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Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is.

Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it.

Ottolay 6y ago
Maybe because it's not an axiomatic fact. There has been niche radical internet communities for ages. It has only been with the radical communities coming into the mainstreams ones (reddit, twitter, and facebook)that the radical communities exploded.
- saurik 6y ago
  I think the idea is more like this: you have two clubhouses, one that has 10 super radical people and one that has 190 people who are less radical. If you take the most radical 20 people from the 190 and force them to go across the street and spend all of their time with the super radical people, those 20 people probably will become somewhat more radical. Now, the 10 people possibly become slightly less radical as maybe do the remaining 170, which might balance things out a bit? But the people who are saying this makes people more radical are concentrating on the idea of taking people on the verge of being super radical and saying that they now only get to hang out with each other and the people who were thrown out of the mainstream long ago... it isn't that that group will "grow" past the people handed to it, but that the people given to it will become radicalized (which might be more dangerous than accepting everyone into the same system and attempting to have them all adjust a bit towards the mean).
shawnz 6y ago
I think it's an important consideration what happens to other platforms but I don't agree it's obvious that the net effect of the bans will be negative like you are implying. I think it's pretty disingenuous to say that the problem is that people just "don't understand" your argument.
Bud 6y ago
The author doesn't care about anything other than making a few cheap dollars with mendacious lies.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  This is obviously incorrect
scoopertrooper 6y ago
Regardless of the morality, I suspect that it will prove to be quite efficacious. Banning this kind of nonsense from mainstream platforms will certainly not reduce the toxicity of the existing radicals, but it will curtail their ability to spread their message and recruit. These movements did not materialise out of a vacuum. Their growth and replenishment of strength is largely contingent on permissive mainstream platforms on which to set up shop. I think platforms like Youtube and Facebook have shown the dangers of democratised mass-broadcasting. There were dreams at the dawn of the internet that enhanced access to information would create a better informed citizenry, but rather it has just exacerbated our worst traits as a society. I don't know what the solution is really. The current situation is untenable in America, but how does one unpick it without resorting to totalitarianism? I'm somewhat partial to ending anonymity on social media posts, so at least people must stand publicly by their positions and can't create sock puppets to inflate their message.
- FreeTrade 6y ago
  Pseudo anonymity is probably fine, but web-of-trust solutions to help quarantine armies of sock puppets and manipulators would be really useful. Can't imagine why Twitter/FB won't implement. (Ok. I can imagine)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    I can't see any benefit to even pseudo-anonymous political discourse on open mainstream mass-broadcast social media in a free society. If your message has a reach on the order of hundreds of thousands of people, then you should be able to stand by what you say.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      Let's say the government does something bad. Say it starts an unnecessary war or something. I want people to be free to criticize that without being worried about being targeted by the government or it's supporters. It is extremely important that people are free to criticize the government, while being as immune as possible to retaliation for that criticism.
jessah 6y ago
Everybody understands that. But reach is taken from them. That's a extremely important effect. Way more important than the radicalisation, because if these people seek out new platforms to radicalize them self, they would likely have done so in every case. The danger of radicalizing a bigger part of the population is what is at stake here.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  There are 3 scenarios: 1. Someone who is radicalized digging deeper 2. Someone who is radicalized changing their mind 3. Someone who is not radicalized getting radicalized #1 is bound to happen, #2 has no chance of happening, so at this point, preventing #3 is the way to go. Keeping these already radicalized people on Youtube achieves nothing. On the other hand, keeping them on Youtube gives these them a huge platform to spread misinformation. Newsmax nad OANN don't have anywhere near the reach Youtube does, especially outside the existing bubble.
  - seppin 6y ago
    Honestly if the choice is between no bans and allowing the current trends of radicalization continue, almost any outcome is preferable than what we've seen happen the last 5-10 years.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      Really? Things only really hit the fan when the bans scaled up. I don't ever remember things being this bad 5 years ago.
      - seppin 6y ago
        unprovable/unknowable and subjective analysis. Youtube banning people doesn't radicalize them, radicalizing content delivered to million of people on youtube radicalizes them. A point so simple it feels silly to point it out, but here we are.
habeebtc 6y ago
I dunno if you have explored the wingnut parts of the internet... But a huge amount of it runs off youtube via embeds. The youtube ban impacts the most wingnuttiest parts of the internet directly.
glennpratt 6y ago
I believe the US has gotten more toxic recently, in part because more and more liars and charlatans have technology enabled bullhorns. They flood feeds with garbage content that takes sober headed folks too long to wade through. It's not all political, but this is happening on the left and the right. In other words, no, what you claim doesn't seem axiomatic at all.
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Are you saying that people who voted for Trump are radicals?
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
  It's interesting. My question is getting a number of both downvotes and upvotes and for the moment is even. But no replies. So I'll go on. In my view, 'zealotry' crosses over to 'radicalism' when the threshold of violence is crossed. We generally are concerned about radicals in religion or politics because we fear they will or have committed violence in the name of their cause. Yet... there are far (far) more instances of violence on the record against Americans who support Trump than by them. Up to and including murder. In fact, there is so much political violence against them that congress created a list of violent political acts and entered the list into the congressional record[0]. Who is committing this violence and why? Here is about 10 minutes of research: - One of the murders, Lee Keltner, a hatter in Colorado: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/17/lee-keltner-protest-shooting-denver/ https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/17/lee-keltner-protest-sh... - In this assault, the first is mild. The student punched in the face could have had knocked teeth out: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/rising-political-tension https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/rising-political-tension - Punched in the face for wearing a hat in Russian. The assailant couldn't read it, but attacked once the wearer told him the translation: https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-beaten-up-in-california-restaurant-over-his-russian-maga-hat-cops https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-beaten-up-in-california-re... - [0] And here is that seven pages of a Political Violence Report, official congressional record: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG-116-JU00-20190409-SD008.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG... - The other murder: https://katu.com/news/local/patriot-prayer-founder-man-shot-killed-in-portland-was-a-supporter https://katu.com/news/local/patriot-prayer-founder-man-shot-... - Here are three more assaults, including an 81 year-old man: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/28/maga-hat-wearing-victims-are-still-victims/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/28/maga-hat-wearing-vic... - This was a serious beating, an art gallery owner: https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-gallery-owner-attacked-wearing-make-america/story?id=64731770 https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-gallery-owner-attacked-w... - Citing the Berkeley assault, this guy wrote and app to help conservatives find safe places to dine out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/11/need-safe-place-wear-your-maga-hat-new-app-will-help-conservatives-find-one/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/11/need-safe... - This is attempted murder: https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-allegedly-driving-van-gop-registration-tent/story?id=68859140 https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-allegedly-driving-van... Regarding the 7 page listing of more than 200 various acts of political violence, including attempted murder, against conservative politicians; I searched for the same document produced during the Obama administration and could not find one. From that I infer that during his administration, neither conservative nor liberal politicians saw political violence as enough of a concern to list it and enter into the permanent record of the United States Congress. Political and religious violence and oppression was one of the primary motivators for the United States to seek independence from England. We are going backwards.
ardy42 6y ago
>> Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. > Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. Oh everyone understands it, but there's a trade-off you're not acknowledging: 1. Letting these people stay on twitter, YouTube, or reddit gives them an audience to recruit. The people in these toxic groups then may be less radical on average, but there will be more of them overall. There also will still be highly radicalized members, and the sympathy of the less radical gives them support that could allow them to do more damage. 2. Quarantining them to Gab or Parler or whatever denies them the recruiting opportunities. The dead-enders who migrate will become more radicalized, but their numbers will be smaller, and perhaps decline over time, due the the lack of new blood.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership? Even if the plan is to marginalise Republicans by selectively suppressing their views on YouTube, it seems questionable if that will provoke the same response as banning "fatpeoplehate" and "coontown" from Reddit. Tensions are likely to increase.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership? I had in mind white supremacists, QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, etc. I don't think the people making false and baseless claims about the election being stolen from Trump can easily be dealt with this way, because too many high-status people have joined that bandwagon.
Barrin92 6y ago
>. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. First off, that's not an axiomatic fact, that's the definition of an empirical question. Secondly, even if it was true, who cares? You can't enlighten every crazy person on the planet, it's a waste of time. The goal of effective policy is to isolate radical elements to a point where they can't target mainstream communities of people who hold malleable beliefs. That is effective prevention. I also see absolutely no evidence that the thesis of further radicalisation is even true. Here in Germany we have taken fairly strong, preventative measures to tackle hate speech and conspiracies online. It seems to have mostly worked, we have I think, one of the least polarized populations right now, broadly speaking. Insofar as there are fringe elements in their dedicated spaces, because they are in dedicated spaces, they can be monitored. edit: another important point I forgot to mention, a lot of radical activity today uses commercial platforms for revenue to further fund their cause, maybe nowhere as evident as in the US where that sort of political activity seems to be a legitimate business. Depriving extremists of those revenue streams alone probably does significant damage to their cause.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cambalache 6y ago
  > even if it was true, who cares? So what did you ban them in the first time? > The goal of effective policy is to isolate radical elements to a point where they can't target mainstream communities of people who hold malleable beliefs. That is effective prevention. Let's say I think Google is a threat to individual rights. Are their on their right to prevent people with "malleable beliefs"(how condescending) to listen to that message? Is that what you want? A corporate-controlled Internet and society? If you think they are free to go elsewhere you must know that the natural direction in unfettered capitalism is that the winners accumulate more and more in bigger conglomerates. That is an extremely dangerous game, courting a fascist society, in the original meaning of the term.
  - jb_gericke 6y ago
TylerE 6y ago
Frankly? I don't care. Let the Stormfronters, incels, et al go off and rage somewhere where I'm not.
ABCLAW 6y ago
This doesn't really accord with any of the research and literature on the topic that I've seen, from the initial studies of forum bbs community lifecycles to more modern online marketing community analysis. Do you have any quantitative analysis to cite for this or is it just your feeling?
austincheney 6y ago
> Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. Alienation. Yes, this will create some self-feeding echo chamber elsewhere far away and out of sight. I am fine with that. The only people bothered by that are thought police who cry that somebody online might have a disgusting opinion.
diebeforei485 6y ago
I agree. This may be a business decision to keep the media (and regulators/lawmakers of certain political stripes) happy, and it may indeed lower tensions on reddit in the short term, but it may not result in lower tensions as a whole.
tesmar2 6y ago
The article on HN about the ban got something like 3 /thousand/ comments, very high for HN. I don't think these people are out of the mainstream, I think a big nerve was hit.

Ottolay 6y ago

Maybe because it's not an axiomatic fact. There has been niche radical internet communities for ages. It has only been with the radical communities coming into the mainstreams ones (reddit, twitter, and facebook)that the radical communities exploded.

saurik 6y ago
I think the idea is more like this: you have two clubhouses, one that has 10 super radical people and one that has 190 people who are less radical. If you take the most radical 20 people from the 190 and force them to go across the street and spend all of their time with the super radical people, those 20 people probably will become somewhat more radical. Now, the 10 people possibly become slightly less radical as maybe do the remaining 170, which might balance things out a bit? But the people who are saying this makes people more radical are concentrating on the idea of taking people on the verge of being super radical and saying that they now only get to hang out with each other and the people who were thrown out of the mainstream long ago... it isn't that that group will "grow" past the people handed to it, but that the people given to it will become radicalized (which might be more dangerous than accepting everyone into the same system and attempting to have them all adjust a bit towards the mean).

shawnz 6y ago

I think it's an important consideration what happens to other platforms but I don't agree it's obvious that the net effect of the bans will be negative like you are implying. I think it's pretty disingenuous to say that the problem is that people just "don't understand" your argument.

Bud 6y ago

The author doesn't care about anything other than making a few cheap dollars with mendacious lies.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
This is obviously incorrect

scoopertrooper 6y ago

Regardless of the morality, I suspect that it will prove to be quite efficacious. Banning this kind of nonsense from mainstream platforms will certainly not reduce the toxicity of the existing radicals, but it will curtail their ability to spread their message and recruit. These movements did not materialise out of a vacuum. Their growth and replenishment of strength is largely contingent on permissive mainstream platforms on which to set up shop. I think platforms like Youtube and Facebook have shown the dangers of democratised mass-broadcasting. There were dreams at the dawn of the internet that enhanced access to information would create a better informed citizenry, but rather it has just exacerbated our worst traits as a society. I don't know what the solution is really. The current situation is untenable in America, but how does one unpick it without resorting to totalitarianism? I'm somewhat partial to ending anonymity on social media posts, so at least people must stand publicly by their positions and can't create sock puppets to inflate their message.

FreeTrade 6y ago
Pseudo anonymity is probably fine, but web-of-trust solutions to help quarantine armies of sock puppets and manipulators would be really useful. Can't imagine why Twitter/FB won't implement. (Ok. I can imagine)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  I can't see any benefit to even pseudo-anonymous political discourse on open mainstream mass-broadcast social media in a free society. If your message has a reach on the order of hundreds of thousands of people, then you should be able to stand by what you say.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    Let's say the government does something bad. Say it starts an unnecessary war or something. I want people to be free to criticize that without being worried about being targeted by the government or it's supporters. It is extremely important that people are free to criticize the government, while being as immune as possible to retaliation for that criticism.

jessah 6y ago

Everybody understands that. But reach is taken from them. That's a extremely important effect. Way more important than the radicalisation, because if these people seek out new platforms to radicalize them self, they would likely have done so in every case. The danger of radicalizing a bigger part of the population is what is at stake here.

ehsankia 6y ago
There are 3 scenarios: 1. Someone who is radicalized digging deeper 2. Someone who is radicalized changing their mind 3. Someone who is not radicalized getting radicalized #1 is bound to happen, #2 has no chance of happening, so at this point, preventing #3 is the way to go. Keeping these already radicalized people on Youtube achieves nothing. On the other hand, keeping them on Youtube gives these them a huge platform to spread misinformation. Newsmax nad OANN don't have anywhere near the reach Youtube does, especially outside the existing bubble.
- seppin 6y ago
  Honestly if the choice is between no bans and allowing the current trends of radicalization continue, almost any outcome is preferable than what we've seen happen the last 5-10 years.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Really? Things only really hit the fan when the bans scaled up. I don't ever remember things being this bad 5 years ago.
    - seppin 6y ago
      unprovable/unknowable and subjective analysis. Youtube banning people doesn't radicalize them, radicalizing content delivered to million of people on youtube radicalizes them. A point so simple it feels silly to point it out, but here we are.

habeebtc 6y ago

I dunno if you have explored the wingnut parts of the internet... But a huge amount of it runs off youtube via embeds. The youtube ban impacts the most wingnuttiest parts of the internet directly.

glennpratt 6y ago

I believe the US has gotten more toxic recently, in part because more and more liars and charlatans have technology enabled bullhorns. They flood feeds with garbage content that takes sober headed folks too long to wade through. It's not all political, but this is happening on the left and the right. In other words, no, what you claim doesn't seem axiomatic at all.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

Are you saying that people who voted for Trump are radicals?

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
It's interesting. My question is getting a number of both downvotes and upvotes and for the moment is even. But no replies. So I'll go on. In my view, 'zealotry' crosses over to 'radicalism' when the threshold of violence is crossed. We generally are concerned about radicals in religion or politics because we fear they will or have committed violence in the name of their cause. Yet... there are far (far) more instances of violence on the record against Americans who support Trump than by them. Up to and including murder. In fact, there is so much political violence against them that congress created a list of violent political acts and entered the list into the congressional record[0]. Who is committing this violence and why? Here is about 10 minutes of research: - One of the murders, Lee Keltner, a hatter in Colorado: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/17/lee-keltner-protest-shooting-denver/ https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/17/lee-keltner-protest-sh... - In this assault, the first is mild. The student punched in the face could have had knocked teeth out: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/rising-political-tension https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/rising-political-tension - Punched in the face for wearing a hat in Russian. The assailant couldn't read it, but attacked once the wearer told him the translation: https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-beaten-up-in-california-restaurant-over-his-russian-maga-hat-cops https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-beaten-up-in-california-re... - [0] And here is that seven pages of a Political Violence Report, official congressional record: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG-116-JU00-20190409-SD008.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG... - The other murder: https://katu.com/news/local/patriot-prayer-founder-man-shot-killed-in-portland-was-a-supporter https://katu.com/news/local/patriot-prayer-founder-man-shot-... - Here are three more assaults, including an 81 year-old man: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/28/maga-hat-wearing-victims-are-still-victims/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/28/maga-hat-wearing-vic... - This was a serious beating, an art gallery owner: https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-gallery-owner-attacked-wearing-make-america/story?id=64731770 https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-gallery-owner-attacked-w... - Citing the Berkeley assault, this guy wrote and app to help conservatives find safe places to dine out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/11/need-safe-place-wear-your-maga-hat-new-app-will-help-conservatives-find-one/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/11/need-safe... - This is attempted murder: https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-allegedly-driving-van-gop-registration-tent/story?id=68859140 https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-allegedly-driving-van... Regarding the 7 page listing of more than 200 various acts of political violence, including attempted murder, against conservative politicians; I searched for the same document produced during the Obama administration and could not find one. From that I infer that during his administration, neither conservative nor liberal politicians saw political violence as enough of a concern to list it and enter into the permanent record of the United States Congress. Political and religious violence and oppression was one of the primary motivators for the United States to seek independence from England. We are going backwards.

ardy42 6y ago

>> Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. > Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. Oh everyone understands it, but there's a trade-off you're not acknowledging: 1. Letting these people stay on twitter, YouTube, or reddit gives them an audience to recruit. The people in these toxic groups then may be less radical on average, but there will be more of them overall. There also will still be highly radicalized members, and the sympathy of the less radical gives them support that could allow them to do more damage. 2. Quarantining them to Gab or Parler or whatever denies them the recruiting opportunities. The dead-enders who migrate will become more radicalized, but their numbers will be smaller, and perhaps decline over time, due the the lack of new blood.

roenxi 6y ago
Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership? Even if the plan is to marginalise Republicans by selectively suppressing their views on YouTube, it seems questionable if that will provoke the same response as banning "fatpeoplehate" and "coontown" from Reddit. Tensions are likely to increase.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership? I had in mind white supremacists, QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, etc. I don't think the people making false and baseless claims about the election being stolen from Trump can easily be dealt with this way, because too many high-status people have joined that bandwagon.

Barrin92 6y ago

>. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. First off, that's not an axiomatic fact, that's the definition of an empirical question. Secondly, even if it was true, who cares? You can't enlighten every crazy person on the planet, it's a waste of time. The goal of effective policy is to isolate radical elements to a point where they can't target mainstream communities of people who hold malleable beliefs. That is effective prevention. I also see absolutely no evidence that the thesis of further radicalisation is even true. Here in Germany we have taken fairly strong, preventative measures to tackle hate speech and conspiracies online. It seems to have mostly worked, we have I think, one of the least polarized populations right now, broadly speaking. Insofar as there are fringe elements in their dedicated spaces, because they are in dedicated spaces, they can be monitored. edit: another important point I forgot to mention, a lot of radical activity today uses commercial platforms for revenue to further fund their cause, maybe nowhere as evident as in the US where that sort of political activity seems to be a legitimate business. Depriving extremists of those revenue streams alone probably does significant damage to their cause.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cambalache 6y ago
> even if it was true, who cares? So what did you ban them in the first time? > The goal of effective policy is to isolate radical elements to a point where they can't target mainstream communities of people who hold malleable beliefs. That is effective prevention. Let's say I think Google is a threat to individual rights. Are their on their right to prevent people with "malleable beliefs"(how condescending) to listen to that message? Is that what you want? A corporate-controlled Internet and society? If you think they are free to go elsewhere you must know that the natural direction in unfettered capitalism is that the winners accumulate more and more in bigger conglomerates. That is an extremely dangerous game, courting a fascist society, in the original meaning of the term.
- jb_gericke 6y ago

TylerE 6y ago

Frankly? I don't care. Let the Stormfronters, incels, et al go off and rage somewhere where I'm not.

ABCLAW 6y ago

This doesn't really accord with any of the research and literature on the topic that I've seen, from the initial studies of forum bbs community lifecycles to more modern online marketing community analysis. Do you have any quantitative analysis to cite for this or is it just your feeling?

austincheney 6y ago

> Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. Alienation. Yes, this will create some self-feeding echo chamber elsewhere far away and out of sight. I am fine with that. The only people bothered by that are thought police who cry that somebody online might have a disgusting opinion.

diebeforei485 6y ago

I agree. This may be a business decision to keep the media (and regulators/lawmakers of certain political stripes) happy, and it may indeed lower tensions on reddit in the short term, but it may not result in lower tensions as a whole.

tesmar2 6y ago

The article on HN about the ban got something like 3 /thousand/ comments, very high for HN. I don't think these people are out of the mainstream, I think a big nerve was hit.