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This will be an extremely unpopular comment and will probably be the end of my ability to post on HN, but it needs to be said: What we saw today was precipitat

This will be an extremely unpopular comment and will probably be the end of my ability to post on HN, but it needs to be said: What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship. When you take away the ability of people to participate in peaceful political discourse, you push them towards violence. Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard. They've lost their public voice and their ability to vouch for themselves, which has enabled mass media to flood every publication channel with parodies of them. The longer this continues, the greater the risk of violence will become. You can't make people's beliefs go away by silencing them.

mrtksn 6y ago
How it could be that half of the population is deplatformed and censored when the most popular media(Fox) in that country caters for that demographic, had elected a president and the president was in power for 4 full years when the events happened, the events were organised by the said president? What else these people demand? Not being called out for their behaviour? What kind of platform they are looking for? What exactly could be changed to de-victimise those people?
- chroem- 6y ago
  People being relegated to digital ghettos (Parler) is not a sign of healthy discourse. This is about individuals not feeling like they can speak publicly.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    Sure but how is this the other half’s fault? Are the other people obligated to accept lies and bigotry? What’s the plan here? Maybe the people who are into alternative facts should not annoy people who are into facts?
    - newguy1234 6y ago
      You have to discuss with them diplomatically instead of say "haha, dumb trumper" or something similar. There are left-wing trolls that basically do that lol and the right-wing people just leave to go to the alt-right websites instead. Why do you think there are so many of these right-wing "talk shows" on places like youtube?
      - sagichmal 6y ago
        This is an anachronistic view, and empirically ineffective.
  - SirHound 6y ago
    Speech has consequences. The snowflakes should stick to The Donald and Parler - where, by the way, I probably wouldn’t be able to speak publically.
    - ng12 6y ago
      But why can't they exist on the same domain as you? Reddit is federated by design, it should be equally open to right-leaning and left-leaning subs.
      - newguy1234 6y ago
        Because left-wing activists run reddit and they enjoy censoring the right-wing. So most get fed up and go to the alt right websites instead. Guess what they do there? "Hey have you heard about white genocide??" etc. There are even people that specifically go to reddit to encourage people to leave and go to the alt right website. It is a form of recruiting for the cause so to speak.
      - maest 6y ago
        There are both right and left leaning subs on reddit and it works ok. Reddit occasionally bans subreddits for various reasons (see r/fatpeplehate and the predecessor to r/hydrohomies). True, r/thedonald was banned, but not because of political leaning (r/conservative is running just fine), but because of how it was spreading misinformation and calling for violence.
        ng12 6y ago
        > but because of how it was spreading misinformation and calling for violence That's the rhetoric Reddit used but I was completely unconvinced. They spent the better part of a year looking for a reason to ban /r/td, going as far as to invent "quarantining" as a soft-ban, and when they finally did so the cited evidence was extremely unconvincing.
        yanderekko 6y ago
        >There are both right and left leaning subs on reddit and it works ok. But for any given sub that isn't political, there probably are not right and left-leaning subs. And given that viewpoint-based moderation is overwhelmingly-common on Reddit, this means that on non-politics based subreddits then engaging on any political issue as a right-leaning individual carries a decent risk of getting some sort of wrongthink ban. It's extremely common, sadly, and even though one can avoid politics entirely it's hard to just watch people circlejerk and mock people who hold your views when these issues do arise.
  - cycrutchfield 6y ago
    Then they shouldn't have violated policies that resulted in their account getting banned. They weren't banned for their political beliefs, they were banned in large part because they were doing one of the following: doxxing, harassing, threatening, inciting violence, etc.
- belltaco 6y ago
  Not to mention talk radio which reaches like 50% of the population, and is a major hub of misinformation/
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  Fox is not a social media platform. You're arguing in bad faith. All major social networks are controlled by the left and are extremely censorious towards anything that goes against the narrative. That's Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit. Remember Hunter Biden laptop story? They declared it was fake news within minutes of publication, without any verification, based on the testimony of pocket anonymous experts who thought it smelled fishy. You will end up with country more and more divided. They will create their own platforms. And then what your plan is for the information you don't like? You won't even be able to argue against it, because everyone is sitting in their huge echo chambers.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    The Hunter Biden laptop story was declared bullshit before it was released because the guy who provided it shipped it around to several news outlets including Fox News who initially passed because even their underused fact checking department saw that the entire story fell apart under the lightest of scrutiny. It does not serve society's interest to have blatant falsehoods broadcast as news.
    - zpeti 6y ago
      You’re saying that like the other side hasn’t had to endure the entire Russian conspiracy thing (Steele dossier) for years, which has been thoroughly discredited. It was shared widely and I haven’t seen any mainstream coverage when it got discredited. If you want to hold social media to certain standards, it should be across the board, not when your side benefits.
    - FrozenVoid 6y ago
      > It does not serve society's interest to have blatant falsehoods broadcast as news. Censoring it does exactly the opposite: https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Philosophy-DB/tree/main/DigitalCulture/Censorship/Deplatforming https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Philosophy-DB/tree/main/Digita...
- leereeves 6y ago
  Fox is the most popular single media source because it's the only (mainstream) source that "caters for that demographic". Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other sources are actively hostile to that demographic.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    What is the argument here? Are they deplatformed unless everyone says the things they like? Breitbart, a huge network of News Corp, 4Chan, many subreddits, many youtube channels, many podcasts, radio channels etc are all dominated by those people. Does everyone have to agree with them so they don’t feel deplatformed?
    - leereeves 6y ago
      > Deplatform: Prevent (a person...) from contributing to a forum or debate, especially by blocking them on a particular website.[1] Everytime someone is removed from a platform they've been deplatformed[2]. The existence of a few remaining platforms that aren't participating in that effort doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And don't be fooled; it is an active, organized effort whose ultimate goal is to make disagreement impossible. Hell, the term for it in the UK is "no-platform", which makes the goal quite clear. You seem to be arguing that movement doesn't exist, simply because it hasn't completely succeeded. 1: https://www.lexico.com/definition/deplatform https://www.lexico.com/definition/deplatform
      - mrtksn 6y ago
        Are half of the US population removed from this platform? Which platform exactly are those 160 million Americans removed from?
        leereeves 6y ago
        People also feel threatened and silenced when someone else who publicly expresses their point of view is deplatformed for it. Do you really think people don't or shouldn't respond to the deplatforming of other people?
belltaco 6y ago
> What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship Nah, social media was the hub of misinformation and was abused and here we are. What they eventually did was too little and too late. There was a lot of fake news on FB, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit etc. that radicalized all these folks. Platforms like YouTube amplified it because it resulted in more views. >When you take away the ability of people to participate in peaceful political discourse, you push them towards violence Nah, the violence is mostly because they believe the election was stolen, based on fake news spread originating from 4chan and then spread on social media and high level politicians. > You can't make people's beliefs go away by silencing them But you can restrict the spread. No one objects when phishing scams and fraud targeting the elderly and others are blocked by social media and email platforms, why is there an objection when bullshit qanon and 5g conspiracies are blocked? There was hardly any blocking on social media till about 2017, and things got way worse with these folks as the right wing and alt right abused the platforms. And now folks like you claim things will somehow get better if fake news is allowed to be spread unrestricted? I don't buy it one bit.
- newguy1234 6y ago
  The problem is blocking it almost legitimizes it because they say "big tech" is suppressing the information. It is the same effect you get when you try to ban a book. Everyone wants to read it to get the juicy details. The way you counter misinformation is by debunking it and showing it is fake.
  - kuschku 6y ago
    That might have been the case in the past, but debunking something takes a lot more time than creating a fake claim. We live in a time where one side is spending all their time and energy to create as much fake content as fast as possible. Even if we had infinite time and energy to expose and debunk it all, the attention of the viewer is limited. As result, we'll never be able to convince people who've read this fake content that what they read is false. There's only two ways this can end: 1. We block this kind of fake, unverified content 2. We accept living in postfactual times where truth is up to the highest bidder and fake content decides elections.
casefields 6y ago
I'm 100% with you. I don't care for these people or their politics, but the way the media, politicians, and the public are reacting, this is going to only make this so much worse. They truly believe there's a deep state that rigged the election. Throwing around using the 25th Amendment, calling them all terrorists committing treason/sedition, is only going to reinforce that the deep state is not only real but using every tool they have to attack them. The constant attempts to silence them by deplatforming and a whole host of other shadowy methods is confirming that the media, big tech, higher education, is full of people that not only despise them but with they would go away forever. If we keep going down this path I guarantee violence is coming. 50 years from now we'll end up seeing the Oklahoma bombing as the opening salvo to what came next. McVeigh went full terrorist after Waco/Ruby Ridge. Don't give these people the confirmation they're looking for.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >They truly believe there's a deep state that rigged the election. This is a fallacy. People can convince themselves of pretty much anything with the help of tribalism and leaders willing to lie. That doesn't mean you should sympathize with their desire for violence.
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    Pre-2016 if you would have asked me "Are electronic voting systems vulnerable to hacking?" I would have said "Absolutely yes." Post 2020 if you ask me "Are electronic voting systems vulnerable to hacking" my answer is still "Absolutely yes" Weird so many people did some kind of dipsy-doo flip-aroo with elections in 2016/2020.
    - MajorBee 6y ago
      How about electronic voting systems backed by paper ballots?
      - rzz3 6y ago
vsssk 6y ago
Deplatformed conservatives eh? This has got to be one of the oldest conservative tropes. FoxNews screams conservatives have no voice, while patting themselves on the back for being the most watched cable channel. [1] Rush Limbaugh is the most listened to Radio show in the United States. [2] Conservatives scream they have no platform on Facebook, yet the top 10 shared links of Facebook are almost exclusively conservative. [3], and you can observe this trend holding over time. Conservatives have plenty of other platforms to go to. No one is deplatforming conservatives on 4chan, or Parler, or hell, even Reddit. The 'deplatformed' narrative is a manufactured, and used to drive a persecution complex. Its not real, and used to rile the base. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-finishes-2020-as-most-watched-cable-news-channel-in-history https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-finishes-2020-as-most... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#cite_note-late-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#cite_note-late-3 [3] https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10/status/1346484573236912128 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10/status/134648457323691212...
- sk5t 6y ago
  It goes hand-in-glove with the conflicting ideas that "the other side is so stupid and incompetent" while at the same time "the other side is so sly and crafty with their diabolical plans." I'm pretty sure some folks in 1930s Germany used similar tactics.
- fenderbluesjr 6y ago
  Regarding reddit, that is plainly not true. If you were conservative minded, it would take all of 10 seconds to realise that the hive mind is antagonist to your beliefs. I'm not from the US, and from an outsiders perspective, it is clear as day that reddit is liberal and votes democrat, and they think you are an idiot if you do otherwise.
  - vsssk 6y ago
    You can go to /r/conservative right now, and write any crap you want. You're conflating the notion of deplatforming with the notion of a place having a certain political leaning. I can go comment liberal ideas on Breitbart and immediately be shouted down as a commie CCP bootlicker and be blocked. I guess by your logic that means liberals are getting deplatformed too!
happytoexplain 6y ago
This is, frankly, irresponsible. The events of today were precipitated by hatred, propaganda, a rejection of personal responsibility, and an embracing of hypocrisy, committed mostly by Trump's supporters over a long time. It's the expected behavior of the minority of people with the least intelligence and integrity when tribalism escalates. And yet still, even if none of that were the case, it's deeply immoral to paint violence as a somehow justifiable reaction to being shouted off Twitter for being a "racial realist", and other hills Trump supporters insist on dying on.
ineptech 6y ago
> What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship. Seems rather like the opposite: a mob got riled up by misinfo and conspiracy theories that they never would've read or seen if [your outgroup here] were any good at censorship and deplatforming.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  This sounds to me like kind of a roundabout way of saying we should all just accept the status quo without questioning it. Let's talk about some other status quo questions you should accept: 1. Encryption is bad because the police need to catch bad guys. 2. It's fine and good for Google et all to sell your personal information. 3. Drones are good. We've been in Iraq for 20 years and that's fine and normal.
s5300 6y ago
Are you sure about this? The news network they praise as gospel is quite literally the most watched thing on cable TV within the United States. What are you basing your assumptions on? They seem to be very much incorrect.
root_axis 6y ago
> Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard Well they're wrong to think that and they should be discouraged from nursing that false belief. Conservatives have controlled the entire government for the last four years, including a conservative supermajority in the SCOTUS that will last for decades. In reality, those Americans are the most heard if by "heard" we mean having their political will effected by means of their government and not "permitted to shitpost on twitter".
- yks 6y ago
  Conservatives controlled America for all but 2 years in this century, only in 2008-2010 both executive and legislative branches were under Democrats. Republicans heavily gerrymandered country in their favor in 2010 and given that 2020 census is practically a failure, that advantage is going to stay. Conservatives get to control the SCOTUS for decades. Voters from the red states enjoy unfair influence their vote gives them via Senate. If after all this the electorate feels profoundly unheard maybe they should look at who they vote for.
lifeformed 6y ago
The actions today were dictated from the top, by a large portion of Republican leadership. They created the lies, promoted them, and made sure the people heard them wherever they could reach them. It's not the media's fault for taking action against these lies, and in doing so offended people so much that they had to resort to sedition. It's absurd to me to hear that people just needed to talk it out more openly! If only someone could nicely tell them the truth! As if all these people were discussing things in good faith and would listen to reality about their conspiracy theories. Must we really coddle and give a voice to dangerous conspiracy theorists that have steadily gotten more and more extreme and violent? They are being groomed and egged on by Republican leadership - surely that's the source of the problem, and one that nobody seems to be able to do anything about.
- nathias 6y ago
  Its a great feeling when you are the good guy, and everything the other people think that you disagree with is a conspiracy theory.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  > It's absurd to me to hear that people just needed to talk it out more openly! If only someone could nicely tell them the truth! As if all these people were discussing things in good faith and would listen to reality about their conspiracy theories. Must we really coddle and give a voice to dangerous conspiracy theorists that have steadily gotten more and more extreme and violent? Blue-collar America (manufacturing, middle class) used to be a pretty stalwart blue supporting constituency. Now this group is welcoming populism and is pretty red. We've seen not just jobs but entire INDUSTRIES shipped abroad to the lowest bidder (it's cheaper to make something with slave labor, of course). You might not care to "listen" but I think they have something interesting to talk about.
  - lifeformed 6y ago
    Sure, I'm not saying people who vote republican don't have important issues in mind. But those issues aren't censored - they are mainstream non-partisan talking points. That's all I heard about for the past 6 years, from both parties. It's not exactly taboo to talk about trade. But if a party dilutes their message by embracing conspiracy theories, outlandish lies, bigotry, and authoritarian rhetoric, then what the hell? How is political discussion supposed to be in good faith anymore? If people want to talk to me about trade, they can talk to me about trade on whatever platform they want. I listen to them all the time. If they want to talk to me about how voting machines are rigged by Hugo Chavez, then they're probably not going to say, "oh, your right" when I show them facts that say otherwise.
sagichmal 6y ago
This is a ludicrous conclusion to draw.
anigbrowl 6y ago
This will be an extremely unpopular comment and will probably be the end of my ability to post on HN Pre-emptive victim posturing to gain sympathy for your argument. Do better. What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship. When you take away the ability of people to participate in peaceful political discourse, you push them towards violence. Bullshit. I've deplatformed quite a lot of people. It doesn't happen by accident, someone has to be openly promoting genocide or the like before I'm willing to spend time, effort, and reputational capital in pushing them out of the room. Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard. Why, did they accidentally mute Fox News, OAN, or talk radio? There's an entire industry based around airing the grievances of Trump and the sort of people who support him.
- wankerrific 6y ago
  “Industry” is the key word. It’s all about making money from the fan base
- crististm 6y ago
  when you look in the mirror do you see a snake?
- serf 6y ago
  Pre-emptive victim posturing to gain sympathy for your argument. Do better. You need to re-read the community guidelines, specifically the 'In comments' section, in the interest of self-improvement and doing better.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    The GP starting off by painting himself as the underdog about to speak out against all us hiveminded folks is a more severe violation of the rules than the parent pointing it out.
- crististm 6y ago
  shit; I meant, do you see a _saint_ in the mirror? Silly me!
SirHound 6y ago
Are they unable to talk on Parler?
- yanderekko 6y ago
  They can, but let's not pretend that Parler won't be targeted for destruction somehow if it gets a critical mass of users. We've seen this strategy employed before on right-wing platforms that catch too much negative media attention. Their infrastructure platforms will be targeted, their distribution channels will be targeted, their payment systems will be targeted, their code licenses will be targeted, the media will try to dig up whatever negative stories about the firm or its owners that they can, etc. Eventually some platform will be able to resist this but it's an ugly process.
- rzz3 6y ago
  We can’t talk to them on Parler. It’s just an echo chamber. We’ve killed free discourse between opposite political ideologies.
  - intended 6y ago
    That was already dead, I mean the_donald spamming the front page to perfectly align "GOD EMPEROR" or whatever before reddit had to change their front page algorithm was not discourse. And this is now, after people are distracted by social media. American Political discourse died soon after Fox news came on the stage. People seem to have forgotten how that era was because this era is simply worse.
    - rzz3 6y ago
      Fox has been around for quite a while, and it was never “QAnon level crazy”. Fox was here since the Bush era, and I regularly had political debates and discussions with people I disagreed with back then. Sure, I could have never turned a Republican against the war, but I certainly was able to find common ground on PATRIOT/etc. Not anymore.
      - 6y ago
roenxi 6y ago
An alternative perspective is these protests aren't actually all that unprecedented. Protesting against a new president is fairly routine (they did that for Trump) and violence is not so unexpected in economically tough years (like 2020). The sensible response to not being heard is to establish a voice, not to riot. So riots are probably not a sign of that.
eagsalazar2 6y ago
Deplatforming is a persistent right wing fantasy. If you don't openly misinform regarding public safety or very explicitly promote hate you can largely get away with saying almost anything else on Twitter, etc. When Trump blatantly spreads dangerous misinformation about Covid, for example, there is a lot of whining about deplatforming. Don't be fooled. Furthermore, claiming deplatforming (a delusion) is the cause of political violence is nothing more than a grotesque distortion and justification.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  So Trump got kicked off twitter, and people can get kicked off various platforms for saying extreme things, but deplatforming does not exist because you agree with the reasons why those people got kicked off, and therefore other people are delusional and living in fantasies, and you have an opinion on if this concept which does not exist causes violence. First definition I found https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deplatform https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deplatform (transitive, formal) deplatform 1: To prevent someone from utilizing a platform to express their opinion.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    If you rely on the literal definition devoid of further context, every single person alive has been deplatformed.
    - TheOperator 6y ago
      Yes, and? You think it's worse to interpret a word literally if that literal definition is broad, than it is to interpret a word in a way that makes the other person seem delusional and nonsensical? In the context of a specific conversation, its more reasonable to interpret somebodies words in a way that makes their words make sense, than in a way that makes them sound delusional.
all_factz 6y ago
Yeah dude, the “Camp Auschwitz” guy has been deplatformed so many times he became a nazi. Got it.
neuronic 6y ago
> You can't make people's beliefs go away by silencing them. Actually you can, but that's not what I want to get at right now. The problem is that these people there went to the Capitol for the sake of violence and not for the sake of being heard. What I am going to say is not true about conservatives overall, but definitely true for every single MAGA cultist out there. They generally have completely baseless opinions and are not ready to discuss anything, have an argument, learn or compromise. This is what democracy is based on: compromise. Therefore, they are fundamentally undemocratic and if you're being honest they are fascists. So fuck their ability to spout their violent garbage online. These are dehumanizing assholes incapable of discussing with liberals and finding compromise. They just want a dictatorship suppressing and killing liberals, if possible. Good luck America, you need it.
igor47 6y ago
hey, thanks for this comment. i'm inclined to disagree, but i'm genuinely curious about your point of view. one question i have is -- are there any topics you believe deserve to be censored by social media? or maybe i should say any "political" topics? like, i guess you'd probably be okay with some kinds of sex work being censored, but i maybe sex work is also a form of politics... anyway, i guess i'm curious if you're a free-speech absolutist, or, if otherwise, how would you do draw a line to avoid "mass" deplatforming and have it be targeted deplatforming.
morelisp 6y ago
Four people are dead and their blood is on your hands.
newguy1234 6y ago
You completely nailed it there. Perfect example is reddit banned "the donald" sub and they went on to create thedonald.win. It is now the 430th largest website in the USA per Alexa.
- yawaemworht 6y ago
  > Perfect example is reddit banned "the donald" sub and they went on to create thedonald.win. Which turned into a even bigger echochamber than previosuly. At least, while they were on reddit, on the frontpage you were exposed to posts from both sides. Now each side just browse its own version of the online ghetto, without being exposed to posts from the other side calling out the conspiracy theories, the partially reported news, the plain bullshit.
yanderekko 6y ago
Yeah, I mostly agree. I'm not sure if the deplatforming push is good or not but I see moves like this only accelerating it, which is going to lead to a deepening "red internet / blue internet" schism that's probably not good for either side. It's obvious that the left feels that they can keep shutting down right-wing media by various sorts of economic pressure and legislation, but I think we're seeing this strategy start to hit sharply diminishing returns but at this point the echo chambers have been so strongly reinforced that it's hard to imagine any other strategy getting support.
- intended 6y ago
  Its not like there was enlightened discourse going on in the first place. When The_donald was busy tea bagging the front page to get the submissions titles just right and spelling out something like "own the libs", no great bi-partisan agreement was being reached. I think it just became clear to the democrat and "left" that the right had stopped caring for years. This idea that there was a conversation is simply revisionist, and blaming the left is to blame the laggard for imitating the front runner.
  - yanderekko 6y ago
    >no great bi-partisan agreement was being reached. No, but it's not like things couldn't be worse, and I don't think that the sort of eliminationist tactics that are being embraced are going to make things better. The left will manage to deplatform the right off of a bunch of major sites but they'll just reconvene elsewhere, out of reach. Will this be good or bad for discourse?
    - intended 6y ago
      If this is the part of the journey that you are waking up during, then unfortunately there’s only bad news. What you see coming up was already baked in. I dare say, so are the natural counter reactions to it. If it’s unclear, remember the quaint days of the Fox News effect. America was pulling away for a long time, and the right was the first one to realize the political advantage of it. Frankly I doubt America, especially the American right, can currently sit down and figure out how it got here. This isn’t an unfair criticism mind you, you can simply see how the right has gone from the river boat (?) days to the tea party to the Trump days of today, to track how hyper partisan it’s become internally. The media structures at play, such as Fox News, are determined to sell a partisan story. The Republican Party is so unable to work with the dems that they even rejected “Obama care” - which was built around a Republican program -Romneycare. This is simply one example, to highlight that what you are seeing is momentum at play. The machines that spin it up - namely the political:media structures, are fully active. Plus it’s been frightfully effective for the right. When Obama came to power, the right had suffered a massive demoralizing loss. They had nothing and were demoralized. Instead they got together and found strength in sheer force of will and used the term “one term president” to invigorate themselves and fight Obama at every turn. This dogged will to fight at all costs is impressive, and it resulted in styling Obama, and even gave them Trump. The Trump years have been amazing for the Republicans and so many core Republican goals have been fulfilled, especially the Supreme Court judges. The republicans approach simply works. Why wouldn’t the left pick up that lesson? You’ll even see that the rise of the left in the democrats is a mirror of the same process on the right. TLDR: sorry man, bipartisanship is long dead in your country. What should worry you even more - these processes aren’t unique to America. Fully expect to see this same break down around the world.
paganel 6y ago
If it makes you feel any better the same thing it's happening across the Atlantic, with the Yellow Vests movement which is being made fun of in France, the Brexiters which are derided in UK and people in my country (Romania) laughing at the people who didn't want to wear masks at some point because "their mouths smell" (yeah, not anyone can afford dental work).
arp242 6y ago
I don't see any "mass deplatforming and censorship". Trump and his supporters have had massive airtime and been given ample opportunity to say their peace on mainstream media in the last few years. Some people will criticize and ridicule that, yes. That's part of free speech. And if everyone is ridiculing you, then perhaps there might be the possibility you're saying ridiculous things?
wesleywt 6y ago
Can you provide evidence supporting massive de-platforming. As far as I know a few far right people who blatantly abused the TOS were banned. Most of these guys can freely post on Twitter and Facebook.
danielmarkbruce 6y ago
Why do they feel "unheard"? Every election results in close to 50% of the voters not getting the candidate they voted for. It doesn't mean their issues weren't discussed. Now more than ever, anyone can have a voice. A child can make videos unboxing toys and millions will watch. You can tweet, blog, video, write essays, make podcasts and so on. I'm not aware of any point in history when people could be heard more than now.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > Every election results in close to 50% of the voters not getting the candidate they voted for. Every election in the USA. Plenty of countries manage to have a proportional electoral system, where a large fraction of people get to feel appropriately represented. With such a bipartisan division in politics, it doesn't matter whether the issues were "discussed": there won't be compromise across the centre line.
- thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
  As can someone pretending to be a child. And they can make 5 accounts pretending to be different people. If it is revealed that they take money from Big Toy then, provided they protected their identity enough, they can just move on to another account. Our mindset is based around a form of discourse where we stop listening to people when we discover they're using their free speech to lie. Now you don't know who the liars are.
trianglem 6y ago
What peaceful discourse? In no universe are people coming together and breaking bread with racists and confederate sympathizers. You feel unheard because your ideas are toxic and unintegratable. Let it be split down the middle, because coming together is not happening.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
> Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard. They voted, they lost by 7+ million votes, which they stormed the Capitol to overturn. Why should I have to keep sparing their feelings? These people need to stop being appeased.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I think the problem is more subtle than that. There is a general evaporation of trust levels in societies across the world, not just the U.S. The world is becoming a very low-trust place. Deplatforming and censorship are only some factors in this process, but there are others. Remember Trump's original claim to "drain the swamp"? In the age of the Internet, anyone who pays attention to politics is overwhelmed by examples of bad behavior from the top guys and gals. People, being partisan creatures, will mostly concentrate on the top guys and gals from the other side, but contemporary democratic world is transparent enough not to let you doubt that the basic institutions are rotten to the core. Once upon a time, random people could have (positive) illusions about what takes place in the palaces of power in Brussel, London, Paris or Washington. Now they know it down to the last dirty detail and I believe that some of them just cannot cope. At the same time, China notices this and does its utmost to suppress any disagreeing voices within, much more so than 15 years ago. The end result should probably be a curated, polished image of the country and its system with no visible flaws. I doubt that they can sell this to the outside observers, but they may get their own population to believe that without reservations: "we are the champions".
selimthegrim 6y ago
Are they restricted from setting up their own Twitters, FB, IG?
etripe 6y ago
I don't think there's much validity to this conservative persecution complex when you subject it to analysis. There's a difference between what feels to be the case and what is. Social media are about emotional impulses and endorphin triggers, not rationality or reality. Conflating the two is undermining societies across the world. The American right isn't being censored in general. It's a vehicle for disinformation, to a somewhat greater degree than the American left. It's mainly that disinformation that's being censored on social media. In other media: those are as segregated between the two parties as they have been for decades. As far as de-platforming, review bombing and the like: it's not the right being excluded, it's anyone who doesn't conform to the fringe left's concepts of orthodoxy and political correctness. You know, the "woke" crowd. What happened at the Capitol was not the result of mass de-platforming and censorship. It was the result of ideological self-isolation, ignorance of historical context (among other things) and blindly parroting partisan talking points without exercising critical thought. This has been happening since Vietnam, before social media or even the Internet were invented. It culminated in the election of Trump, the emergence of Proud Boys, BLM and Antifa, the state of particularly the GOP and yesterday's events. For all the so-called differences between the two sides in American politics, they share a surprising amount of traits: ideological bubbles, authoritarian leanings, tribal sentiments, demonising the other side, distrust in corporate media and feeling oppressed/disenfranchised. There's at least a hint to the shared American subconscious there.
bluntfang 6y ago
>Half of the American electorate We need to be very clear here, we're explicitly talking about LESS THAN HALF of the electorate. Donald Trump did not win the popular vote in either presidential election he participated in.

mrtksn 6y ago

How it could be that half of the population is deplatformed and censored when the most popular media(Fox) in that country caters for that demographic, had elected a president and the president was in power for 4 full years when the events happened, the events were organised by the said president? What else these people demand? Not being called out for their behaviour? What kind of platform they are looking for? What exactly could be changed to de-victimise those people?

chroem- 6y ago
People being relegated to digital ghettos (Parler) is not a sign of healthy discourse. This is about individuals not feeling like they can speak publicly.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  Sure but how is this the other half’s fault? Are the other people obligated to accept lies and bigotry? What’s the plan here? Maybe the people who are into alternative facts should not annoy people who are into facts?
  - newguy1234 6y ago
    You have to discuss with them diplomatically instead of say "haha, dumb trumper" or something similar. There are left-wing trolls that basically do that lol and the right-wing people just leave to go to the alt-right websites instead. Why do you think there are so many of these right-wing "talk shows" on places like youtube?
    - sagichmal 6y ago
      This is an anachronistic view, and empirically ineffective.
- SirHound 6y ago
  Speech has consequences. The snowflakes should stick to The Donald and Parler - where, by the way, I probably wouldn’t be able to speak publically.
  - ng12 6y ago
    But why can't they exist on the same domain as you? Reddit is federated by design, it should be equally open to right-leaning and left-leaning subs.
    - newguy1234 6y ago
      Because left-wing activists run reddit and they enjoy censoring the right-wing. So most get fed up and go to the alt right websites instead. Guess what they do there? "Hey have you heard about white genocide??" etc. There are even people that specifically go to reddit to encourage people to leave and go to the alt right website. It is a form of recruiting for the cause so to speak.
    - maest 6y ago
      There are both right and left leaning subs on reddit and it works ok. Reddit occasionally bans subreddits for various reasons (see r/fatpeplehate and the predecessor to r/hydrohomies). True, r/thedonald was banned, but not because of political leaning (r/conservative is running just fine), but because of how it was spreading misinformation and calling for violence.
      - ng12 6y ago
        > but because of how it was spreading misinformation and calling for violence That's the rhetoric Reddit used but I was completely unconvinced. They spent the better part of a year looking for a reason to ban /r/td, going as far as to invent "quarantining" as a soft-ban, and when they finally did so the cited evidence was extremely unconvincing.
      - yanderekko 6y ago
        >There are both right and left leaning subs on reddit and it works ok. But for any given sub that isn't political, there probably are not right and left-leaning subs. And given that viewpoint-based moderation is overwhelmingly-common on Reddit, this means that on non-politics based subreddits then engaging on any political issue as a right-leaning individual carries a decent risk of getting some sort of wrongthink ban. It's extremely common, sadly, and even though one can avoid politics entirely it's hard to just watch people circlejerk and mock people who hold your views when these issues do arise.
- cycrutchfield 6y ago
  Then they shouldn't have violated policies that resulted in their account getting banned. They weren't banned for their political beliefs, they were banned in large part because they were doing one of the following: doxxing, harassing, threatening, inciting violence, etc.
belltaco 6y ago
Not to mention talk radio which reaches like 50% of the population, and is a major hub of misinformation/
bufferoverflow 6y ago
Fox is not a social media platform. You're arguing in bad faith. All major social networks are controlled by the left and are extremely censorious towards anything that goes against the narrative. That's Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit. Remember Hunter Biden laptop story? They declared it was fake news within minutes of publication, without any verification, based on the testimony of pocket anonymous experts who thought it smelled fishy. You will end up with country more and more divided. They will create their own platforms. And then what your plan is for the information you don't like? You won't even be able to argue against it, because everyone is sitting in their huge echo chambers.
- jandrese 6y ago
  The Hunter Biden laptop story was declared bullshit before it was released because the guy who provided it shipped it around to several news outlets including Fox News who initially passed because even their underused fact checking department saw that the entire story fell apart under the lightest of scrutiny. It does not serve society's interest to have blatant falsehoods broadcast as news.
  - zpeti 6y ago
    You’re saying that like the other side hasn’t had to endure the entire Russian conspiracy thing (Steele dossier) for years, which has been thoroughly discredited. It was shared widely and I haven’t seen any mainstream coverage when it got discredited. If you want to hold social media to certain standards, it should be across the board, not when your side benefits.
  - FrozenVoid 6y ago
    > It does not serve society's interest to have blatant falsehoods broadcast as news. Censoring it does exactly the opposite: https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Philosophy-DB/tree/main/DigitalCulture/Censorship/Deplatforming https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Philosophy-DB/tree/main/Digita...
leereeves 6y ago
Fox is the most popular single media source because it's the only (mainstream) source that "caters for that demographic". Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other sources are actively hostile to that demographic.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  What is the argument here? Are they deplatformed unless everyone says the things they like? Breitbart, a huge network of News Corp, 4Chan, many subreddits, many youtube channels, many podcasts, radio channels etc are all dominated by those people. Does everyone have to agree with them so they don’t feel deplatformed?
  - leereeves 6y ago
    > Deplatform: Prevent (a person...) from contributing to a forum or debate, especially by blocking them on a particular website.[1] Everytime someone is removed from a platform they've been deplatformed[2]. The existence of a few remaining platforms that aren't participating in that effort doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And don't be fooled; it is an active, organized effort whose ultimate goal is to make disagreement impossible. Hell, the term for it in the UK is "no-platform", which makes the goal quite clear. You seem to be arguing that movement doesn't exist, simply because it hasn't completely succeeded. 1: https://www.lexico.com/definition/deplatform https://www.lexico.com/definition/deplatform
    - mrtksn 6y ago
      Are half of the US population removed from this platform? Which platform exactly are those 160 million Americans removed from?
      - leereeves 6y ago
        People also feel threatened and silenced when someone else who publicly expresses their point of view is deplatformed for it. Do you really think people don't or shouldn't respond to the deplatforming of other people?

belltaco 6y ago

> What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship Nah, social media was the hub of misinformation and was abused and here we are. What they eventually did was too little and too late. There was a lot of fake news on FB, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit etc. that radicalized all these folks. Platforms like YouTube amplified it because it resulted in more views. >When you take away the ability of people to participate in peaceful political discourse, you push them towards violence Nah, the violence is mostly because they believe the election was stolen, based on fake news spread originating from 4chan and then spread on social media and high level politicians. > You can't make people's beliefs go away by silencing them But you can restrict the spread. No one objects when phishing scams and fraud targeting the elderly and others are blocked by social media and email platforms, why is there an objection when bullshit qanon and 5g conspiracies are blocked? There was hardly any blocking on social media till about 2017, and things got way worse with these folks as the right wing and alt right abused the platforms. And now folks like you claim things will somehow get better if fake news is allowed to be spread unrestricted? I don't buy it one bit.

newguy1234 6y ago
The problem is blocking it almost legitimizes it because they say "big tech" is suppressing the information. It is the same effect you get when you try to ban a book. Everyone wants to read it to get the juicy details. The way you counter misinformation is by debunking it and showing it is fake.
- kuschku 6y ago
  That might have been the case in the past, but debunking something takes a lot more time than creating a fake claim. We live in a time where one side is spending all their time and energy to create as much fake content as fast as possible. Even if we had infinite time and energy to expose and debunk it all, the attention of the viewer is limited. As result, we'll never be able to convince people who've read this fake content that what they read is false. There's only two ways this can end: 1. We block this kind of fake, unverified content 2. We accept living in postfactual times where truth is up to the highest bidder and fake content decides elections.

casefields 6y ago

I'm 100% with you. I don't care for these people or their politics, but the way the media, politicians, and the public are reacting, this is going to only make this so much worse. They truly believe there's a deep state that rigged the election. Throwing around using the 25th Amendment, calling them all terrorists committing treason/sedition, is only going to reinforce that the deep state is not only real but using every tool they have to attack them. The constant attempts to silence them by deplatforming and a whole host of other shadowy methods is confirming that the media, big tech, higher education, is full of people that not only despise them but with they would go away forever. If we keep going down this path I guarantee violence is coming. 50 years from now we'll end up seeing the Oklahoma bombing as the opening salvo to what came next. McVeigh went full terrorist after Waco/Ruby Ridge. Don't give these people the confirmation they're looking for.

happytoexplain 6y ago
>They truly believe there's a deep state that rigged the election. This is a fallacy. People can convince themselves of pretty much anything with the help of tribalism and leaders willing to lie. That doesn't mean you should sympathize with their desire for violence.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Pre-2016 if you would have asked me "Are electronic voting systems vulnerable to hacking?" I would have said "Absolutely yes." Post 2020 if you ask me "Are electronic voting systems vulnerable to hacking" my answer is still "Absolutely yes" Weird so many people did some kind of dipsy-doo flip-aroo with elections in 2016/2020.
  - MajorBee 6y ago
    How about electronic voting systems backed by paper ballots?
    - rzz3 6y ago

vsssk 6y ago

Deplatformed conservatives eh? This has got to be one of the oldest conservative tropes. FoxNews screams conservatives have no voice, while patting themselves on the back for being the most watched cable channel. [1] Rush Limbaugh is the most listened to Radio show in the United States. [2] Conservatives scream they have no platform on Facebook, yet the top 10 shared links of Facebook are almost exclusively conservative. [3], and you can observe this trend holding over time. Conservatives have plenty of other platforms to go to. No one is deplatforming conservatives on 4chan, or Parler, or hell, even Reddit. The 'deplatformed' narrative is a manufactured, and used to drive a persecution complex. Its not real, and used to rile the base. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-finishes-2020-as-most-watched-cable-news-channel-in-history https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-finishes-2020-as-most... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#cite_note-late-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh#cite_note-late-3 [3] https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10/status/1346484573236912128 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10/status/134648457323691212...

sk5t 6y ago
It goes hand-in-glove with the conflicting ideas that "the other side is so stupid and incompetent" while at the same time "the other side is so sly and crafty with their diabolical plans." I'm pretty sure some folks in 1930s Germany used similar tactics.
fenderbluesjr 6y ago
Regarding reddit, that is plainly not true. If you were conservative minded, it would take all of 10 seconds to realise that the hive mind is antagonist to your beliefs. I'm not from the US, and from an outsiders perspective, it is clear as day that reddit is liberal and votes democrat, and they think you are an idiot if you do otherwise.
- vsssk 6y ago
  You can go to /r/conservative right now, and write any crap you want. You're conflating the notion of deplatforming with the notion of a place having a certain political leaning. I can go comment liberal ideas on Breitbart and immediately be shouted down as a commie CCP bootlicker and be blocked. I guess by your logic that means liberals are getting deplatformed too!

happytoexplain 6y ago

This is, frankly, irresponsible. The events of today were precipitated by hatred, propaganda, a rejection of personal responsibility, and an embracing of hypocrisy, committed mostly by Trump's supporters over a long time. It's the expected behavior of the minority of people with the least intelligence and integrity when tribalism escalates. And yet still, even if none of that were the case, it's deeply immoral to paint violence as a somehow justifiable reaction to being shouted off Twitter for being a "racial realist", and other hills Trump supporters insist on dying on.

ineptech 6y ago

> What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship. Seems rather like the opposite: a mob got riled up by misinfo and conspiracy theories that they never would've read or seen if [your outgroup here] were any good at censorship and deplatforming.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
This sounds to me like kind of a roundabout way of saying we should all just accept the status quo without questioning it. Let's talk about some other status quo questions you should accept: 1. Encryption is bad because the police need to catch bad guys. 2. It's fine and good for Google et all to sell your personal information. 3. Drones are good. We've been in Iraq for 20 years and that's fine and normal.

s5300 6y ago

Are you sure about this? The news network they praise as gospel is quite literally the most watched thing on cable TV within the United States. What are you basing your assumptions on? They seem to be very much incorrect.

root_axis 6y ago

> Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard Well they're wrong to think that and they should be discouraged from nursing that false belief. Conservatives have controlled the entire government for the last four years, including a conservative supermajority in the SCOTUS that will last for decades. In reality, those Americans are the most heard if by "heard" we mean having their political will effected by means of their government and not "permitted to shitpost on twitter".

yks 6y ago
Conservatives controlled America for all but 2 years in this century, only in 2008-2010 both executive and legislative branches were under Democrats. Republicans heavily gerrymandered country in their favor in 2010 and given that 2020 census is practically a failure, that advantage is going to stay. Conservatives get to control the SCOTUS for decades. Voters from the red states enjoy unfair influence their vote gives them via Senate. If after all this the electorate feels profoundly unheard maybe they should look at who they vote for.

lifeformed 6y ago

The actions today were dictated from the top, by a large portion of Republican leadership. They created the lies, promoted them, and made sure the people heard them wherever they could reach them. It's not the media's fault for taking action against these lies, and in doing so offended people so much that they had to resort to sedition. It's absurd to me to hear that people just needed to talk it out more openly! If only someone could nicely tell them the truth! As if all these people were discussing things in good faith and would listen to reality about their conspiracy theories. Must we really coddle and give a voice to dangerous conspiracy theorists that have steadily gotten more and more extreme and violent? They are being groomed and egged on by Republican leadership - surely that's the source of the problem, and one that nobody seems to be able to do anything about.

nathias 6y ago
Its a great feeling when you are the good guy, and everything the other people think that you disagree with is a conspiracy theory.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
> It's absurd to me to hear that people just needed to talk it out more openly! If only someone could nicely tell them the truth! As if all these people were discussing things in good faith and would listen to reality about their conspiracy theories. Must we really coddle and give a voice to dangerous conspiracy theorists that have steadily gotten more and more extreme and violent? Blue-collar America (manufacturing, middle class) used to be a pretty stalwart blue supporting constituency. Now this group is welcoming populism and is pretty red. We've seen not just jobs but entire INDUSTRIES shipped abroad to the lowest bidder (it's cheaper to make something with slave labor, of course). You might not care to "listen" but I think they have something interesting to talk about.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  Sure, I'm not saying people who vote republican don't have important issues in mind. But those issues aren't censored - they are mainstream non-partisan talking points. That's all I heard about for the past 6 years, from both parties. It's not exactly taboo to talk about trade. But if a party dilutes their message by embracing conspiracy theories, outlandish lies, bigotry, and authoritarian rhetoric, then what the hell? How is political discussion supposed to be in good faith anymore? If people want to talk to me about trade, they can talk to me about trade on whatever platform they want. I listen to them all the time. If they want to talk to me about how voting machines are rigged by Hugo Chavez, then they're probably not going to say, "oh, your right" when I show them facts that say otherwise.

sagichmal 6y ago

This is a ludicrous conclusion to draw.

anigbrowl 6y ago

This will be an extremely unpopular comment and will probably be the end of my ability to post on HN Pre-emptive victim posturing to gain sympathy for your argument. Do better. What we saw today was precipitated by mass deplatforming and censorship. When you take away the ability of people to participate in peaceful political discourse, you push them towards violence. Bullshit. I've deplatformed quite a lot of people. It doesn't happen by accident, someone has to be openly promoting genocide or the like before I'm willing to spend time, effort, and reputational capital in pushing them out of the room. Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard. Why, did they accidentally mute Fox News, OAN, or talk radio? There's an entire industry based around airing the grievances of Trump and the sort of people who support him.

wankerrific 6y ago
“Industry” is the key word. It’s all about making money from the fan base
crististm 6y ago
when you look in the mirror do you see a snake?
serf 6y ago
Pre-emptive victim posturing to gain sympathy for your argument. Do better. You need to re-read the community guidelines, specifically the 'In comments' section, in the interest of self-improvement and doing better.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  The GP starting off by painting himself as the underdog about to speak out against all us hiveminded folks is a more severe violation of the rules than the parent pointing it out.
crististm 6y ago
shit; I meant, do you see a _saint_ in the mirror? Silly me!

SirHound 6y ago

Are they unable to talk on Parler?

yanderekko 6y ago
They can, but let's not pretend that Parler won't be targeted for destruction somehow if it gets a critical mass of users. We've seen this strategy employed before on right-wing platforms that catch too much negative media attention. Their infrastructure platforms will be targeted, their distribution channels will be targeted, their payment systems will be targeted, their code licenses will be targeted, the media will try to dig up whatever negative stories about the firm or its owners that they can, etc. Eventually some platform will be able to resist this but it's an ugly process.
rzz3 6y ago
We can’t talk to them on Parler. It’s just an echo chamber. We’ve killed free discourse between opposite political ideologies.
- intended 6y ago
  That was already dead, I mean the_donald spamming the front page to perfectly align "GOD EMPEROR" or whatever before reddit had to change their front page algorithm was not discourse. And this is now, after people are distracted by social media. American Political discourse died soon after Fox news came on the stage. People seem to have forgotten how that era was because this era is simply worse.
  - rzz3 6y ago
    Fox has been around for quite a while, and it was never “QAnon level crazy”. Fox was here since the Bush era, and I regularly had political debates and discussions with people I disagreed with back then. Sure, I could have never turned a Republican against the war, but I certainly was able to find common ground on PATRIOT/etc. Not anymore.
    - 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago

An alternative perspective is these protests aren't actually all that unprecedented. Protesting against a new president is fairly routine (they did that for Trump) and violence is not so unexpected in economically tough years (like 2020). The sensible response to not being heard is to establish a voice, not to riot. So riots are probably not a sign of that.

eagsalazar2 6y ago

Deplatforming is a persistent right wing fantasy. If you don't openly misinform regarding public safety or very explicitly promote hate you can largely get away with saying almost anything else on Twitter, etc. When Trump blatantly spreads dangerous misinformation about Covid, for example, there is a lot of whining about deplatforming. Don't be fooled. Furthermore, claiming deplatforming (a delusion) is the cause of political violence is nothing more than a grotesque distortion and justification.

TheOperator 6y ago
So Trump got kicked off twitter, and people can get kicked off various platforms for saying extreme things, but deplatforming does not exist because you agree with the reasons why those people got kicked off, and therefore other people are delusional and living in fantasies, and you have an opinion on if this concept which does not exist causes violence. First definition I found https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deplatform https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deplatform (transitive, formal) deplatform 1: To prevent someone from utilizing a platform to express their opinion.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  If you rely on the literal definition devoid of further context, every single person alive has been deplatformed.
  - TheOperator 6y ago
    Yes, and? You think it's worse to interpret a word literally if that literal definition is broad, than it is to interpret a word in a way that makes the other person seem delusional and nonsensical? In the context of a specific conversation, its more reasonable to interpret somebodies words in a way that makes their words make sense, than in a way that makes them sound delusional.

all_factz 6y ago

Yeah dude, the “Camp Auschwitz” guy has been deplatformed so many times he became a nazi. Got it.

neuronic 6y ago

> You can't make people's beliefs go away by silencing them. Actually you can, but that's not what I want to get at right now. The problem is that these people there went to the Capitol for the sake of violence and not for the sake of being heard. What I am going to say is not true about conservatives overall, but definitely true for every single MAGA cultist out there. They generally have completely baseless opinions and are not ready to discuss anything, have an argument, learn or compromise. This is what democracy is based on: compromise. Therefore, they are fundamentally undemocratic and if you're being honest they are fascists. So fuck their ability to spout their violent garbage online. These are dehumanizing assholes incapable of discussing with liberals and finding compromise. They just want a dictatorship suppressing and killing liberals, if possible. Good luck America, you need it.

igor47 6y ago

hey, thanks for this comment. i'm inclined to disagree, but i'm genuinely curious about your point of view. one question i have is -- are there any topics you believe deserve to be censored by social media? or maybe i should say any "political" topics? like, i guess you'd probably be okay with some kinds of sex work being censored, but i maybe sex work is also a form of politics... anyway, i guess i'm curious if you're a free-speech absolutist, or, if otherwise, how would you do draw a line to avoid "mass" deplatforming and have it be targeted deplatforming.

morelisp 6y ago

Four people are dead and their blood is on your hands.

newguy1234 6y ago

You completely nailed it there. Perfect example is reddit banned "the donald" sub and they went on to create thedonald.win. It is now the 430th largest website in the USA per Alexa.

yawaemworht 6y ago
> Perfect example is reddit banned "the donald" sub and they went on to create thedonald.win. Which turned into a even bigger echochamber than previosuly. At least, while they were on reddit, on the frontpage you were exposed to posts from both sides. Now each side just browse its own version of the online ghetto, without being exposed to posts from the other side calling out the conspiracy theories, the partially reported news, the plain bullshit.

yanderekko 6y ago

Yeah, I mostly agree. I'm not sure if the deplatforming push is good or not but I see moves like this only accelerating it, which is going to lead to a deepening "red internet / blue internet" schism that's probably not good for either side. It's obvious that the left feels that they can keep shutting down right-wing media by various sorts of economic pressure and legislation, but I think we're seeing this strategy start to hit sharply diminishing returns but at this point the echo chambers have been so strongly reinforced that it's hard to imagine any other strategy getting support.

intended 6y ago
Its not like there was enlightened discourse going on in the first place. When The_donald was busy tea bagging the front page to get the submissions titles just right and spelling out something like "own the libs", no great bi-partisan agreement was being reached. I think it just became clear to the democrat and "left" that the right had stopped caring for years. This idea that there was a conversation is simply revisionist, and blaming the left is to blame the laggard for imitating the front runner.
- yanderekko 6y ago
  >no great bi-partisan agreement was being reached. No, but it's not like things couldn't be worse, and I don't think that the sort of eliminationist tactics that are being embraced are going to make things better. The left will manage to deplatform the right off of a bunch of major sites but they'll just reconvene elsewhere, out of reach. Will this be good or bad for discourse?
  - intended 6y ago
    If this is the part of the journey that you are waking up during, then unfortunately there’s only bad news. What you see coming up was already baked in. I dare say, so are the natural counter reactions to it. If it’s unclear, remember the quaint days of the Fox News effect. America was pulling away for a long time, and the right was the first one to realize the political advantage of it. Frankly I doubt America, especially the American right, can currently sit down and figure out how it got here. This isn’t an unfair criticism mind you, you can simply see how the right has gone from the river boat (?) days to the tea party to the Trump days of today, to track how hyper partisan it’s become internally. The media structures at play, such as Fox News, are determined to sell a partisan story. The Republican Party is so unable to work with the dems that they even rejected “Obama care” - which was built around a Republican program -Romneycare. This is simply one example, to highlight that what you are seeing is momentum at play. The machines that spin it up - namely the political:media structures, are fully active. Plus it’s been frightfully effective for the right. When Obama came to power, the right had suffered a massive demoralizing loss. They had nothing and were demoralized. Instead they got together and found strength in sheer force of will and used the term “one term president” to invigorate themselves and fight Obama at every turn. This dogged will to fight at all costs is impressive, and it resulted in styling Obama, and even gave them Trump. The Trump years have been amazing for the Republicans and so many core Republican goals have been fulfilled, especially the Supreme Court judges. The republicans approach simply works. Why wouldn’t the left pick up that lesson? You’ll even see that the rise of the left in the democrats is a mirror of the same process on the right. TLDR: sorry man, bipartisanship is long dead in your country. What should worry you even more - these processes aren’t unique to America. Fully expect to see this same break down around the world.

paganel 6y ago

If it makes you feel any better the same thing it's happening across the Atlantic, with the Yellow Vests movement which is being made fun of in France, the Brexiters which are derided in UK and people in my country (Romania) laughing at the people who didn't want to wear masks at some point because "their mouths smell" (yeah, not anyone can afford dental work).

arp242 6y ago

I don't see any "mass deplatforming and censorship". Trump and his supporters have had massive airtime and been given ample opportunity to say their peace on mainstream media in the last few years. Some people will criticize and ridicule that, yes. That's part of free speech. And if everyone is ridiculing you, then perhaps there might be the possibility you're saying ridiculous things?

wesleywt 6y ago

Can you provide evidence supporting massive de-platforming. As far as I know a few far right people who blatantly abused the TOS were banned. Most of these guys can freely post on Twitter and Facebook.

danielmarkbruce 6y ago

Why do they feel "unheard"? Every election results in close to 50% of the voters not getting the candidate they voted for. It doesn't mean their issues weren't discussed. Now more than ever, anyone can have a voice. A child can make videos unboxing toys and millions will watch. You can tweet, blog, video, write essays, make podcasts and so on. I'm not aware of any point in history when people could be heard more than now.

throwaway2245 6y ago
> Every election results in close to 50% of the voters not getting the candidate they voted for. Every election in the USA. Plenty of countries manage to have a proportional electoral system, where a large fraction of people get to feel appropriately represented. With such a bipartisan division in politics, it doesn't matter whether the issues were "discussed": there won't be compromise across the centre line.
thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
As can someone pretending to be a child. And they can make 5 accounts pretending to be different people. If it is revealed that they take money from Big Toy then, provided they protected their identity enough, they can just move on to another account. Our mindset is based around a form of discourse where we stop listening to people when we discover they're using their free speech to lie. Now you don't know who the liars are.

trianglem 6y ago

What peaceful discourse? In no universe are people coming together and breaking bread with racists and confederate sympathizers. You feel unheard because your ideas are toxic and unintegratable. Let it be split down the middle, because coming together is not happening.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

> Half of the American electorate currently feels profoundly unheard. They voted, they lost by 7+ million votes, which they stormed the Capitol to overturn. Why should I have to keep sparing their feelings? These people need to stop being appeased.

inglor_cz 6y ago

I think the problem is more subtle than that. There is a general evaporation of trust levels in societies across the world, not just the U.S. The world is becoming a very low-trust place. Deplatforming and censorship are only some factors in this process, but there are others. Remember Trump's original claim to "drain the swamp"? In the age of the Internet, anyone who pays attention to politics is overwhelmed by examples of bad behavior from the top guys and gals. People, being partisan creatures, will mostly concentrate on the top guys and gals from the other side, but contemporary democratic world is transparent enough not to let you doubt that the basic institutions are rotten to the core. Once upon a time, random people could have (positive) illusions about what takes place in the palaces of power in Brussel, London, Paris or Washington. Now they know it down to the last dirty detail and I believe that some of them just cannot cope. At the same time, China notices this and does its utmost to suppress any disagreeing voices within, much more so than 15 years ago. The end result should probably be a curated, polished image of the country and its system with no visible flaws. I doubt that they can sell this to the outside observers, but they may get their own population to believe that without reservations: "we are the champions".

selimthegrim 6y ago

Are they restricted from setting up their own Twitters, FB, IG?

etripe 6y ago

I don't think there's much validity to this conservative persecution complex when you subject it to analysis. There's a difference between what feels to be the case and what is. Social media are about emotional impulses and endorphin triggers, not rationality or reality. Conflating the two is undermining societies across the world. The American right isn't being censored in general. It's a vehicle for disinformation, to a somewhat greater degree than the American left. It's mainly that disinformation that's being censored on social media. In other media: those are as segregated between the two parties as they have been for decades. As far as de-platforming, review bombing and the like: it's not the right being excluded, it's anyone who doesn't conform to the fringe left's concepts of orthodoxy and political correctness. You know, the "woke" crowd. What happened at the Capitol was not the result of mass de-platforming and censorship. It was the result of ideological self-isolation, ignorance of historical context (among other things) and blindly parroting partisan talking points without exercising critical thought. This has been happening since Vietnam, before social media or even the Internet were invented. It culminated in the election of Trump, the emergence of Proud Boys, BLM and Antifa, the state of particularly the GOP and yesterday's events. For all the so-called differences between the two sides in American politics, they share a surprising amount of traits: ideological bubbles, authoritarian leanings, tribal sentiments, demonising the other side, distrust in corporate media and feeling oppressed/disenfranchised. There's at least a hint to the shared American subconscious there.

bluntfang 6y ago

>Half of the American electorate We need to be very clear here, we're explicitly talking about LESS THAN HALF of the electorate. Donald Trump did not win the popular vote in either presidential election he participated in.