia[0], Rwanda[1], and Rohingya[2], just to name three things that have occurred in my lifetime. It’s a more extreme version of what we’ve seen with filter bibles and the sorting of media. It’s been well studied. There’s even a word for this phenomenon. It’s dehumanization. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite-facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...
masonic 8y ago
Ruby Ridge In what way do you consider the Weavers to have "been radicalized"?

fzeroracer 8y ago

The mistake you make is correlating the rise of the internet with the reduction in crime. That correlation could be better explained with the lead-crime hypothesis rather than assuming that the internet is somehow causing less crime. What we have seen is the number of hate crimes increase quite drastically over the past few years as well as the continued rise of school shootings in America.

dnautics 8y ago
The parent poster is not correlating internet going up with crime going down, poster is correlating internet going up with hysteria over crime going up.
nostromo 8y ago
> the continued rise of school shootings in America Contrary to popular belief, school shootings have been flat since the early 90s: https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ Full report here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf
- iamaelephant 8y ago
  That's more horrifying, not less. For 20 years children have been getting shot at school in your country and you've collectively done nothing meaningful to stop it.

analognoise 8y ago

I'm ok with Facebook and Google censoring their platforms if it prevents people from being radicalized. If you want to host your own hate page, you can. I think there are a lot of negative externalities of the massive communication infrastructure that people are involved in now that aren't fully understood yet. Violent crime is down - the number of idiot antivaxers is up, for example. I think we all need to just admit the idea of connecting everyone to everyone else is actually a terrible idea - tech was wrong, the positive techno fantasy was as absurd as communism, and we need to now deal with the beast we've created.

stephengillie 8y ago

The the drop in violent crime correlates strongly with the drop in leaded gasoline.

berbec 8y ago
And Roe v. Wade. [1] 1: http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

guelo 8y ago

> violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing You are making a causation argument two sentences after calling out a causation argument.

weberc2 8y ago
You've confused correlation with causation. The quote is an observation of a correlation, not a causation argument.

jonathankoren 8y ago

>We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. It can look superficially the same doesn’t it? The difference between “Judas Priest causes suicides” and here is that that the mechanism is much more understood, and there are multiple instances separated by time, place, and culture, to better examine the hypothesis. We can look at Bosnia[0], Rwanda[1], and Rohingya[2], just to name three things that have occurred in my lifetime. It’s a more extreme version of what we’ve seen with filter bibles and the sorting of media. It’s been well studied. There’s even a word for this phenomenon. It’s dehumanization. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite-facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...

masonic 8y ago

Ruby Ridge In what way do you consider the Weavers to have "been radicalized"?