5 ms·

A good essay. Something it didn't seem to mention (or maybe it danced around it) is that one reason Hitler flew around in planes so much was he was completely

A good essay. Something it didn't seem to mention (or maybe it danced around it) is that one reason Hitler flew around in planes so much was he was completely banned from the airwaves by state censorship. Obviously that didn't stop his rise, which should (but won't) give pause for thought to those supporting deplatforming, hate speech laws and other modernised forms of censorship. I suspect the reason such censorship isn't effective is that by blocking a viewpoint from being heard you are implicitly agreeing that it must be correct. The logic is that if people heard this argument they would start to agree with it i.e. because it's right. That's why we need to work so hard to stop it being heard at all. So to anyone on the fence who doesn't have a clear opinion yet, the censorship sends a strong message that the victims of it are winning the argument, without giving anyone the chance to truly make their own judgement about that argument.

SiempreViernes 7y ago
> How far can the media protect or undermin edemocratic institutions in unconsolidated democracies, and how persuasive can they be in ensuring public support for dictator’s policies? We study this question in the context of Germany between 1929 and 1939. Using geographical and temporal variation in radio availability, we show that radio had a significant negative effect on the Nazi electoral support between 1929 and 1932, when political news were slanted against Nazi party. This effect was reversed in just 5 weeks following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor and the transfer of control of the radio to the Nazis. Pro-Nazi radio propaganda caused higher vote for the Nazis in March 1933 election. After full consolidation of power, radio propaganda helped the Nazis to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti-Semitism. -- Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany, Adena et al.
- repolfx 7y ago
  I've encountered a paper before that argued the opposite, that Hitler's rallies didn't appear to actually have much impact on voter preferences, but now I can't find it. Too bad. Firstly, where did you get that abstract? It appears to be selectively quoted and also phrased much more strongly than the copy of the paper I found. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you got it from a different source to the paper itself: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=612085086071106084126025107007023078006040020061071033076093083097072088066069082109101003043040006010034084025002117079065094061087094034004090103067083004123003030012051097123066028072092024012027124024103092111073112073002126064123084014094065024&EXT=pdf https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=6120850860711060... The final two sentences which you missed out are rather important in any discussion of the effectiveness of propaganda: "The effect of anti-Semitic propaganda varied depending on the listeners’ predispositions toward the message. Nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-Semitism was historically high and had a negative effect in places with historically low anti-Semitism." Later the paper authors draw the obvious conclusion: "This result highlights potential pitfalls of propaganda: it can backfire, if listeners are unlikely to believe its message." It's very unfortunate that this part of the abstract went missing - one might say it was censored to strengthen a political message ;) I also don't think this sort of pseudo-scientific historical analysis is much use overall, to be honest. No criticism for raising it though, as Adena et al are of course welcome to contribute their views to the debate. But consider the replication and statistical failures in fields like psychology and biology, where experimentation is possible. Now consider that this paper in the field of history, where experimentation is not possible, makes claims like this: "In the absence of radio during the campaign for the September 1930 election, the Nazis would have got additional 4.1 percentage points, i.e., 22.3% instead of 18.2% of the total vote." Two problems with this. 1) The version of abstract you quoted claims "significant negative effect", but the paper itself says the opposite. It says the modelled effects on the outcome were "modest", "not big" and "such a small difference". 1) They specify precise numbers but can't possibly know this: it's wild conjecture made to look scientific by the use of extremely high precision. Modern opinion polling in contemporary elections routinely yields numbers far off the final result - we can't even accurately measure or model things happening right now, but here they're making claims to 3 significant figures about a parallel universe that never happened, on the results of an election that took place nearly a century ago. It makes intuitive sense that campaigning and speeches have some sort of impact on voters, if only to inform them of what politicians believe. But it's not clear that trying to censor such speeches works in an environment with many other ways for people to find out what candidates stand for, like word of mouth.
anoncake 7y ago
If censorship isn't effective, why don't we see any dictatorships embrace freedom of speech?
- anoncake 7y ago
  Was this comment downvoted by someone who thinks censorship is effective and wants to hide this comment that agrees with them? Or was it downvoted by someone who thinks censorship backfires but wants to prove it doesn't? I'm not complaining but I am confused.
  - repolfx 7y ago
    There's mass downvoting and flagging in these sorts of threads, regardless of how well put or politely phrased a point is. HN isn't set up to handle political discussion well at all, so I wouldn't read anything into it. I think it's a great question you raised there. I suspect it's for several reasons. Firstly, it's probably more complicated than censorship being effective or ineffective. My guess it, how effective it is depends a lot on how rigorously it's implemented. If people have other ways to communicate about a topic, like word of mouth in a big community, then censorship just attracts attention and causes a Streisand effect. But if a system is totalitarian enough to shut down nearly all discussion of a topic, everywhere and in every sphere of public life, then it's probably a lot more effective. Secondly, totalitarians act the way they do because of their beliefs, and one of those beliefs is that wisdom and virtue are highly concentrated in a few visionary people, whereas the "lumpenproletariat" are stupid, uneducated, practically cattle, and easily reprogrammed by speeches made by the few smart people. The idea that freedom of speech is good is predicated on the belief that wisdom and ideas are everywhere and can come from anyone, so, everyone must be allowed to speak and debate. If you don't believe that, if you believe wisdom and ideas only really originate in a tiny number of people just like yourself, then freedom of speech seems to have no value and censorship seems to be very effective at avoiding the people getting ideas (because they certainly can't generate ideas themselves). You see this basic dispute over how widespread ideas are crop up all the time.

SiempreViernes 7y ago

> How far can the media protect or undermin edemocratic institutions in unconsolidated democracies, and how persuasive can they be in ensuring public support for dictator’s policies? We study this question in the context of Germany between 1929 and 1939. Using geographical and temporal variation in radio availability, we show that radio had a significant negative effect on the Nazi electoral support between 1929 and 1932, when political news were slanted against Nazi party. This effect was reversed in just 5 weeks following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor and the transfer of control of the radio to the Nazis. Pro-Nazi radio propaganda caused higher vote for the Nazis in March 1933 election. After full consolidation of power, radio propaganda helped the Nazis to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti-Semitism. -- Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany, Adena et al.

repolfx 7y ago
I've encountered a paper before that argued the opposite, that Hitler's rallies didn't appear to actually have much impact on voter preferences, but now I can't find it. Too bad. Firstly, where did you get that abstract? It appears to be selectively quoted and also phrased much more strongly than the copy of the paper I found. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you got it from a different source to the paper itself: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=612085086071106084126025107007023078006040020061071033076093083097072088066069082109101003043040006010034084025002117079065094061087094034004090103067083004123003030012051097123066028072092024012027124024103092111073112073002126064123084014094065024&EXT=pdf https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=6120850860711060... The final two sentences which you missed out are rather important in any discussion of the effectiveness of propaganda: "The effect of anti-Semitic propaganda varied depending on the listeners’ predispositions toward the message. Nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-Semitism was historically high and had a negative effect in places with historically low anti-Semitism." Later the paper authors draw the obvious conclusion: "This result highlights potential pitfalls of propaganda: it can backfire, if listeners are unlikely to believe its message." It's very unfortunate that this part of the abstract went missing - one might say it was censored to strengthen a political message ;) I also don't think this sort of pseudo-scientific historical analysis is much use overall, to be honest. No criticism for raising it though, as Adena et al are of course welcome to contribute their views to the debate. But consider the replication and statistical failures in fields like psychology and biology, where experimentation is possible. Now consider that this paper in the field of history, where experimentation is not possible, makes claims like this: "In the absence of radio during the campaign for the September 1930 election, the Nazis would have got additional 4.1 percentage points, i.e., 22.3% instead of 18.2% of the total vote." Two problems with this. 1) The version of abstract you quoted claims "significant negative effect", but the paper itself says the opposite. It says the modelled effects on the outcome were "modest", "not big" and "such a small difference". 1) They specify precise numbers but can't possibly know this: it's wild conjecture made to look scientific by the use of extremely high precision. Modern opinion polling in contemporary elections routinely yields numbers far off the final result - we can't even accurately measure or model things happening right now, but here they're making claims to 3 significant figures about a parallel universe that never happened, on the results of an election that took place nearly a century ago. It makes intuitive sense that campaigning and speeches have some sort of impact on voters, if only to inform them of what politicians believe. But it's not clear that trying to censor such speeches works in an environment with many other ways for people to find out what candidates stand for, like word of mouth.

anoncake 7y ago

If censorship isn't effective, why don't we see any dictatorships embrace freedom of speech?

anoncake 7y ago
Was this comment downvoted by someone who thinks censorship is effective and wants to hide this comment that agrees with them? Or was it downvoted by someone who thinks censorship backfires but wants to prove it doesn't? I'm not complaining but I am confused.
- repolfx 7y ago
  There's mass downvoting and flagging in these sorts of threads, regardless of how well put or politely phrased a point is. HN isn't set up to handle political discussion well at all, so I wouldn't read anything into it. I think it's a great question you raised there. I suspect it's for several reasons. Firstly, it's probably more complicated than censorship being effective or ineffective. My guess it, how effective it is depends a lot on how rigorously it's implemented. If people have other ways to communicate about a topic, like word of mouth in a big community, then censorship just attracts attention and causes a Streisand effect. But if a system is totalitarian enough to shut down nearly all discussion of a topic, everywhere and in every sphere of public life, then it's probably a lot more effective. Secondly, totalitarians act the way they do because of their beliefs, and one of those beliefs is that wisdom and virtue are highly concentrated in a few visionary people, whereas the "lumpenproletariat" are stupid, uneducated, practically cattle, and easily reprogrammed by speeches made by the few smart people. The idea that freedom of speech is good is predicated on the belief that wisdom and ideas are everywhere and can come from anyone, so, everyone must be allowed to speak and debate. If you don't believe that, if you believe wisdom and ideas only really originate in a tiny number of people just like yourself, then freedom of speech seems to have no value and censorship seems to be very effective at avoiding the people getting ideas (because they certainly can't generate ideas themselves). You see this basic dispute over how widespread ideas are crop up all the time.