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>The concept of freedom of speech falls apart if universally reprehensible speech is allowed to be publicaly espoused without being firmly challenged. Forums li

by slg 7y ago

>The concept of freedom of speech falls apart if universally reprehensible speech is allowed to be publicaly espoused without being firmly challenged. Forums like 8chan and 4chan effectively incubate hate speech by providing a safe space for anonymized, like-minded individuals to congregate, espouse their basest thoughts and feelings and receive gratification for it -all without challenge. Moderate people are repulsed by such forums and the quantity of hate-speech they generate, which further compounds the negative feedback loop. These boards do more than allow this hate to fester. They allow hate to grow as they become a recruiting ground that can radicalize people who never would have fallen into this mindset without these boards. 8chan might be compartmentalized in a way that allows it to become an echo chamber of hate, but it also is highly connect to boards about general topics like video games, TV, and movies. This normalizes the hate and it becomes just another thing to talk about. I would bet a small minority of people who spew hateful things on 8chan sought the site out because of their own hate. Maybe they went there to talk about the new Call of Duty game. Before too long they are ingrained in the whole Gamergate mindset. Then they eventual start hanging out on /pol and before you know it they are a full fledged white nationalist. (A similar thing has been reported about Youtube's recommendation algorithm [1]) This wouldn't happen if the hateful sections of 8chan were sectioned off into their own site. No one accidentally stumbles upon The Daily Stormer and becomes a white nationalist. Just visiting that site genuinely requires a predilection towards hate and a sympathetic ear to white nationalism. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/yo...

rexpop 7y ago
It's not a question of merely "allowing" hatred to grow, as though it were so much yeast on the wind, but of propagating the deliberate inculcation of white supremacism and misogyny, a campaign orchestrated by long-standing institutions of social control.
- antepodius 7y ago
  What are you on about? 8chan is pretty damn grassroots. The people on /pol/ definitely don't see themselves as backed by the institutions of social control; in their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing, "pozzed", and their enemies. They consider themselves a hated minority... because they are. What big institutions are backing 8chan?!
  - rexpop 7y ago
    > In their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing This is a classic, authoritarian tactic of misdirection. Here's a report on some of the forces at play: 1. https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinf... By the way, they're wrong—although not alone—in thinking that Silicon Valley is "left-wing". This is a convenient smoke-screen, as illuminated here: 1. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideol... I am not sure why we should put much stock in the explicit mythology of a troll army.
    - ALittleLight 7y ago
      I don't want to appear to defend 8chan here - but I don't think your critique is apt. For one, the people on 8chan are absolutely a hated minority. That's largely why they're getting banned from the internet. Mainstream figures aren't coming out in favor of 8chan, they're calling for it's dissolution. Saying you visit or enjoy 8chan in polite company would likely be a faux pas if anyone even knew what you were talking about. Of course, pretending to be a hated minority may be a rhetorical tactic - but that doesn't make it untrue. The Westborough Baptist Church may have experienced enhanced camaraderie from being almost universally reviled - but that doesn't mean they weren't, in fact, almost universally reviled. "Authoritarian" also seems like a poor description. The boards are anti authoritarian in that they have lax moderation. There isn't a punishment for unwanted opinions - you can't be downvoted or shadowbanned. People can't even judge your future posts by the content of your previous posts because everyone is anonymous and without a post history. Banning is by ip only, and easily avoided, and there aren't even accounts to lose. 8chan is much more anarchic than authoritarian. I'm making that claim based on their structure rather than their political ideology. The idea that Silicon Valley is not left wing also strikes me as highly suspect. For example, in the last Presidential election Clinton received 95% of Silicon Valley donations compared to 4% for Trump [1]. There are other, similar reports, for specific companies and different elections, but everything I've seen slowed they skew heavily left. I'm aware that there are conceptions of "left wing" where Clinton wouldn't really count as left wing, but so long as we are discussing American politics I don't think those alternate conceptions are relevant. Clinton is clearly further left than Trump. 1 - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nearly-all-of-silicon-valleys-political-dollars-are-going-to-hillary-clinton/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nearly-all-of-silicon-v...
username3 7y ago
8chan incubated hate speech because no one challenged hate speech on 8chan. 8chan welcomed everyone, but everyone ignored 8chan. >The concept of freedom of speech falls apart if universally reprehensible speech is allowed to be publicaly espoused without being firmly challenged. Forums like 8chan and 4chan effectively incubate hate speech by providing a safe space for anonymized, like-minded individuals to congregate, espouse their basest thoughts and feelings and receive gratification for it -all without challenge.
- AgentME 7y ago
  I've called out hate speech on 4chan and 8chan many times before. I've gotten called an "SJW cuck" a lot, and others doubled-down in posting shit gleefully when they saw their shit "triggered the libs". That was the fun part to them. To someone like me who isn't there just to challenge people, it's exasperating. I gave up and they didn't. I think certain site structures encourage different kinds of discussion. Imagine the most extreme possibility: a site that automatically hides posts that the majority would agree with after reading, and gives points to and highlights bombastic posts. You're not going to get good discussion out of this, no matter how much you try to convince people that it would be good for society if they visited this site and tried to challenge people there. I think imageboards like 4chan and 8chan accidentally approximate this. They bump threads to the top on every reply, so threads that trigger flame wars are incentivized. The lack of names means no one will call you out if you flip-flop opinions, so you're free to flip-flop to whatever opinion will trigger the most people, which users will do in order to make successful threads. After a few cycles of this, normal people ("normies") either leave or adapt themselves to fit in, so the remaining users have to amp up their ridiculousness to make threads that are bombastic to the new crowd. Users get used to having to make their opinions more extreme to get noticed. I think this then causes them to flock to threads that they can tell are bombastic to normies as a way to self-reaffirm their own tendency toward making bombastic threads. If you ever try to argue for the normie opinion on a subject, it "outs" yourself as someone who isn't a true user, as someone who isn't purposefully ratcheting their opinions up into offensiveness as the site encourages. Years ago, I helped run a once-popular imageboard dedicated to a fandom, and its level of dysfunction was legendary. A big part of that probably came from the userbase's overlap with 4chan, but the way problems regularly cropped up in common interactions even in topics and groups of users with little 4chan overlap made me skeptical of the structure itself. It helped a lot being able to see which anonymous users made which posts and see how common it was for people to sock-puppet or radically re-work their opinions in their next thread.
naasking 7y ago
> These boards do more than allow this hate to fester. They allow hate to grow as they become a recruiting ground that can radicalize people who never would have fallen into this mindset without these boards. This is a common narrative, but it depends on an empirical question of whether hate spreads online and whether this motivates action. Fortunately, studies suggest that online talk does not motivate action: https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-and-radicalisation.html https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a... To summarize: the internet does not accelerate the process of radicalization, it does not provide opportunities to self-radicalize, and it does not allow radicalization without physical contact with other radicals. So the empirical evidence does not entirely agree with your characterization of 8chan's role in radicalization.
- joepie91_ 7y ago
  I haven't read the full paper yet, but the 'Executive summary' section seems quite explicit that the findings relate to the internet specifically; that is, does "the internet" increase radicalization as opposed to other non-internet venues? But that isn't the point you're replying to; the point you're replying to is about "these boards" (ie. these venues), and makes no mention of their internet-ness being a factor. The report, crucially, does therefore not seem to contradict the post you're replying to, as that post is about radicalization in mixed-topic venues in general; this one just happens to be on the internet.
  - naasking 7y ago
    What is a "mixed topic venue", precisely, that you would distinguish it from the internet or other media? Frankly, the internet is the ultimate mixed topic venue IMO. Furthermore, it seems pretty clear that the OP was specifically referring to online boards, and this forms the context of pretty much this entire thread and every discussion of this topic here and elsewhere about the spread of hate online.
    - joepie91_ 7y ago
      A mixed-topic venue is precisely what they described: > 8chan might be compartmentalized in a way that allows it to become an echo chamber of hate, but it also is highly connect to boards about general topics like video games, TV, and movies. Nowhere in the OP is "the internet" specifically mentioned as a factor. It's all about the general concept of mixing it into other topics to make it palatable (which is precisely how radicalization usually works online and offline, see also eg. biker gangs), and an online message board just happens to be the context in this particular case.

by slg 7y ago

rexpop 7y ago

It's not a question of merely "allowing" hatred to grow, as though it were so much yeast on the wind, but of propagating the deliberate inculcation of white supremacism and misogyny, a campaign orchestrated by long-standing institutions of social control.

antepodius 7y ago
What are you on about? 8chan is pretty damn grassroots. The people on /pol/ definitely don't see themselves as backed by the institutions of social control; in their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing, "pozzed", and their enemies. They consider themselves a hated minority... because they are. What big institutions are backing 8chan?!
- rexpop 7y ago
  > In their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing This is a classic, authoritarian tactic of misdirection. Here's a report on some of the forces at play: 1. https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinf... By the way, they're wrong—although not alone—in thinking that Silicon Valley is "left-wing". This is a convenient smoke-screen, as illuminated here: 1. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideol... I am not sure why we should put much stock in the explicit mythology of a troll army.
  - ALittleLight 7y ago
    I don't want to appear to defend 8chan here - but I don't think your critique is apt. For one, the people on 8chan are absolutely a hated minority. That's largely why they're getting banned from the internet. Mainstream figures aren't coming out in favor of 8chan, they're calling for it's dissolution. Saying you visit or enjoy 8chan in polite company would likely be a faux pas if anyone even knew what you were talking about. Of course, pretending to be a hated minority may be a rhetorical tactic - but that doesn't make it untrue. The Westborough Baptist Church may have experienced enhanced camaraderie from being almost universally reviled - but that doesn't mean they weren't, in fact, almost universally reviled. "Authoritarian" also seems like a poor description. The boards are anti authoritarian in that they have lax moderation. There isn't a punishment for unwanted opinions - you can't be downvoted or shadowbanned. People can't even judge your future posts by the content of your previous posts because everyone is anonymous and without a post history. Banning is by ip only, and easily avoided, and there aren't even accounts to lose. 8chan is much more anarchic than authoritarian. I'm making that claim based on their structure rather than their political ideology. The idea that Silicon Valley is not left wing also strikes me as highly suspect. For example, in the last Presidential election Clinton received 95% of Silicon Valley donations compared to 4% for Trump [1]. There are other, similar reports, for specific companies and different elections, but everything I've seen slowed they skew heavily left. I'm aware that there are conceptions of "left wing" where Clinton wouldn't really count as left wing, but so long as we are discussing American politics I don't think those alternate conceptions are relevant. Clinton is clearly further left than Trump. 1 - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nearly-all-of-silicon-valleys-political-dollars-are-going-to-hillary-clinton/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nearly-all-of-silicon-v...

username3 7y ago

8chan incubated hate speech because no one challenged hate speech on 8chan. 8chan welcomed everyone, but everyone ignored 8chan. >The concept of freedom of speech falls apart if universally reprehensible speech is allowed to be publicaly espoused without being firmly challenged. Forums like 8chan and 4chan effectively incubate hate speech by providing a safe space for anonymized, like-minded individuals to congregate, espouse their basest thoughts and feelings and receive gratification for it -all without challenge.

AgentME 7y ago
I've called out hate speech on 4chan and 8chan many times before. I've gotten called an "SJW cuck" a lot, and others doubled-down in posting shit gleefully when they saw their shit "triggered the libs". That was the fun part to them. To someone like me who isn't there just to challenge people, it's exasperating. I gave up and they didn't. I think certain site structures encourage different kinds of discussion. Imagine the most extreme possibility: a site that automatically hides posts that the majority would agree with after reading, and gives points to and highlights bombastic posts. You're not going to get good discussion out of this, no matter how much you try to convince people that it would be good for society if they visited this site and tried to challenge people there. I think imageboards like 4chan and 8chan accidentally approximate this. They bump threads to the top on every reply, so threads that trigger flame wars are incentivized. The lack of names means no one will call you out if you flip-flop opinions, so you're free to flip-flop to whatever opinion will trigger the most people, which users will do in order to make successful threads. After a few cycles of this, normal people ("normies") either leave or adapt themselves to fit in, so the remaining users have to amp up their ridiculousness to make threads that are bombastic to the new crowd. Users get used to having to make their opinions more extreme to get noticed. I think this then causes them to flock to threads that they can tell are bombastic to normies as a way to self-reaffirm their own tendency toward making bombastic threads. If you ever try to argue for the normie opinion on a subject, it "outs" yourself as someone who isn't a true user, as someone who isn't purposefully ratcheting their opinions up into offensiveness as the site encourages. Years ago, I helped run a once-popular imageboard dedicated to a fandom, and its level of dysfunction was legendary. A big part of that probably came from the userbase's overlap with 4chan, but the way problems regularly cropped up in common interactions even in topics and groups of users with little 4chan overlap made me skeptical of the structure itself. It helped a lot being able to see which anonymous users made which posts and see how common it was for people to sock-puppet or radically re-work their opinions in their next thread.

naasking 7y ago

> These boards do more than allow this hate to fester. They allow hate to grow as they become a recruiting ground that can radicalize people who never would have fallen into this mindset without these boards. This is a common narrative, but it depends on an empirical question of whether hate spreads online and whether this motivates action. Fortunately, studies suggest that online talk does not motivate action: https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-and-radicalisation.html https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a... To summarize: the internet does not accelerate the process of radicalization, it does not provide opportunities to self-radicalize, and it does not allow radicalization without physical contact with other radicals. So the empirical evidence does not entirely agree with your characterization of 8chan's role in radicalization.

joepie91_ 7y ago
I haven't read the full paper yet, but the 'Executive summary' section seems quite explicit that the findings relate to the internet specifically; that is, does "the internet" increase radicalization as opposed to other non-internet venues? But that isn't the point you're replying to; the point you're replying to is about "these boards" (ie. these venues), and makes no mention of their internet-ness being a factor. The report, crucially, does therefore not seem to contradict the post you're replying to, as that post is about radicalization in mixed-topic venues in general; this one just happens to be on the internet.
- naasking 7y ago
  What is a "mixed topic venue", precisely, that you would distinguish it from the internet or other media? Frankly, the internet is the ultimate mixed topic venue IMO. Furthermore, it seems pretty clear that the OP was specifically referring to online boards, and this forms the context of pretty much this entire thread and every discussion of this topic here and elsewhere about the spread of hate online.
  - joepie91_ 7y ago
    A mixed-topic venue is precisely what they described: > 8chan might be compartmentalized in a way that allows it to become an echo chamber of hate, but it also is highly connect to boards about general topics like video games, TV, and movies. Nowhere in the OP is "the internet" specifically mentioned as a factor. It's all about the general concept of mixing it into other topics to make it palatable (which is precisely how radicalization usually works online and offline, see also eg. biker gangs), and an online message board just happens to be the context in this particular case.