7 ms·

You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in

You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse. Not taking anti-vaxxers seriously and placing them at the same level as doctors because ''both sides'' and ''free speech''. What has been proven again and again is that bad information drives out good, because it's so, so much easier to write bad information. So you need to keep a tight lid on people who spread actual bad information. If not you might end up as the US, with a reality-tv star as president.

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
That's been proven? Where? Because at least anecdotally, I recall reading so many stories of people who were talked out of a cult by having better information presented to them.
- Spare_account 7y ago
  I think if you're pushing back on the GP to ask for evidence, it is intellectually dishonest to go ahead and make your own un-founded statements. Can _you_ link to some of these stories to reinforce your point?
  - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
    Yeah, fine. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Remini#Scientology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Remini#Scientology - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed-to-vaccines-this-is-how-i-changed-my-mind/2019/02/11/20fca654-2e24-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed... - https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine As far as challenges of the put your money where your mouth is kind, this one was pretty easy. So easy in fact, that you should take a moment to reflect on why you were so quick to get on a moral high-horse of burden of proof.
    - Spare_account 7y ago
      It was a reasonable request. You appear to be upset about being asked for supporting links, despite having made the same request yourself. I genuinely don't understand that. I'm concerned that we're drifting too far away from the orignal topic though, so there may be limited scope to explore this aspect of things here.
      - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
        No, it was not reasonable. Not only did you call me "intellectually dishonest", but you also fell prey to the Burden of Proof logical fallacy, even after I had previously hinted at that by asking to see proof for the original claim. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
      - SkyBelow 7y ago
        >It was a reasonable request. Was it though? Let's break down what happened. A: Claim X. B: Can you support X? Claim not X. C: Can you support not X. You should provide support for not X before asking for support of X. Is it really reasonable to call out B for not providing support and not call out A for the same? B was the first to ask for sources, but A made the claim without sources. It also seems like if B only made the claim not X and didn't ask for sources, they would have been less likely to be called out themself. So is asking people who ask for sources to provide sources really reasonable when we don't make the same request of people who are making claims without any sources? It seems to give a first move advantage and thus wouldn't be reasonable.
        Spare_account 7y ago
        Sorry, I've only just seen this. Your breakdown doesn't reflect what happened here. You would be correct if all B had said was "Support X". What we saw above was: A: Claim X B: Support X, I've observed Y. C: Support Y too, please. In this particular case, Y was arguably the inverse of X but it was nevertheless described as having been observed many times, but without any sources.
    - 7y ago
cf498 7y ago
>You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. I would like a source on that. Dont take it personal, but I dont see how this is anything but tanky signaling to feel better about yourself. Here in Germany people were rather active in making sure the new far right party AFD wasnt given a platform. By now they are very close to being the strongest party in multiple states. All that deplatforming did there was giving them a quicker rise. You cant deplatform a large sections of society, you are only creating a stronger echo chamber for them by trying. And i have to remind you, the echo chamber only exists because we didnt want to talk to these people. Deplatforming attacks the people not the ideas behind them. Nothing good can (or ever did) come of that. On the contrary, it only strengthens the community under attack and gives them an enemy to connect over. The only reason its attractive again as a tactic is because its easier. Convincing people through a discussion is hard work. I am very much afraid of the day when people are no longer capable to have a discussion because they have forgotten how due to living in echo chambers their hole life. I dont have high hopes that large parts of the left still know how to convince people with arguments, which in turn doesnt give me high hopes for the future. So yes, pls dont fuck us all over I am really not interested in another Reichstagsbrand because people liked how they viewed them self when working on deplatforming.
- intended 7y ago
  I can source it. I worked on modding a political forum from its laissez fairs days to its current operating philosophy. Bad speech regularly frowns out signal, and in times of crisis, will overwhelm the channel with emotion. It’s easier to make vague funny one liners which reach the top of the page, drowning out that 8 page report on the telecom industry. Bashing a political candidate? Channel crusher. Once the channel is overtaken, crazier philosophies start opening up - nationalism, religious cleansing, minority targeting. Start moderating to keep the demons away? The banned users start forming their own sites and attacking you. Bread crumb arguments are spread to lead new users down a dark road and create more enemies. Eventually what works is banning all known bad actors and mention of those sites.
  - cf498 7y ago
azangru 7y ago
> You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse Many people (me included) find this approach very unpalatable because of how inherently authoritarian it is. (Ironically, this suggestion often comes from the same people who are concerned by how underrepresented some groups are in the public discourse and how the voices of those groups are not heard, and want to artificially amplify those voices). If you have studied history of any repressive regime where dissenters were deprived of any conventional platform and were reduced to circulating their ideas in the underground, you might empathise. It's absolutely fine not to take certain groups seriously. But it feels (to me) deeply unfair to undermine their very ability to speak.
- dariosalvi78 7y ago
  Wait, de platforming is very different than censorship. Examples: Should climate change deniers be given the same space as actual science? Should communists (to not only focus on far right) be invited to every serious talk about economy?
  - azangru 7y ago
    > Should ... be given the same space > Should ... be invited to every serious talk Of course not; but "inviting to every X", or "giving the same space" is very different from disallowing X to share the same space (especially if said client change deniers or communists are prepared to have a conversation using roughly the same epistemological tools as actual scientists). There is no onus on platform providers to ensure that every opinion gets the same attention as others; my argument is that they merely let others be.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
bart_spoon 7y ago
> You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. This isn't necessarily true. I was listening to a podcast about conspiracy theories and how misinformation spreads (the name of which is failing me right now), and in one episode there were some scientists who were dealing with a particular subsegment of the conspiracy theory crowd who would make wild claims about their scientific field. Trying to blackball them or shut down their voice was often all that was required to add fuel to their fire because "obviously these scientists were trying to suppress them because they didn't want the truth getting out". What ended up being much more effective was inviting some of the conspiracy theorists to speak at one of their scientific conferences. It ended up completely taking the air out of their claims, because none of them were willing to get up and try and defend their ludicrous theories against a bunch of trained experts. Short of creating an iron grip on all interaction with information a la China, deplatforming people is temporary, as creating and finding a new platform is easy and simply leads to a more concentrated echo chamber for their ideology to fester in. Voat, Gab, Hatreon, 4chan, 8chan, etc. There will always be another platform that opens up in response to other platforms shutting them down. And soon instead of having the original fake news or hateful ideology in the public, you now have a distilled, more extreme version of it leaking into the public. I don't know what the perfect solution is, but simply deplatforming people isn't going to be it. It will likely be something more like drowning out conspiratorial ideas with high volumes of truthful ones, rather than simply trying to cutoff the oxygen of the conspiracy theorists.
SkyBelow 7y ago
>You know what works? De-platforming them. Evidence seems to suggest that the current attempted solutions are not working.
sacrificedcapon 7y ago
> You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse. What you are advocating for is fascistic. What about those who believe you and people like you don't deserve a platform? Should you be deplatformed too? Who gets to decide? You? > What has been proven again and again is that bad information drives out good Actually, the opposite has been proven again and again. Once again, if what you said was true, we would still be flat-earthers and we wouldn't have vaccines. As I wrote, you do realize that flat-earth was the truth for millenia right? You do realize that the proponents of vaccines were ridiculed and attacked right? If people like you were in power, we'd still believe the earth was flat and we wouldn't have vaccines. > If not you might end up as the US, with a reality-tv star as president. Spoken like a true fascist who hates democracy. Also the US is doing better than every other major economy at the moment.
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Doing that destroys the intellectual curiosity the site exists for, so we ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago

That's been proven? Where? Because at least anecdotally, I recall reading so many stories of people who were talked out of a cult by having better information presented to them.

Spare_account 7y ago
I think if you're pushing back on the GP to ask for evidence, it is intellectually dishonest to go ahead and make your own un-founded statements. Can _you_ link to some of these stories to reinforce your point?
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  Yeah, fine. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Remini#Scientology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Remini#Scientology - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed-to-vaccines-this-is-how-i-changed-my-mind/2019/02/11/20fca654-2e24-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed... - https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine As far as challenges of the put your money where your mouth is kind, this one was pretty easy. So easy in fact, that you should take a moment to reflect on why you were so quick to get on a moral high-horse of burden of proof.
  - Spare_account 7y ago
    It was a reasonable request. You appear to be upset about being asked for supporting links, despite having made the same request yourself. I genuinely don't understand that. I'm concerned that we're drifting too far away from the orignal topic though, so there may be limited scope to explore this aspect of things here.
    - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
      No, it was not reasonable. Not only did you call me "intellectually dishonest", but you also fell prey to the Burden of Proof logical fallacy, even after I had previously hinted at that by asking to see proof for the original claim. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
    - SkyBelow 7y ago
      >It was a reasonable request. Was it though? Let's break down what happened. A: Claim X. B: Can you support X? Claim not X. C: Can you support not X. You should provide support for not X before asking for support of X. Is it really reasonable to call out B for not providing support and not call out A for the same? B was the first to ask for sources, but A made the claim without sources. It also seems like if B only made the claim not X and didn't ask for sources, they would have been less likely to be called out themself. So is asking people who ask for sources to provide sources really reasonable when we don't make the same request of people who are making claims without any sources? It seems to give a first move advantage and thus wouldn't be reasonable.
      - Spare_account 7y ago
        Sorry, I've only just seen this. Your breakdown doesn't reflect what happened here. You would be correct if all B had said was "Support X". What we saw above was: A: Claim X B: Support X, I've observed Y. C: Support Y too, please. In this particular case, Y was arguably the inverse of X but it was nevertheless described as having been observed many times, but without any sources.
  - 7y ago

cf498 7y ago

>You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. I would like a source on that. Dont take it personal, but I dont see how this is anything but tanky signaling to feel better about yourself. Here in Germany people were rather active in making sure the new far right party AFD wasnt given a platform. By now they are very close to being the strongest party in multiple states. All that deplatforming did there was giving them a quicker rise. You cant deplatform a large sections of society, you are only creating a stronger echo chamber for them by trying. And i have to remind you, the echo chamber only exists because we didnt want to talk to these people. Deplatforming attacks the people not the ideas behind them. Nothing good can (or ever did) come of that. On the contrary, it only strengthens the community under attack and gives them an enemy to connect over. The only reason its attractive again as a tactic is because its easier. Convincing people through a discussion is hard work. I am very much afraid of the day when people are no longer capable to have a discussion because they have forgotten how due to living in echo chambers their hole life. I dont have high hopes that large parts of the left still know how to convince people with arguments, which in turn doesnt give me high hopes for the future. So yes, pls dont fuck us all over I am really not interested in another Reichstagsbrand because people liked how they viewed them self when working on deplatforming.

intended 7y ago
I can source it. I worked on modding a political forum from its laissez fairs days to its current operating philosophy. Bad speech regularly frowns out signal, and in times of crisis, will overwhelm the channel with emotion. It’s easier to make vague funny one liners which reach the top of the page, drowning out that 8 page report on the telecom industry. Bashing a political candidate? Channel crusher. Once the channel is overtaken, crazier philosophies start opening up - nationalism, religious cleansing, minority targeting. Start moderating to keep the demons away? The banned users start forming their own sites and attacking you. Bread crumb arguments are spread to lead new users down a dark road and create more enemies. Eventually what works is banning all known bad actors and mention of those sites.
- cf498 7y ago

azangru 7y ago

> You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse Many people (me included) find this approach very unpalatable because of how inherently authoritarian it is. (Ironically, this suggestion often comes from the same people who are concerned by how underrepresented some groups are in the public discourse and how the voices of those groups are not heard, and want to artificially amplify those voices). If you have studied history of any repressive regime where dissenters were deprived of any conventional platform and were reduced to circulating their ideas in the underground, you might empathise. It's absolutely fine not to take certain groups seriously. But it feels (to me) deeply unfair to undermine their very ability to speak.

dariosalvi78 7y ago
Wait, de platforming is very different than censorship. Examples: Should climate change deniers be given the same space as actual science? Should communists (to not only focus on far right) be invited to every serious talk about economy?
- azangru 7y ago
  > Should ... be given the same space > Should ... be invited to every serious talk Of course not; but "inviting to every X", or "giving the same space" is very different from disallowing X to share the same space (especially if said client change deniers or communists are prepared to have a conversation using roughly the same epistemological tools as actual scientists). There is no onus on platform providers to ensure that every opinion gets the same attention as others; my argument is that they merely let others be.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bart_spoon 7y ago

> You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. This isn't necessarily true. I was listening to a podcast about conspiracy theories and how misinformation spreads (the name of which is failing me right now), and in one episode there were some scientists who were dealing with a particular subsegment of the conspiracy theory crowd who would make wild claims about their scientific field. Trying to blackball them or shut down their voice was often all that was required to add fuel to their fire because "obviously these scientists were trying to suppress them because they didn't want the truth getting out". What ended up being much more effective was inviting some of the conspiracy theorists to speak at one of their scientific conferences. It ended up completely taking the air out of their claims, because none of them were willing to get up and try and defend their ludicrous theories against a bunch of trained experts. Short of creating an iron grip on all interaction with information a la China, deplatforming people is temporary, as creating and finding a new platform is easy and simply leads to a more concentrated echo chamber for their ideology to fester in. Voat, Gab, Hatreon, 4chan, 8chan, etc. There will always be another platform that opens up in response to other platforms shutting them down. And soon instead of having the original fake news or hateful ideology in the public, you now have a distilled, more extreme version of it leaking into the public. I don't know what the perfect solution is, but simply deplatforming people isn't going to be it. It will likely be something more like drowning out conspiratorial ideas with high volumes of truthful ones, rather than simply trying to cutoff the oxygen of the conspiracy theorists.

SkyBelow 7y ago

>You know what works? De-platforming them. Evidence seems to suggest that the current attempted solutions are not working.

sacrificedcapon 7y ago

> You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse. What you are advocating for is fascistic. What about those who believe you and people like you don't deserve a platform? Should you be deplatformed too? Who gets to decide? You? > What has been proven again and again is that bad information drives out good Actually, the opposite has been proven again and again. Once again, if what you said was true, we would still be flat-earthers and we wouldn't have vaccines. As I wrote, you do realize that flat-earth was the truth for millenia right? You do realize that the proponents of vaccines were ridiculed and attacked right? If people like you were in power, we'd still believe the earth was flat and we wouldn't have vaccines. > If not you might end up as the US, with a reality-tv star as president. Spoken like a true fascist who hates democracy. Also the US is doing better than every other major economy at the moment.

dang 7y ago
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Doing that destroys the intellectual curiosity the site exists for, so we ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html