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The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And

The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. It’s important to remember too there are incentives for people to argue and behave otherwise: FB, Twitter, hate-speech mongers who want easy access to large audiences — All have commercial cause to act in favour of more and more extreme speech. People like that benefit from more and more extreme speech. They permit or encourage it on their platforms. This in turn causes the white blood cell count of the body politic to spike as it tries to counteract the bile and hate. This angry counter-speech then gets presented as “polarisation”. The solution to ignorance _can often be_ silencing the ignorant, yes, in order that the educators can be heard. Would we still have an anti-vax problem if FB banned it across its properties? Really? Banning disruptive speakers works. Every pub landlord knows it.

kabouseng 7y ago
And then something like Trump or Brexit happens, and the left had no idea it was coming because a lot of people's viewpoints were silenced / deplatformed....
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
pnako 7y ago
Would we still have a pro-vax problem if FB banned it across its properties?
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Yes, obviously. Do you think there aren't any anti-vaxxers with the ability to build a website?
  - bonaldi 7y ago
    "A website" that can get the reach among parents of FB's newsfeed? Yes, I think there are few anti-vaxxers who can build such a thing.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      True, but it doesn't have to have as large a reach, because it's presenting a more consistent anti-vax opinion. An anti-vax post on a FB newsfeed is quite likely to have counterarguments. An anti-vax website is unlikely to run into such problems. And going back to the original post: does "vaxxers on FB, anti-vaxxers elsewhere" sound like more polarisation, or less?
  - deepspace 7y ago
    Do you think that the average person sharing false stores on Facebook is capable of (a) finding and (b) sharing a website created by some random anti-vaxxer? The ubiquity of the platform and the ease of sharing massively amplifies the problem.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      > Do you think that the average person sharing false stores on Facebook is capable of (a) finding and (b) sharing a website created by some random anti-vaxxer? Yes. Why would they not be?
chrisseaton 7y ago
If you de-platform people they still think the way that they think, you just don't see what they're thinking and have no ability to challenge it. Then they turn up and vote...
- matthewmacleod 7y ago
  However, what they don’t do is convert loads of other people to their way of thinking.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    What makes you think this? Do you think that Voat, Fox News, InfoWars, etc are somehow less effective platforms?
    - matthewmacleod 7y ago
      Those are also things we should eliminate.
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        What you're proposing sounds uncomfortably like totalitarianism.
        eanzenberg 7y ago
        Which is the end-goal of the far left.
        matthewmacleod 7y ago
        No it doesn’t. I’m just totally comfortable with a world in which people are educated enough to no longer have to consume these industrial lie factories.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
djsumdog 7y ago
You realize Voat exists right? And Gab? I wrote this about how Voat grew: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/ Deplatforming was a big part of that. Deplatforming didn't stop Milo. His base dropped him because he started defending hebeaphiles & pedophile / men being attracted to teens/pre-teens/boys (there's actually something sadder here; with Milo not realizing he was himself abused ... there's an entire tragic story lost there people don't seem to understand or pick up on because they're too busy hating him). They might leave the platforms you like, but they move over to Voat, Gab or startup their own Pleroma/Mastodon instances (that get banned from everywhere). Deplatforming doesn't really work in the way you thin it does. It literally gives people more drive to stand up for and behind what Capital-T "truth" they think got themselves banned.
- bonaldi 7y ago
  Deplatforming doesn't work by silencing people, and the environment that you'd have to create to make it otherwise is not an enticing one. So yes, you can often cause the creation of spaces like Voat as a result of deplatforming. Sure, something like Voat pops up. But Reddit improves. And Reddit is where all the people are. There will always be dive bars, there will always be rough online neighbourhoods. But start by cleaning up the civic square.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > And Reddit is where all the people are. All the people in your echo chamber, that is.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      If what you mean to say is that "the subset of spaces that does not include Voat and Gab is an echo chamber", you are probably saying something about your own views that you might not mean to say.
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
kerkeslager 7y ago
> The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. This is simply not an accurate representation of history. Milo Yiannopoulos fell out of popularity because of repeated issues with pedophilia, which even the right doesn't condone. Katie Hopkins was financially ruined Monroe v. Hopkins[1]. InfoWars still has a larger readership than The Economist or Newsweek[2], so I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have lost influence. It sounds like you might be inside of an echo chamber. You may be looking at a different study, but the only study[3] I know of on the banning of hate sub-Reddits showed that content didn't pop up elsewhere on Reddit. It doesn't show that the hate didn't just move over to Voat, which is my theory as to what happened. Yes, the study was publicized as "deplatforming works", but only because people didn't know where the people who were deplatformed went. The rest of your post follows suit with claims that aren't based in reality. [1] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars (top section) [3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-controversial-ban-of-its-most-toxic-subreddits-actually-worked/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...
- bonaldi 7y ago
  Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-infowars-bans-traffic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf... Voat is discussed elsewhere here, too. In short, the point was precisely to get the speech off Reddit because it was poisoning Reddit. People said it wasn’t worth them trying because it would move to other subreddits. It didn’t, it moved offsite entirely. De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf.... Thank you for responding with actual data. I'll have to read the article. > De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one. I'm not sure how one can look at Reddit being more consistently liberal, and Voat being... Voat, and see this as "reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces".
iagovar 7y ago
I'd like to see that data.
brlewis 7y ago
> Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming When did they ever have agenda-setting influence? I need more specific citations for these claims than "the data" and "studies". > Banning disruptive speakers works. Every pub landlord knows it. I'm no expert on pubs, but my understanding is that "disruptive speakers" in that context are ones who make it hard for others to speak.
kodablah 7y ago
> The data suggests that deplatforming works Well of course. That's like a prohibitionist using the reduced alcohol consumption overall as justification. Data often suggests that prohibiting <thing> means less of <thing>. The question is not whether the goal of the silencing is mostly achieved, the question is whether that goal is worth the precedent. If your goal is to silence at all costs, it will always seem worth it. You'll find the less forceful actions (e.g. ignoring, dissuading, etc), when possible, have less slippery trade offs.
HeroOfAges 7y ago
You only say that because you don't agree with the agendas of the people you've listed. Would you trust me to choose when to deplatform the people who drive the agendas you agree with? edited because of grammar
MadWombat 7y ago
> And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. Could you provide a source for this?
- Pils 7y ago
  Probably this Georgia Tech article: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
wisty 7y ago
A lot of people are skeptics of "anti-racism" and "feminism". Not everyone thinks that racism is causing black people to be poor (IMO a lot of current anti-racists are like people who see a snake-bite victim, and start screaming out that we have to kill the snake - the snake might have caused the problem but treating a snake bite is not just chasing after snakes), and not everyone thinks that essentially every difference between men and women is part of some vast conspiracy to keep women down (this is reductionist - both because it tries to make everything a stupid "on balance, stuff is worse for women" argument, and because it's reductionist to say biology is not a factor). If relatively mild critics of these things are shut out of the mainstream media, then they get fans on mainstream social media platforms. If they're banned from mainstream social media, they'll find some other place. These fans haven't all been bitten by reactionary zombies, they often come up with their own doubts about the mainstream left, and look for people discussing the questions they have. Here's an article suggesting that 'alt lite' speakers or skeptics of social justice aren't necessarily creating some 'rabbit hole' effect, but may actually sap views away from hardline extremists - https://www.wired.com/story/not-youtubes-algorithm-radicalizes-people/ https://www.wired.com/story/not-youtubes-algorithm-radicaliz... Even if you think that critics of social justice are wrong, they exist (in large numbers). If you don't want the moderates on mainstream platforms, a number will go to darker corners of the internet where there is a genuine danger they will be radicalised. I guess maybe that's OK? Extreme right-wing radicals might tend to hurt the right. Maybe the goal is to drive away moderate anti-feminists or moderate anti-social justice types (e.g. Milo who seems to me to be a bit of a jerk, but is hardly radical), and if a few end up becoming alt-right then maybe that's OK (and "it's their fault" anyway).
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
  The overarching issue isn't the snakebite incident, it's the loss caused by having people repeatedly being bitten by snakes. So chasing down snakes is a prescribed if not demanded response.
roenxi 7y ago
On the one hand it is a reality that leftist ideologies gained a comfortable ascendancy in the major cultural engines of America and that is going to be leveraged as political power. Particularly education, the tech industry and Hollywood. On the other hand, there is the ongoing background corruption of power afoot. Taking power, utilising it and branding anyone who disagrees as 'toxic' is going to cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering, as it has in the past every time a group uses power in an unchecked fashion. Revolutions are often started by people who were deplatformed, it doesn't help when the situation is serious. If I recall correctly; Hitler, Stalin, Galileo and Gandhi are all people who were deplatformed and imprisoned. Jesus was deplatformed rather violently. Deplatforming is not a tool with a particularly proud history of success and prudent implementation; and its failures tend to be spectacular. Two sides sticking to reasoned debate, explanation, moderation and compromise has a much better track record of not-so-bad outcomes.
mrits 7y ago
Banning speech might fix anti-vax but it also might have caused vaccines to never be legal to begin with.
notadoc 7y ago
> The data suggests that deplatforming works. And how will you feel when whatever you personally have interest in gets deplatformed because someone else finds it to be disagreeable? If you don't think power will eventually be applied against you, you haven't read enough history.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kabouseng 7y ago

And then something like Trump or Brexit happens, and the left had no idea it was coming because a lot of people's viewpoints were silenced / deplatformed....

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

pnako 7y ago

Would we still have a pro-vax problem if FB banned it across its properties?

kerkeslager 7y ago
Yes, obviously. Do you think there aren't any anti-vaxxers with the ability to build a website?
- bonaldi 7y ago
  "A website" that can get the reach among parents of FB's newsfeed? Yes, I think there are few anti-vaxxers who can build such a thing.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    True, but it doesn't have to have as large a reach, because it's presenting a more consistent anti-vax opinion. An anti-vax post on a FB newsfeed is quite likely to have counterarguments. An anti-vax website is unlikely to run into such problems. And going back to the original post: does "vaxxers on FB, anti-vaxxers elsewhere" sound like more polarisation, or less?
- deepspace 7y ago
  Do you think that the average person sharing false stores on Facebook is capable of (a) finding and (b) sharing a website created by some random anti-vaxxer? The ubiquity of the platform and the ease of sharing massively amplifies the problem.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > Do you think that the average person sharing false stores on Facebook is capable of (a) finding and (b) sharing a website created by some random anti-vaxxer? Yes. Why would they not be?

chrisseaton 7y ago

If you de-platform people they still think the way that they think, you just don't see what they're thinking and have no ability to challenge it. Then they turn up and vote...

matthewmacleod 7y ago
However, what they don’t do is convert loads of other people to their way of thinking.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  What makes you think this? Do you think that Voat, Fox News, InfoWars, etc are somehow less effective platforms?
  - matthewmacleod 7y ago
    Those are also things we should eliminate.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      What you're proposing sounds uncomfortably like totalitarianism.
      - eanzenberg 7y ago
        Which is the end-goal of the far left.
      - matthewmacleod 7y ago
        No it doesn’t. I’m just totally comfortable with a world in which people are educated enough to no longer have to consume these industrial lie factories.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

djsumdog 7y ago

You realize Voat exists right? And Gab? I wrote this about how Voat grew: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/ Deplatforming was a big part of that. Deplatforming didn't stop Milo. His base dropped him because he started defending hebeaphiles & pedophile / men being attracted to teens/pre-teens/boys (there's actually something sadder here; with Milo not realizing he was himself abused ... there's an entire tragic story lost there people don't seem to understand or pick up on because they're too busy hating him). They might leave the platforms you like, but they move over to Voat, Gab or startup their own Pleroma/Mastodon instances (that get banned from everywhere). Deplatforming doesn't really work in the way you thin it does. It literally gives people more drive to stand up for and behind what Capital-T "truth" they think got themselves banned.

bonaldi 7y ago
Deplatforming doesn't work by silencing people, and the environment that you'd have to create to make it otherwise is not an enticing one. So yes, you can often cause the creation of spaces like Voat as a result of deplatforming. Sure, something like Voat pops up. But Reddit improves. And Reddit is where all the people are. There will always be dive bars, there will always be rough online neighbourhoods. But start by cleaning up the civic square.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > And Reddit is where all the people are. All the people in your echo chamber, that is.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    If what you mean to say is that "the subset of spaces that does not include Voat and Gab is an echo chamber", you are probably saying something about your own views that you might not mean to say.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago

kerkeslager 7y ago

> The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. This is simply not an accurate representation of history. Milo Yiannopoulos fell out of popularity because of repeated issues with pedophilia, which even the right doesn't condone. Katie Hopkins was financially ruined Monroe v. Hopkins[1]. InfoWars still has a larger readership than The Economist or Newsweek[2], so I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have lost influence. It sounds like you might be inside of an echo chamber. You may be looking at a different study, but the only study[3] I know of on the banning of hate sub-Reddits showed that content didn't pop up elsewhere on Reddit. It doesn't show that the hate didn't just move over to Voat, which is my theory as to what happened. Yes, the study was publicized as "deplatforming works", but only because people didn't know where the people who were deplatformed went. The rest of your post follows suit with claims that aren't based in reality. [1] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars (top section) [3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-controversial-ban-of-its-most-toxic-subreddits-actually-worked/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...

bonaldi 7y ago
Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-infowars-bans-traffic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf... Voat is discussed elsewhere here, too. In short, the point was precisely to get the speech off Reddit because it was poisoning Reddit. People said it wasn’t worth them trying because it would move to other subreddits. It didn’t, it moved offsite entirely. De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf.... Thank you for responding with actual data. I'll have to read the article. > De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one. I'm not sure how one can look at Reddit being more consistently liberal, and Voat being... Voat, and see this as "reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces".

iagovar 7y ago

I'd like to see that data.

brlewis 7y ago

> Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming When did they ever have agenda-setting influence? I need more specific citations for these claims than "the data" and "studies". > Banning disruptive speakers works. Every pub landlord knows it. I'm no expert on pubs, but my understanding is that "disruptive speakers" in that context are ones who make it hard for others to speak.

kodablah 7y ago

> The data suggests that deplatforming works Well of course. That's like a prohibitionist using the reduced alcohol consumption overall as justification. Data often suggests that prohibiting <thing> means less of <thing>. The question is not whether the goal of the silencing is mostly achieved, the question is whether that goal is worth the precedent. If your goal is to silence at all costs, it will always seem worth it. You'll find the less forceful actions (e.g. ignoring, dissuading, etc), when possible, have less slippery trade offs.

HeroOfAges 7y ago

You only say that because you don't agree with the agendas of the people you've listed. Would you trust me to choose when to deplatform the people who drive the agendas you agree with? edited because of grammar

MadWombat 7y ago

> And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. Could you provide a source for this?

Pils 7y ago
Probably this Georgia Tech article: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

wisty 7y ago

A lot of people are skeptics of "anti-racism" and "feminism". Not everyone thinks that racism is causing black people to be poor (IMO a lot of current anti-racists are like people who see a snake-bite victim, and start screaming out that we have to kill the snake - the snake might have caused the problem but treating a snake bite is not just chasing after snakes), and not everyone thinks that essentially every difference between men and women is part of some vast conspiracy to keep women down (this is reductionist - both because it tries to make everything a stupid "on balance, stuff is worse for women" argument, and because it's reductionist to say biology is not a factor). If relatively mild critics of these things are shut out of the mainstream media, then they get fans on mainstream social media platforms. If they're banned from mainstream social media, they'll find some other place. These fans haven't all been bitten by reactionary zombies, they often come up with their own doubts about the mainstream left, and look for people discussing the questions they have. Here's an article suggesting that 'alt lite' speakers or skeptics of social justice aren't necessarily creating some 'rabbit hole' effect, but may actually sap views away from hardline extremists - https://www.wired.com/story/not-youtubes-algorithm-radicalizes-people/ https://www.wired.com/story/not-youtubes-algorithm-radicaliz... Even if you think that critics of social justice are wrong, they exist (in large numbers). If you don't want the moderates on mainstream platforms, a number will go to darker corners of the internet where there is a genuine danger they will be radicalised. I guess maybe that's OK? Extreme right-wing radicals might tend to hurt the right. Maybe the goal is to drive away moderate anti-feminists or moderate anti-social justice types (e.g. Milo who seems to me to be a bit of a jerk, but is hardly radical), and if a few end up becoming alt-right then maybe that's OK (and "it's their fault" anyway).

x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
The overarching issue isn't the snakebite incident, it's the loss caused by having people repeatedly being bitten by snakes. So chasing down snakes is a prescribed if not demanded response.

roenxi 7y ago

On the one hand it is a reality that leftist ideologies gained a comfortable ascendancy in the major cultural engines of America and that is going to be leveraged as political power. Particularly education, the tech industry and Hollywood. On the other hand, there is the ongoing background corruption of power afoot. Taking power, utilising it and branding anyone who disagrees as 'toxic' is going to cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering, as it has in the past every time a group uses power in an unchecked fashion. Revolutions are often started by people who were deplatformed, it doesn't help when the situation is serious. If I recall correctly; Hitler, Stalin, Galileo and Gandhi are all people who were deplatformed and imprisoned. Jesus was deplatformed rather violently. Deplatforming is not a tool with a particularly proud history of success and prudent implementation; and its failures tend to be spectacular. Two sides sticking to reasoned debate, explanation, moderation and compromise has a much better track record of not-so-bad outcomes.

mrits 7y ago

Banning speech might fix anti-vax but it also might have caused vaccines to never be legal to begin with.

notadoc 7y ago

> The data suggests that deplatforming works. And how will you feel when whatever you personally have interest in gets deplatformed because someone else finds it to be disagreeable? If you don't think power will eventually be applied against you, you haven't read enough history.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]