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Unfortunately, in this day and age, social ostracism makes things worse because people tend to continue to group up on other platforms that are worse. Like Gab

Unfortunately, in this day and age, social ostracism makes things worse because people tend to continue to group up on other platforms that are worse. Like Gab- can't use Twitter? We'll make our own echo chamber. Them being on Twitter is bad, but being on their own platform is arguably worse. > To my mind, no good-faith claim that such things do not need to be ostracised exists. Here's my claim- WRT to the internet, ostracism of extremists generally makes the social situation worse. (BTW, I really don't like it, either.)

LocalH 7y ago
Them being on Twitter is bad, but being on their own platform is arguably worse. I fully agree with this. It will end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy for those arguing against true freedom of speech. When you deplatform a viewpoint entirely, then the people with that viewpoint are going to coalesce onto a much smaller platform, which will end up being an echo chamber for the viewpoints that the rest of the world desires to quash. Then, it will end up becoming an argument to prevent such echo chambers from even forming in the first place, which would effectively make it impossible for smaller players to get an inroad, as they'll just be preemptively accused of being inherently alt-right. These people don't understand that, when you centralize control over avenues of speech like that, then one day that centralized control can do a 180 and start banning any type of speech, and not just "harmful" or "problematic" speech. It's literally the same type of tactic that China uses to suppress dissent, just on a different scale (and with a different culture behind it). It's so transparent, yet the prevailing "public narrative" is still highly supportive of deplatforming.
krageon 7y ago
This argument is compelling on the surface, were it not that Europe has had laws against this kind of speech for a fairly long time now and it has made nothing worse. The place where it really is worse is the US, where even people who are not fascists seem to imagine that it is important to give them a "platform".

LocalH 7y ago

Them being on Twitter is bad, but being on their own platform is arguably worse. I fully agree with this. It will end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy for those arguing against true freedom of speech. When you deplatform a viewpoint entirely, then the people with that viewpoint are going to coalesce onto a much smaller platform, which will end up being an echo chamber for the viewpoints that the rest of the world desires to quash. Then, it will end up becoming an argument to prevent such echo chambers from even forming in the first place, which would effectively make it impossible for smaller players to get an inroad, as they'll just be preemptively accused of being inherently alt-right. These people don't understand that, when you centralize control over avenues of speech like that, then one day that centralized control can do a 180 and start banning any type of speech, and not just "harmful" or "problematic" speech. It's literally the same type of tactic that China uses to suppress dissent, just on a different scale (and with a different culture behind it). It's so transparent, yet the prevailing "public narrative" is still highly supportive of deplatforming.

krageon 7y ago

This argument is compelling on the surface, were it not that Europe has had laws against this kind of speech for a fairly long time now and it has made nothing worse. The place where it really is worse is the US, where even people who are not fascists seem to imagine that it is important to give them a "platform".