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> How is immunodeficiency treatment at all related to deplatforming? Viruses aren't thinking human beings. > The Civil Rights movement did not enagage in depla

by darawk 8y ago

> How is immunodeficiency treatment at all related to deplatforming? Viruses aren't thinking human beings. > The Civil Rights movement did not enagage in deplatforming. Many of them explicitly acknowledged that their opponents also deserve the ability to speak. It was often the civil Rights movement itself that was subject to deplatforming. My point is that the type of reasoning you used here would lead you to draw both of those conclusions. > The rise of deplatforming preceded the rise of the Alt Right by about a year or two. They didn't always co-occur, one preceded the other. Their continued co-occurrence suggests that the implementation of deplatforming either 1. has no effect on that brand of extremist, or 2. maybe even causes it. That's an a-factual statement. When did the alt right "rise"? Was it when Mencius Moldbug started writing Unqualified Reservations in 2007? When Richard Spencer joined the National Policy Institute in 2011? During Gamergate in 2014? Similarly, when did de-platforming 'start'? Was it when people first started protesting The Bell Curve when it was published in 1994? Was it when British National Union of Students adopted a no-platform policy? The point is, neither of these events have a well-defined starting point, so any claim of one preceding the other is silly, and has no basis in fact. > Limiting measurement to individual communities is not a good way to measur it's overall effect. Again pointing out the fact that when a community deplatforms a certain view that view is no longer present is pointing out an obvious consequence. Of course the platform sees a reduction in the view that was deplatformed. That's basically just restating the definition of deplatforming: kicking a person or group off the platform. Your objection suggests a specific causal model, though. You're right that kicking users off of the platform will tautologically reduce the content. However, what if you didn't kick people off the platform? What if instead, as in the example I linked, you banned the sub-communities dedicated to advocacy of the proscribed topics? The people stay, the community goes. Then, you look at the level of the material in other sub-communities on the site. That is what those studies did, and that is why they demonstrate causality.

manfredo 8y ago
One can argue when these terms were initially coined. But we do have hard data on when they became prevalent in the public mind. Look at the Google trends for "deplatforming"[1], "no platforming"[2] and "alt right"[3]. "No platforming" had some blips starting in the late 2000s, but begins rising significantly in 2015, "deplatforming" in January of 2016, and "alt right" in august of 2016. There is evidence to the claim that deplatforming (or at least, widespread interesting in deplatofrming or "no platforming") preceded widespread interest in the alt-right. > The people stay, the community goes. Then, you look at the level of the material in other sub-communities on the site. That is what those studies did, and that is why they demonstrate causality. Yes, but as I stated multiple times by now the key limitation here is that they only looked at the material on the same site. Site X bans Y (whether in full or in only some subforums). You observe a reduction of Y on the site. That's not evidence that this action reduced Y in society as a whole. There is a causal relationship between deplatforming and reduction of the deplatformed view on said platform. Nobody is disagreeing with that - most people would likely read such a statement and think "no kidding, Sherlock". For example, pointing to the fact that when Reddit banned racist subreddits racist content on other subreddits were reduced is proof that banning racist subreddits reduced racist content on Reddit. This is not at all surprising, and is something most would call obvious. But to portray this as proof that banning racist subreddits reduces racist content in society as a whole is a very large misrepresentation. This study did not study the impact on society as a whole - only the forum that is carrying out the deplatforming. And again, I do not attempt to claim the the correlation between the rise of deplatforming and the rise of the alt right is irrefutable proof that the former causes the latter. But claiming that the former helps prevents the latter is not backed up by the evidence we do have. 1. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=deplatforming https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=deplatfo... 2. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=no%20platforming https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=no%20pla... 3. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=alt%20right https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=alt%20ri...
- darawk 8y ago
  > One can argue when these terms were initially coined. But we do have hard data on when they became prevalent in the public mind. Look at the Google trends for "deplatforming"[1], "no platforming"[2] and "alt right"[3]. "No platforming" had some blips starting in the late 2000s, but begins rising significantly in 2015, "deplatforming" in January of 2016, and "alt right" in august of 2016. There is evidence to the claim that deplatforming (or at least, widespread interesting in deplatofrming or "no platforming") preceded widespread interest in the alt-right. The terms themselves don't seem particularly relevant. The idea of deplatforming people has been around and practiced for a while. The alt-right dates back to at least Gamergate, and its roots in neoreaction, TRP, MGTOW, /pol/, etc can be traced back much further. I don't think Google trends really proves much here. > Yes, but as I stated multiple times by now the key limitation here is that they only looked at the material on the same site. Site X bans Y (whether in full or in only some subforums). You observe a reduction of Y on the site. That's not evidence that this action reduced Y in society as a whole. There is a causal relationship between deplatforming and reduction of the deplatformed view on said platform. Nobody is disagreeing with that - most people would likely read such a statement and think "no kidding, Sherlock". It's not tautological that that should happen. Remember, they're looking at the prevalence of that view elsewhere. It's not at all obvious that it should be the case that when you ban the 'Fat People Hate' subreddit, fat-shaming content elsewhere on reddit decreases. It would be very hard to prove this effect on general social sentiment even for a site as big as reddit, because society is so much larger. Facebook might be big enough to have a measurable effect on society writ large, but their policing mechanism, and the internal organizational structure of Facebook doesn't really lend itself to these sorts of experiments. > For example, pointing to the fact that when Reddit banned racist subreddits racist content on other subreddits were reduced is proof that banning racist subreddits reduced racist content on Reddit. This is not at all surprising, and is something most would call obvious. But to portray this as proof that banning racist subreddits reduces racist content in society as a whole is a very large misrepresentation. It didn't just reduce the aggregate racist content on reddit. It reduced the aggregate racist content above and beyond the literal content that was removed. In other words, when they banned r/CoonTown, r/politics got less racist. That is not at all an obvious consequence.

by darawk 8y ago

manfredo 8y ago

One can argue when these terms were initially coined. But we do have hard data on when they became prevalent in the public mind. Look at the Google trends for "deplatforming"[1], "no platforming"[2] and "alt right"[3]. "No platforming" had some blips starting in the late 2000s, but begins rising significantly in 2015, "deplatforming" in January of 2016, and "alt right" in august of 2016. There is evidence to the claim that deplatforming (or at least, widespread interesting in deplatofrming or "no platforming") preceded widespread interest in the alt-right. > The people stay, the community goes. Then, you look at the level of the material in other sub-communities on the site. That is what those studies did, and that is why they demonstrate causality. Yes, but as I stated multiple times by now the key limitation here is that they only looked at the material on the same site. Site X bans Y (whether in full or in only some subforums). You observe a reduction of Y on the site. That's not evidence that this action reduced Y in society as a whole. There is a causal relationship between deplatforming and reduction of the deplatformed view on said platform. Nobody is disagreeing with that - most people would likely read such a statement and think "no kidding, Sherlock". For example, pointing to the fact that when Reddit banned racist subreddits racist content on other subreddits were reduced is proof that banning racist subreddits reduced racist content on Reddit. This is not at all surprising, and is something most would call obvious. But to portray this as proof that banning racist subreddits reduces racist content in society as a whole is a very large misrepresentation. This study did not study the impact on society as a whole - only the forum that is carrying out the deplatforming. And again, I do not attempt to claim the the correlation between the rise of deplatforming and the rise of the alt right is irrefutable proof that the former causes the latter. But claiming that the former helps prevents the latter is not backed up by the evidence we do have. 1. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=deplatforming https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=deplatfo... 2. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=no%20platforming https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=no%20pla... 3. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=alt%20right https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=alt%20ri...

darawk 8y ago
> One can argue when these terms were initially coined. But we do have hard data on when they became prevalent in the public mind. Look at the Google trends for "deplatforming"[1], "no platforming"[2] and "alt right"[3]. "No platforming" had some blips starting in the late 2000s, but begins rising significantly in 2015, "deplatforming" in January of 2016, and "alt right" in august of 2016. There is evidence to the claim that deplatforming (or at least, widespread interesting in deplatofrming or "no platforming") preceded widespread interest in the alt-right. The terms themselves don't seem particularly relevant. The idea of deplatforming people has been around and practiced for a while. The alt-right dates back to at least Gamergate, and its roots in neoreaction, TRP, MGTOW, /pol/, etc can be traced back much further. I don't think Google trends really proves much here. > Yes, but as I stated multiple times by now the key limitation here is that they only looked at the material on the same site. Site X bans Y (whether in full or in only some subforums). You observe a reduction of Y on the site. That's not evidence that this action reduced Y in society as a whole. There is a causal relationship between deplatforming and reduction of the deplatformed view on said platform. Nobody is disagreeing with that - most people would likely read such a statement and think "no kidding, Sherlock". It's not tautological that that should happen. Remember, they're looking at the prevalence of that view elsewhere. It's not at all obvious that it should be the case that when you ban the 'Fat People Hate' subreddit, fat-shaming content elsewhere on reddit decreases. It would be very hard to prove this effect on general social sentiment even for a site as big as reddit, because society is so much larger. Facebook might be big enough to have a measurable effect on society writ large, but their policing mechanism, and the internal organizational structure of Facebook doesn't really lend itself to these sorts of experiments. > For example, pointing to the fact that when Reddit banned racist subreddits racist content on other subreddits were reduced is proof that banning racist subreddits reduced racist content on Reddit. This is not at all surprising, and is something most would call obvious. But to portray this as proof that banning racist subreddits reduces racist content in society as a whole is a very large misrepresentation. It didn't just reduce the aggregate racist content on reddit. It reduced the aggregate racist content above and beyond the literal content that was removed. In other words, when they banned r/CoonTown, r/politics got less racist. That is not at all an obvious consequence.