I disagree. I think de-platforming is rarely ever effective, and is very often counter-productive and achieves the opposite of the intended effect. 8chan, Gab,

I disagree. I think de-platforming is rarely ever effective, and is very often counter-productive and achieves the opposite of the intended effect. 8chan, Gab, Voat, other imageboards, and distributed semi-private things like Discord servers continue to grow in popularity and continue to further radicalize people far beyond where they were before they first came to those places. I recommend this post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-central... Key excerpt: "There’s an unfortunate corollary to this, which is that if you try to create a libertarian paradise, you will attract three deeply virtuous people with a strong commitment to the principle of universal freedom, plus millions of scoundrels. Declare that you’re going to stop holding witch hunts, and your coalition is certain to include more than its share of witches." If you have relatively moderate people looking to discuss non-mainstream things without being censored, and they can't do that, then you're forcing them into the witches' dens, where they'll probably become increasingly less moderate and increasingly more paranoid and polarized. They feel like the other side hates them and is out to get them... and in this case, their point is being proven. This is exactly why Trump won in 2016 and why he'll probably win again. Sure, it certainly isn't profitable or fun to run 8chan, Gab, or Voat if you're the owners, but this is just about the users who don't particularly care what site they're using. They'll just use whatever site won't get rid of them. (Also, it isn't even profitable or fun to run reddit, either.) And this isn't even getting into the possible ethics of de-platforming and censorship and what should and shouldn't be permitted; just the practical effects. Practically speaking, I don't think it's an effective tactic, if the effect you want is to disempower your opponents. It empowers them and energizes them.