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Censoring opposition has not once yielded positive results in the history of the world. My personal conspiracy theory is that policies like these are subversive
by jimbob45 6y ago
Censoring opposition has not once yielded positive results in the history of the world. My personal conspiracy theory is that policies like these are subversively being used to push HD since no one could possibly be stupid enough to think this would help.
- runarberg 6y agoHasn’t it? Do you have any examples, or should I just take your word for it?
- donatj 6y agoAre you completely blind to the countercultures that have popped up completely unchecked because of social media bans?
- CydeWeys 6y agoWhy do people fight against deplatforming if according to you it's actually beneficial for their cause?
- jimbob45 6y agoBecause it’s a huge pain to re-establish their platform elsewhere, not that it can’t be done.
- CydeWeys 6y agoCan it be done? Who's been banned from the major platforms and has then established a similarly sized platform of their own elsewhere? You have to admit that this is at least a huge roadblock for hateful extremists, no?
- jimbob45 6y agoThe textbook definition of people not on your side is “hateful extremist”. Everyone who doesn’t agree with someone is the worst person ever. Attempting to claim that your censorship holds the moral imperative can be used to make dubiously ethical decisions under the guise of a divine mission. Also this has recently happened with many Twitch streamers. Destiny, Vaush, Sargon, and others got deplatformed and moved elsewhere. One could argue that Andrew Wakefield, the founder of the anti-vaccine movement, has found/made a stronger platform after losing his license and being publicly denounced than he ever had as a doctor.
- CydeWeys 6y agoWhat if 99+% of people agree that someone is a hateful extremist? Isn't "the only important moral imperative is unrestricted free speech above all else" itself an extremist position? Very few people agree with what you're espousing, so, just practically speaking, there's always going to be extremist views considered so far beyond the pale that they are always "censored" by society (pro-pedophilia would be a good example of one in the west). If you live your life by moral imperatives such as utilitarianism/the veil of ignorance, then you will in fact be compelled by moral imperative to denounce people whose views do not lead to doing the most good for all (as e.g. is true of anti-vaxxers).
- jimbob45 6y agoSuch a person or belief should still be afforded due process or a reasonable platform to state their case. Otherwise, how else could it be evident to all that they’re truly wrong? I would hardly regard the ideas of due process or balanced debate to be niche ideas. Also, to my knowledge, what you said is incorrect. It is perfectly legal to debate the legality and ethicality of pedophilia and vaccination. It is not legal to advocate for them, but advocation and debate aren’t the same thing. For example, the Wikipedia articles on Holocaust denial steelman the opposition quite well but no one would accuse those articles of advocating for denial of the Holocaust.
- 6y ago
- ashtonkem 6y agoEvidence is that when large social media sites ban hateful groups, they re-congregate somewhere else in much smaller numbers. So while the bans don’t eliminate all of them, they are actually fairly effective at turning the temperature down. Consider people like Alex Jones. He’s still making stuff, his hardcore fans still subscribe to his stuff, but he’s lost all of his marginal followers as well as the massive on-ramp that YouTube provided him in the form of search and recommendations. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...
- donatj 6y agoWith the rise of more mainstream alternatives to Twitter and Facebook like Parler, I think that affect is going to be minimalized.
- CydeWeys 6y agoI don't know anyone who even knows what Parler is, let alone has used it. This is gonna be the next Voat. Websites that are predominantly extremist content because the only people using them are those banned from all the major platforms don't tend to succeed.
- donatj 6y agoI think that largely speaks to your bubble has blinded you, and thus the problem as a whole. With people on the right, Parler is very well known. There are a pretty large number of celebrities and politicians - and unlike Gab not merely people who were dumped from other social media platforms.
- CydeWeys 6y agoCan you give some specific examples of these well-known people who are on Parler? Ideally ones that have been banned from the major platforms?
- runarberg 6y agoidk, maybe I am. However anecdotally, I was a part of the occupy movement back in 2011. A large part of our spread was to stay on the street and deliver propaganda. After we were de-platformed by the police using various scare tactics (including arrest) our spread was heavily restricted and the movement quickly died. It seems to me that these tactics of stopping our spread by the police were pretty successful.
- mannykannot 6y agoSo, unless hate is completely unchecked, it will be completely unchecked?
- donatj 6y agoIt should be argued against, not silenced. Silencing it merely pushes underground where you don't hear it, and festers.
- mannykannot 6y agoSee Ashtonkem’s reply for why this is a false dichotomy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754897 Refutation is not predicated on first disseminating the hatred as widely as possible.
- jimbob45 6y agoTiananmen Square has exploded in visibility despite the Chinese doing far worse in years since (NK border slave camps, the Uighur camps). Trump’s tax records were talked about for half of a decade before he released them (with far less to show within proportional to the hype). The US government’s attempts to shed evidence of MKUltra in the wake of Watergate has resulted in it staying a household name ~50 years later.
- netmonk 6y agoI am the evidence, the more mass media and social networks are censoring Holocaust denier. The more im curious about it. I mean, yes it's been a real scientifical topic since 1950 with a lot of heavy study from very rigorous and scientific process to really understand what happened, and somehow demonstrate that some advertised numbers in this case are quite a little bit over any physical reality. So yes you can start to read papers from deceased Faurisson who might be the most honnest guy on earth with a real Sherlock Holmes mindset on the topic and start to question a little what you have been taught mostly by hollywood movies...( the main fabric of consentment). See im the living exemple of what is claimed here. The more there is cencorship, the more it backslashes and it is counterproductive. Of course most peoples dont care at all cause they totally adhere to official story telling. But there still part of peoples who are curious enough and are appeled by truth instead of dogma. You ask for proof of the previous poster, but you never asked for a proof of 6millions jews being killed during wwII funny isn'tit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI'd suggest approaching this from the other direction: providing even one counterexample would refute GP's assertion.
- anigbrowl 6y agoSurely it's up to the GP to bring at least some evidence for such a broad claim before the obligation falls on other people to spend their valuable time refuting it.
- runarberg 6y agoTrue. Great grand parent was pretty strong in their claim “has not once yielded positive results in the history of the world.” I only need to provide one counter example to disprove this, while they need something far more significant, like several examples and a sufficiently good description of some mechanism for why this is the case in general. ashtonkem mentioned Alex Jones (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754897) that is a pretty good counter example, and is sufficient to refute the original claim.
- cwperkins 6y agoIdk what Facebook's decision will yield and I want a healthier discourse more than anyone else. The thing I would like to add to the conversation is that I think its important to know what people like Nick Cannon think or DeSean Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Many prominent celebrities are followers like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy. When Nick Cannon came on air and said horrible things he got challenged and presumably (at least I hope), understands how his comments came off. The main battle online is disinformation from not genuine sources. Many Holocaust deniers fit this bill and should be removed. That being said, there also needs to be room to discuss history and try to understand the events that led up to historical atrocities and I really want to know what the best way is to facilitate healthy discourse. I think the current method of upvoting and downvoting on the internet leads to an inorganic and not a serendipitous experience. NYT and WSJ have sections for Featured Comments in an effort to put insightful comments at the top and eliminate recency bias. I just want to do anything to fight the tribalism happening in the USA.
- aww_dang 6y ago"Sometimes Less Is More: Censorship, News Falsification, and Disapproval" https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12501
- Boxxed 6y agoThis is not "opposition", this is hate.