10 ms·

To be fair, when the ideas include what’s on 8chan, you can see why they worry - like the article author.

by dash2 6y ago

keiferski 6y ago
I don't know, I think it just betrays a deep insecurity. Who cares what a bunch of teenagers say on the Internet? Even the real world consequences of fringe online groups are minuscule in comparison to their perceived threat. Civil society, in theory, is supposed to be about keeping civil with people that you have fundamental disagreements with - so that society can function. That has morphed into one highly religious in tone, in which it's not merely enough to tolerate other people - you have to convert them, and if they refuse to comply, excommunicate (deplatform) them.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > Who cares what a bunch of teenagers say on the Internet? Because it gets to the point where it becomes young adults planning mass shootings on the Internet.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    ...and this actually happens how often? Say, in comparison to the consequences of suppressing speech (easily observable throughout the 20th century)? Or even just other causes of death or violence? It's minuscule, so little that it's almost absurd to even be worried about it.
    - notreallytrue 6y ago
      Please stop pretending that USA are not a violent country where mass shootings don't happen all the time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
      - keiferski 6y ago
        Almost all of these look to be local-level disagreements or semi-organized crime, not radicalized teenagers on 8Chan.
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        They send hate letters to each other with stagecoach services? The problem is that there is no such thing as "freedom of speech" it's BS, there is a right to have an opinion, but some opinions are crimes and should never become speech, let alone be public Corollary: public speech must be granted to everyone, because it's in the US Constitution, but you should not use it to badmouth the US
        nitrogen 6y ago
        but some opinions are crimes No. The US does not criminalize thought, and doing so would be tyranny. you should not use it to badmouth the US Also No. The very purpose of freedom of speech and the press is to maintain channels for criticism and change.
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        > No. The US does not criminalize thought, and doing so would be tyranny. That's why nobody takes Americans seriously and they need so many guns to get attention Fascism is a crime in Italy, it's in the Constitution Nazism is a crime in Germany as well They are not opinions, they are crimes Of course not for the US that saved lots of them and brought them home Or supported them when they literally destroyed South America instating far right dictatorships... > The very purpose of freedom of speech and the press is to maintain channels for criticism and change Says the country where every year tens of mass shooting episodes happen and never changed anything to prevent them, despite being the only place in the developed World where it happens and an insurmountable amount of criticism Do you mind if I don't buy your BS?
        6y ago
    - tjoff 6y ago
      Once a month? Free speech has never been free, some limitations has always existed. So I'm not sure what observable consequences you are talking about.
    - dash2 6y ago
      It’s non-obvious what the consequences of suppressing free speech are. You can’t just assume an equivalent between that and fascism or socialism. Today, Germany bans certain kinds of hate speech, as a result of its previous experience.
      - notreallytrue 6y ago
        Nobody wants to suppress free speech, just private controlled public speech. Free speech is not gratis. It needs care.
  - alexisread 6y ago
    Rather than censoring people, we could take the approach that our worldview is robust enough to withstand competition / challenge. More discussion should in theory wither the fragile ones: https://youtu.be/BiqDZlAZygU https://youtu.be/BiqDZlAZygU The real issue is echo chambers, and getting people to voluntarily cross- pollinate their bubbles. Censoring actually makes this issue worse though.
    - unknownkadath 6y ago
      You are assuming that the market place of ideas selects for correctness rather than virality.
      - ryukafalz 6y ago
        We might get a bit closer if our communication tools encouraged correctness rather than virality.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        Which they never will without some central power because the (economic)market selects for virality when it comes to communication tools. The action of that central power will be called censorship. You could also try to have some guarantee of interoperability to reduce network effects and thus make the market effect weaker and reduce the selection for virality. That seems like something we could try.
  - panta 6y ago
    Maybe they become those young adults for different reasons? It could be an effect of an alienating society, focused mainly on wealth instead of on the human being.
    - dash2 6y ago
      You can’t explain a change with a constant. We’ve had capitalism for centuries. Far right and Islamic terrorism are not new, but they have risen greatly, and their spread is linked to extremism on the internet.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        Most Islamic extremism is spread through mosques and prisons, at least in Europe. I can't remember the last time a terrorism investigation tracked the original radicalisation back to the internet. It's a non issue.
        skinkestek 6y ago
        ISIS at is peak had a significant web presence.
        thu2111 6y ago
        Good point, but I'm struggling to remember people who were radicalised exclusively through ISIS websites. There probably have been a few just because there were so many cases by now they all blur together a bit, but usually ISIS sympathisers seem to have been exposed to a lot of ISIS propaganda during sermons. They may also have consumed online content but it was in addition to, not in replacement of, traditional offline radicalisation.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  There's been more than a few terrorist incidents connected to forums like 8chan. In terms of the physical damage these attacks are not a threat to society but that's true of all terrorism. The argument normally is that the psychological damage to society as a whole is worth throwing everything we have at it.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Large media outlets like The New York Times were instrumental in convincing the public that Saddam had WMDs and thus justifying the Iraq War. That conflict led to something like a million deaths (and counting), which is 1000x more than all the "Internet forum"- related terrorism put together. Yet I don't see anyone calling for further control of The New York Times or implementing restrictions on the corporate media.
    - bosswipe 6y ago
      The New York Times didn't come up with the idea of the Iraq War. The Iraq War was the official policy of the United States government.
      - keiferski 6y ago
        They facilitated the war (through making it publicly acceptable) and made it easier to enact, just as social media supposedly facilitates terrorism.
- dageshi 6y ago
  I think instead of deplatform them, it's trying to force them off onto their own platform. When racists (or similar "undesirables") share a larger platform they've kinda got to be on their best behaviour, they can't be too obvious instead they've got to be subtler and in doing so they likely attract more people to their cause because susceptible people tip toe in their direction gradually. If they're all forced out onto their own platforms because of "muh free speech" the users won't tolerate being policed and so the absolute worst comes out and anyone stumbling across the community is going to be repelled fairly quickly.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    That assumes they all only go to one place, which then turns into a cesspool that immediately repels anyone who enters. There are two problems with this. The first is that it works both ways. If you expel all the heretics then your site becomes a cesspool of groupthink that immediately repels anyone who has had so much as a conversation with someone from the other side, because you'll be saying things that are transparently wrong to anyone who has had any real-world contact with the subject matter and be unable to correct yourself because anyone who spots the error fears being ejected for pointing it out. And the second is that the version of the opposition on their best behavior for doing recruitment doesn't actually disappear, it just ends up in separate places. Your opponents will have their home base which is full of their own obviously wrong groupthink, but there will also continue to exist places where moderates gather. Which means you have a new problem. The place where moderates gather will still have the subtle extremism you were trying to eject, but now, because your population hasn't been exposed to it, they're more susceptible to it. They're unvaccinated. So now you have to not only eject the extremists but also the moderates, because anyone who starts listening to the moderates may start to realize that some parts of the things your own extremists say aren't exactly true. Which puts them at high risk of switching to the other team. And you've already turned the other team into a coalition of crazy extremists. But ejecting the moderates turns your team into a coalition of crazy extremists, which is likewise quite ungood.
    - dageshi 6y ago
      People like their own online bubbles in much the way they like their own offline bubbles. If you're sick of hearing the shit some people spew in the real world you don't go out of your way to be in the same places as them if you can avoid it. We choose our social circles and the material we consume in real life it's not unsurprising this happens online as well. These broad platforms like twitter, reddit e.t.c. aren't any more immune to this than offline.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Even the real world consequences of fringe online groups are minuscule in comparison to their perceived threat. That assessment sounds like it's based on body count over total population. The psychological effect of terrorism is at least as significant.
- rglullis 6y ago
  I am not going to be the first one to say that Wokeness has become the perfect 21st century version of Puritanism for SJW. Take a look at some BLM protests and how people wanted to chant, display repent for their sins, subjugate in Communion, etc. And the worst part of it all is how SJWs all claim to be against collonialism and how they want to defend diversity, yet don't realize how the ideology is spreading around the world turning everything into an echo chamber of myopic morals.
  - spacekitcat 6y ago
    Do you really go around unironically calling people "SJWs" and moaning about people being "Woke"? That's a bit sad.
    - chokeartist 6y ago
      Won't speak for your OP, but from my perspective most Social Justice Warriors embrace the term, even if it is thrown at them derisively from the other side. Same thing goes for being "Woke" -- it is a term and mindset that they embrace.
      - rglullis 6y ago
        Yeah, pretty much. My comment was not about trying to put a blanket statement on anyone that defends any kind of progressive policies. I am referring to the fundamentalist "activists" and those that turn Progressive/Liberal values to an extreme core point of their identities.
        spacekitcat 6y ago
        I notice you don’t get specific. Is the vague language designed to obfuscate what you really mean?
        rglullis 6y ago
        No. The vague language is to avoid getting caught in fruitless conversations with some holier-than-thou puritanical clown who will comb through any comment I make with the intent of showing how something I said is an unforgivable sin.
rglullis 6y ago
On the other hand, the fact that 8chan exists and that it does not rely on technology to be censorship-resistant shows how this worry is misplaced.
odessacubbage 6y ago
8chan was something like 95% autistic crossdressing homosexuals who just wanted to shitpost about anime and videogames.
sneak 6y ago
No, I can't, unless you assume that everyone else doing the reading is somehow more gullible or impressionable than yourself. Did 8chan make you pick up a gun? Did 8chan turn you into a nazi? Just because seeing something published makes you upset does not mean that publishing those things is inherently dangerous. You need to trust the other people in your society a bit more than you do, and stop assuming most readers are ten years old. Your conclusion is based on fear, not the millions of people who read "objectionable" things online and go "ugh" and then close the tab (and sometimes go write long-winded blog posts about how censorship is essential to prevent violence).

To be fair, when the ideas include what’s on 8chan, you can see why they worry - like the article author.

by dash2 6y ago

To be fair, when the ideas include what’s on 8chan, you can see why they worry - like the article author.

I don't know, I think it just betrays a deep insecurity. Who cares what a bunch of teenagers say on the Internet? Even the real world consequences of fringe online groups are minuscule in comparison to their perceived threat. Civil society, in theory, is supposed to be about keeping civil with people that you have fundamental disagreements with - so that society can function. That has morphed into one highly religious in tone, in which it's not merely enough to tolerate other people - you have to convert them, and if they refuse to comply, excommunicate (deplatform) them.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> Who cares what a bunch of teenagers say on the Internet? Because it gets to the point where it becomes young adults planning mass shootings on the Internet.
- keiferski 6y ago
  ...and this actually happens how often? Say, in comparison to the consequences of suppressing speech (easily observable throughout the 20th century)? Or even just other causes of death or violence? It's minuscule, so little that it's almost absurd to even be worried about it.
  - notreallytrue 6y ago
    Please stop pretending that USA are not a violent country where mass shootings don't happen all the time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
    - keiferski 6y ago
      Almost all of these look to be local-level disagreements or semi-organized crime, not radicalized teenagers on 8Chan.
      - notreallytrue 6y ago
        They send hate letters to each other with stagecoach services? The problem is that there is no such thing as "freedom of speech" it's BS, there is a right to have an opinion, but some opinions are crimes and should never become speech, let alone be public Corollary: public speech must be granted to everyone, because it's in the US Constitution, but you should not use it to badmouth the US
        nitrogen 6y ago
        but some opinions are crimes No. The US does not criminalize thought, and doing so would be tyranny. you should not use it to badmouth the US Also No. The very purpose of freedom of speech and the press is to maintain channels for criticism and change.
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        > No. The US does not criminalize thought, and doing so would be tyranny. That's why nobody takes Americans seriously and they need so many guns to get attention Fascism is a crime in Italy, it's in the Constitution Nazism is a crime in Germany as well They are not opinions, they are crimes Of course not for the US that saved lots of them and brought them home Or supported them when they literally destroyed South America instating far right dictatorships... > The very purpose of freedom of speech and the press is to maintain channels for criticism and change Says the country where every year tens of mass shooting episodes happen and never changed anything to prevent them, despite being the only place in the developed World where it happens and an insurmountable amount of criticism Do you mind if I don't buy your BS?
        6y ago
  - tjoff 6y ago
    Once a month? Free speech has never been free, some limitations has always existed. So I'm not sure what observable consequences you are talking about.
  - dash2 6y ago
    It’s non-obvious what the consequences of suppressing free speech are. You can’t just assume an equivalent between that and fascism or socialism. Today, Germany bans certain kinds of hate speech, as a result of its previous experience.
    - notreallytrue 6y ago
      Nobody wants to suppress free speech, just private controlled public speech. Free speech is not gratis. It needs care.
- alexisread 6y ago
  Rather than censoring people, we could take the approach that our worldview is robust enough to withstand competition / challenge. More discussion should in theory wither the fragile ones: https://youtu.be/BiqDZlAZygU https://youtu.be/BiqDZlAZygU The real issue is echo chambers, and getting people to voluntarily cross- pollinate their bubbles. Censoring actually makes this issue worse though.
  - unknownkadath 6y ago
    You are assuming that the market place of ideas selects for correctness rather than virality.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      We might get a bit closer if our communication tools encouraged correctness rather than virality.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Which they never will without some central power because the (economic)market selects for virality when it comes to communication tools. The action of that central power will be called censorship. You could also try to have some guarantee of interoperability to reduce network effects and thus make the market effect weaker and reduce the selection for virality. That seems like something we could try.
- panta 6y ago
  Maybe they become those young adults for different reasons? It could be an effect of an alienating society, focused mainly on wealth instead of on the human being.
  - dash2 6y ago
    You can’t explain a change with a constant. We’ve had capitalism for centuries. Far right and Islamic terrorism are not new, but they have risen greatly, and their spread is linked to extremism on the internet.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Most Islamic extremism is spread through mosques and prisons, at least in Europe. I can't remember the last time a terrorism investigation tracked the original radicalisation back to the internet. It's a non issue.
      - skinkestek 6y ago
        ISIS at is peak had a significant web presence.
        thu2111 6y ago
        Good point, but I'm struggling to remember people who were radicalised exclusively through ISIS websites. There probably have been a few just because there were so many cases by now they all blur together a bit, but usually ISIS sympathisers seem to have been exposed to a lot of ISIS propaganda during sermons. They may also have consumed online content but it was in addition to, not in replacement of, traditional offline radicalisation.
bosswipe 6y ago
There's been more than a few terrorist incidents connected to forums like 8chan. In terms of the physical damage these attacks are not a threat to society but that's true of all terrorism. The argument normally is that the psychological damage to society as a whole is worth throwing everything we have at it.
- keiferski 6y ago
  Large media outlets like The New York Times were instrumental in convincing the public that Saddam had WMDs and thus justifying the Iraq War. That conflict led to something like a million deaths (and counting), which is 1000x more than all the "Internet forum"- related terrorism put together. Yet I don't see anyone calling for further control of The New York Times or implementing restrictions on the corporate media.
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    The New York Times didn't come up with the idea of the Iraq War. The Iraq War was the official policy of the United States government.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      They facilitated the war (through making it publicly acceptable) and made it easier to enact, just as social media supposedly facilitates terrorism.
dageshi 6y ago
I think instead of deplatform them, it's trying to force them off onto their own platform. When racists (or similar "undesirables") share a larger platform they've kinda got to be on their best behaviour, they can't be too obvious instead they've got to be subtler and in doing so they likely attract more people to their cause because susceptible people tip toe in their direction gradually. If they're all forced out onto their own platforms because of "muh free speech" the users won't tolerate being policed and so the absolute worst comes out and anyone stumbling across the community is going to be repelled fairly quickly.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  That assumes they all only go to one place, which then turns into a cesspool that immediately repels anyone who enters. There are two problems with this. The first is that it works both ways. If you expel all the heretics then your site becomes a cesspool of groupthink that immediately repels anyone who has had so much as a conversation with someone from the other side, because you'll be saying things that are transparently wrong to anyone who has had any real-world contact with the subject matter and be unable to correct yourself because anyone who spots the error fears being ejected for pointing it out. And the second is that the version of the opposition on their best behavior for doing recruitment doesn't actually disappear, it just ends up in separate places. Your opponents will have their home base which is full of their own obviously wrong groupthink, but there will also continue to exist places where moderates gather. Which means you have a new problem. The place where moderates gather will still have the subtle extremism you were trying to eject, but now, because your population hasn't been exposed to it, they're more susceptible to it. They're unvaccinated. So now you have to not only eject the extremists but also the moderates, because anyone who starts listening to the moderates may start to realize that some parts of the things your own extremists say aren't exactly true. Which puts them at high risk of switching to the other team. And you've already turned the other team into a coalition of crazy extremists. But ejecting the moderates turns your team into a coalition of crazy extremists, which is likewise quite ungood.
  - dageshi 6y ago
    People like their own online bubbles in much the way they like their own offline bubbles. If you're sick of hearing the shit some people spew in the real world you don't go out of your way to be in the same places as them if you can avoid it. We choose our social circles and the material we consume in real life it's not unsurprising this happens online as well. These broad platforms like twitter, reddit e.t.c. aren't any more immune to this than offline.
uniqueid 6y ago
Even the real world consequences of fringe online groups are minuscule in comparison to their perceived threat. That assessment sounds like it's based on body count over total population. The psychological effect of terrorism is at least as significant.
rglullis 6y ago
I am not going to be the first one to say that Wokeness has become the perfect 21st century version of Puritanism for SJW. Take a look at some BLM protests and how people wanted to chant, display repent for their sins, subjugate in Communion, etc. And the worst part of it all is how SJWs all claim to be against collonialism and how they want to defend diversity, yet don't realize how the ideology is spreading around the world turning everything into an echo chamber of myopic morals.
- spacekitcat 6y ago
  Do you really go around unironically calling people "SJWs" and moaning about people being "Woke"? That's a bit sad.
  - chokeartist 6y ago
    Won't speak for your OP, but from my perspective most Social Justice Warriors embrace the term, even if it is thrown at them derisively from the other side. Same thing goes for being "Woke" -- it is a term and mindset that they embrace.
    - rglullis 6y ago
      Yeah, pretty much. My comment was not about trying to put a blanket statement on anyone that defends any kind of progressive policies. I am referring to the fundamentalist "activists" and those that turn Progressive/Liberal values to an extreme core point of their identities.
      - spacekitcat 6y ago
        I notice you don’t get specific. Is the vague language designed to obfuscate what you really mean?
        rglullis 6y ago
        No. The vague language is to avoid getting caught in fruitless conversations with some holier-than-thou puritanical clown who will comb through any comment I make with the intent of showing how something I said is an unforgivable sin.

rglullis 6y ago

On the other hand, the fact that 8chan exists and that it does not rely on technology to be censorship-resistant shows how this worry is misplaced.

odessacubbage 6y ago

8chan was something like 95% autistic crossdressing homosexuals who just wanted to shitpost about anime and videogames.

sneak 6y ago

No, I can't, unless you assume that everyone else doing the reading is somehow more gullible or impressionable than yourself. Did 8chan make you pick up a gun? Did 8chan turn you into a nazi? Just because seeing something published makes you upset does not mean that publishing those things is inherently dangerous. You need to trust the other people in your society a bit more than you do, and stop assuming most readers are ten years old. Your conclusion is based on fear, not the millions of people who read "objectionable" things online and go "ugh" and then close the tab (and sometimes go write long-winded blog posts about how censorship is essential to prevent violence).