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> drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism This is what banning /r/the_donald and now /r/donaldtrump did. It doesn't stop the users from believing wha

by ng12 6y ago

> drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism This is what banning /r/the_donald and now /r/donaldtrump did. It doesn't stop the users from believing what they believe, it just further isolates them in an echo changer while simultaneously reinforcing the belief that the liberal media is "out to get them".

bra-ket 6y ago
I'd argue it further isolates users in those liberal echo-chambers from hearing a different opinion. Given the heavy left leaning media bias it leads to free speech being free as long as it doesn't disagree with the 'party line'. I.e. the same dynamics as in communist Soviet Union where 'enemies of the people' were ostracized and persecuted by totalitarian regime.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Perhaps we should leave up ISIS recruitment videos, so users in liberal echo chambers can hear that differing opinion as well. /s This is not a new or exciting phenomenon. Censorship and “cancel culture” have rich histories on all sides of the American political spectrum.
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    > ISIS That’s exactly the strategy communist party pursued to label their opponents all shades of evil to silence opposition. In this case conservatives are bundled into a group of ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’, literally and without sarcasm, 24/7 on mainstream media, just like George Orwell described in his famous dystopia. The last time it happened in America was with McCarthyism witch hunts, methinks, so you’re right , it’s a long tradition.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      >In this case conservatives are bundled into a group of ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’, literally and without sarcasm, That's what they are though. One side of my family are full-on conservative Trump supporters and I know for a fact that's exactly who they are.
      - kuzimoto 6y ago
        Conservatives make up roughly 50% of the United States. Are you saying all conservatives are ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’?
        rorykoehler 6y ago
        It is certainly looking that way to me. At least ~80% of them. They're all going along with this bullshit apart from a few more principled ones who are in it for the money/ self enrichment only.
        _zg4q 6y ago
        I think it's unfortunate that you feel this way, especially if it's without any evidence. I wouldn't say that 80% of liberals are communists and socialists. I think this mentality will only further the division between sides.
        uoaei 6y ago
        I highly recommend you do some studying of how Weimar Germany led to the rise of Hitler. It is no exaggeration to say that Trump is playing from a handbook which is poorly scribbled and obviously plagiarized from Hitler's.
        kuzimoto 6y ago
        I don't believe most conservatives agree with his rhetoric, they just like his policies for the most part. They probably don't even like him much, they just dislike the direction the democratic side is going enough to vote for him.
        krapp 6y ago
        > I don't believe most conservatives agree with his rhetoric, they just like his policies for the most part. They probably don't even like him much, they just dislike the direction the democratic side is going enough to vote for him. "I don't care for Hitler's rhetoric, I just voted for the Nazis because I think he has some good ideas about infrastructure and I like his jobs plan" doesn't exactly come across as sympathetic. Especially not after it becomes obvious where the trains are going. If you're a conservative or a Republican who supports Trump for his politics alone, or because he was the R and you hate the D, the moral thing to do as of January 6 is to disavow Trump entirely, and look for another candidate who supports his views, or perhaps consider supporting a third party. Not to dig in and continue making excuses for him and his supporters.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      There's a reason you're reacting to my comparison of these people to ISIS, rather than suggesting that ISIS recruitment videos be permitted. ISIS represents something "beyond the pale", so obviously bad that it's okay if we censor it because it's dangerous and seditious. You object to the comparison because it's an attack. We all know ISIS is bad, so the only reason to comparing these people to them is to make it seem like they're bad too, even though they're trying to say a lot of reasonable things if someone would just listen with an open mind! Obviously, not everyone on r/DonaldTrump is down to invade the capitol. I'm sure there are plenty of people who support ISIS that don't support their violence either. No group is homogenously made up of cartoon villains. But that doesn't mean we need to be fine with the recruiting grounds for their most violent sects. To be clear, your rhetorical position is the exact same as mine. You're perfectly fine with the exact same censorship you're ostensibly criticizing. You just want the line to be drawn somewhere else.
    - flukus 6y ago
      You skipped over it, just to be clear, do you think ISIS recruitment videos should be allowed to stay up?
- rblatz 6y ago
  The media is moderate, not left leaning. But anything left of Donald trump is considered socialist by his supporters.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    The media is more left leaning than 1) the median of the population and 2) the media was 20 years ago. I think 1) is what's driving the "media is left" feeling. It is left compared to the median of society. To many people (not just on the far right), that feels like the media pushing leftist views/narratives/agendas.
- cygx 6y ago
  Given the heavy left leaning media bias Note that Fox News remains the most-watched cable news network - though online, it ranks after CNN and NYT (and possibly others, depending on the metric).
  - kuzimoto 6y ago
    Because Fox is the primary "mainstream" news source for conservative viewers. There are many more left-leaning news networks so their viewers are more divided. The majority of remaining news channels/networks/etc. have liberal bias.
    - cygx 6y ago
      Viewers have various options to choose from (eg CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Newsmax, ...). The divion CNN+MSNBC vs Fox (in terms of, say, viewership or ad revenue) seems to be roughly comparable to what you'd expect from voter demographics. If, say, Newsmax rose to prominence and we'd see more fragmentation on the 'right', or CNN and MSNBC were to merge, and we'd see less fragmentation on the 'left', what would that change?
      - kuzimoto 6y ago
        Just looking at the "AllSides Media Bias Chart" there are more "major" sources that are left-leaning than right [0]. The chart includes top sources by traffic. I mean this doesn't calculate all traffic and determine if in general left sources are more viewed but it's a start. [0] https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
        acdha 6y ago
        That’s a very subjective chart and by their own admission doesn’t even try to compare for honesty or credibility. Most of the two R columns routinely run fake or highly selective coverage to a degree which only Democracy Now and certain HuffPost writers approach. There is an enormous difference between an outlet like the New Yorker, which is definitely liberal but also fiercely committed to fact checking, and outlets like Newsmax or The American Conservative which are proudly movement conservatives first and journalists second, if at all. This desire to present a false equivalence is understandable - it makes it easier to avoid acknowledging a major schism in the country - but the misrepresentations requires are a disservice to their readers. Just the fact that The Economist is listed as leftist to the same degree that The Post Millenial or NY Post are listed as right wing tells you how interested they are in accuracy!
jakelazaroff 6y ago
But crucially, it also makes it much more difficult for unwitting people to start discovering it. The point is to slow the spread, not to reach the people who are already there.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  The idea that the only way to protect unwitting people from falling into some undesirable line of thinking is to limit what they see to the desirable line of thinking seems doomed to fail. Either discourse works and you expect people can be made to come to their own sensible conclusions or discourse doesn't work and every change from the norm must be subversive. I.e. tucking it away doesn't guarantee it ends up less visible to people it just guarantees it will be less visible to the system tucking it away. People are still going to share ideas that don't agree with the majority opinion but now those hearing have zero tools or experience for dealing with such claims.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Memes as viruses seems apt. There's a fine balance between exposure leading to herd immunity, and pure isolation making the entire population susceptible to being swept up in a collective insanity once a novel one emerges or re-emerges from generational turnover (eg Marxism or Nazism.) Anyone pretending like one or the other is a global maximum is wrong, and pulling us closer to something non-balanced creates risk around the worst case befalling us in that regime. The obvious question in this analogy is if there's anything akin to a vaccine. Well, when it comes to bigotry, I think having people you care about in your life that are in tribes or groups being demonized by bigots is just that. And a society of liberal norms of the free exchange of ideas and democracies acts similar to a culture of hand washing and cleanliness in a society where people are free to interact with the sick.
seppin 6y ago
Such further isolation and radicalization was inevitable, large companies weren't going to host the process on their servers. As they have every right not to do.
bosswipe 6y ago
What it does do is prevent them from recruiting from redit's normie population for free.
rorykoehler 6y ago
What would you do?
- ng12 6y ago
  Leave it alone. Reddit did the right thing early on by minimizing /r/td spam on the front page. Aside from that I'm convinced there were no problems posed by /r/td or /r/donaldtrump aside from those invented by the small, vocal minority of pearl-clutchers complaining that someone somewhere on Reddit was posting things they disagreed with.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Would you take down posts around organising an attempted coup? Where is the line? I'm asking because I see both sides but err on your side but I also know it's a very suboptimal solution.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    An interesting thought exercise is if the whole thing which happened would have been avoided if they were allowed to stay on reddit. They were driven to another site, and I can say for sure the level of extremism was unchecked in comparison by their own community at that point. On reddit, they at least were exposed to more formalized community moderation as well as regular influx of more level headed people who often tried to talk sense into some of the more extreme members. I think some good faith efforts and ground rules were in place on the new site, but a lot of this insurrection shit seems like it would have gone very differently on a more public facing reddit subforum.
triceratops 6y ago
> simultaneously reinforcing the belief that the liberal media is "out to get them". These people are brainwashed. No concrete action normies take can convince them. They have to decide to get better and ask for help. And we must help them, without judgment or scolding, when that happens. But at some point, you have to stop a policy of appeasement because it doesn't work. They'll just keep pushing and taking more and more.

by ng12 6y ago

bra-ket 6y ago

I'd argue it further isolates users in those liberal echo-chambers from hearing a different opinion. Given the heavy left leaning media bias it leads to free speech being free as long as it doesn't disagree with the 'party line'. I.e. the same dynamics as in communist Soviet Union where 'enemies of the people' were ostracized and persecuted by totalitarian regime.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
Perhaps we should leave up ISIS recruitment videos, so users in liberal echo chambers can hear that differing opinion as well. /s This is not a new or exciting phenomenon. Censorship and “cancel culture” have rich histories on all sides of the American political spectrum.
- bra-ket 6y ago
  > ISIS That’s exactly the strategy communist party pursued to label their opponents all shades of evil to silence opposition. In this case conservatives are bundled into a group of ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’, literally and without sarcasm, 24/7 on mainstream media, just like George Orwell described in his famous dystopia. The last time it happened in America was with McCarthyism witch hunts, methinks, so you’re right , it’s a long tradition.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    >In this case conservatives are bundled into a group of ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’, literally and without sarcasm, That's what they are though. One side of my family are full-on conservative Trump supporters and I know for a fact that's exactly who they are.
    - kuzimoto 6y ago
      Conservatives make up roughly 50% of the United States. Are you saying all conservatives are ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘nazis’?
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        It is certainly looking that way to me. At least ~80% of them. They're all going along with this bullshit apart from a few more principled ones who are in it for the money/ self enrichment only.
        _zg4q 6y ago
        I think it's unfortunate that you feel this way, especially if it's without any evidence. I wouldn't say that 80% of liberals are communists and socialists. I think this mentality will only further the division between sides.
        uoaei 6y ago
        I highly recommend you do some studying of how Weimar Germany led to the rise of Hitler. It is no exaggeration to say that Trump is playing from a handbook which is poorly scribbled and obviously plagiarized from Hitler's.
        kuzimoto 6y ago
        I don't believe most conservatives agree with his rhetoric, they just like his policies for the most part. They probably don't even like him much, they just dislike the direction the democratic side is going enough to vote for him.
        krapp 6y ago
        > I don't believe most conservatives agree with his rhetoric, they just like his policies for the most part. They probably don't even like him much, they just dislike the direction the democratic side is going enough to vote for him. "I don't care for Hitler's rhetoric, I just voted for the Nazis because I think he has some good ideas about infrastructure and I like his jobs plan" doesn't exactly come across as sympathetic. Especially not after it becomes obvious where the trains are going. If you're a conservative or a Republican who supports Trump for his politics alone, or because he was the R and you hate the D, the moral thing to do as of January 6 is to disavow Trump entirely, and look for another candidate who supports his views, or perhaps consider supporting a third party. Not to dig in and continue making excuses for him and his supporters.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    There's a reason you're reacting to my comparison of these people to ISIS, rather than suggesting that ISIS recruitment videos be permitted. ISIS represents something "beyond the pale", so obviously bad that it's okay if we censor it because it's dangerous and seditious. You object to the comparison because it's an attack. We all know ISIS is bad, so the only reason to comparing these people to them is to make it seem like they're bad too, even though they're trying to say a lot of reasonable things if someone would just listen with an open mind! Obviously, not everyone on r/DonaldTrump is down to invade the capitol. I'm sure there are plenty of people who support ISIS that don't support their violence either. No group is homogenously made up of cartoon villains. But that doesn't mean we need to be fine with the recruiting grounds for their most violent sects. To be clear, your rhetorical position is the exact same as mine. You're perfectly fine with the exact same censorship you're ostensibly criticizing. You just want the line to be drawn somewhere else.
  - flukus 6y ago
    You skipped over it, just to be clear, do you think ISIS recruitment videos should be allowed to stay up?
rblatz 6y ago
The media is moderate, not left leaning. But anything left of Donald trump is considered socialist by his supporters.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  The media is more left leaning than 1) the median of the population and 2) the media was 20 years ago. I think 1) is what's driving the "media is left" feeling. It is left compared to the median of society. To many people (not just on the far right), that feels like the media pushing leftist views/narratives/agendas.
cygx 6y ago
Given the heavy left leaning media bias Note that Fox News remains the most-watched cable news network - though online, it ranks after CNN and NYT (and possibly others, depending on the metric).
- kuzimoto 6y ago
  Because Fox is the primary "mainstream" news source for conservative viewers. There are many more left-leaning news networks so their viewers are more divided. The majority of remaining news channels/networks/etc. have liberal bias.
  - cygx 6y ago
    Viewers have various options to choose from (eg CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Newsmax, ...). The divion CNN+MSNBC vs Fox (in terms of, say, viewership or ad revenue) seems to be roughly comparable to what you'd expect from voter demographics. If, say, Newsmax rose to prominence and we'd see more fragmentation on the 'right', or CNN and MSNBC were to merge, and we'd see less fragmentation on the 'left', what would that change?
    - kuzimoto 6y ago
      Just looking at the "AllSides Media Bias Chart" there are more "major" sources that are left-leaning than right [0]. The chart includes top sources by traffic. I mean this doesn't calculate all traffic and determine if in general left sources are more viewed but it's a start. [0] https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
      - acdha 6y ago
        That’s a very subjective chart and by their own admission doesn’t even try to compare for honesty or credibility. Most of the two R columns routinely run fake or highly selective coverage to a degree which only Democracy Now and certain HuffPost writers approach. There is an enormous difference between an outlet like the New Yorker, which is definitely liberal but also fiercely committed to fact checking, and outlets like Newsmax or The American Conservative which are proudly movement conservatives first and journalists second, if at all. This desire to present a false equivalence is understandable - it makes it easier to avoid acknowledging a major schism in the country - but the misrepresentations requires are a disservice to their readers. Just the fact that The Economist is listed as leftist to the same degree that The Post Millenial or NY Post are listed as right wing tells you how interested they are in accuracy!

jakelazaroff 6y ago

But crucially, it also makes it much more difficult for unwitting people to start discovering it. The point is to slow the spread, not to reach the people who are already there.

zamadatix 6y ago
The idea that the only way to protect unwitting people from falling into some undesirable line of thinking is to limit what they see to the desirable line of thinking seems doomed to fail. Either discourse works and you expect people can be made to come to their own sensible conclusions or discourse doesn't work and every change from the norm must be subversive. I.e. tucking it away doesn't guarantee it ends up less visible to people it just guarantees it will be less visible to the system tucking it away. People are still going to share ideas that don't agree with the majority opinion but now those hearing have zero tools or experience for dealing with such claims.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Memes as viruses seems apt. There's a fine balance between exposure leading to herd immunity, and pure isolation making the entire population susceptible to being swept up in a collective insanity once a novel one emerges or re-emerges from generational turnover (eg Marxism or Nazism.) Anyone pretending like one or the other is a global maximum is wrong, and pulling us closer to something non-balanced creates risk around the worst case befalling us in that regime. The obvious question in this analogy is if there's anything akin to a vaccine. Well, when it comes to bigotry, I think having people you care about in your life that are in tribes or groups being demonized by bigots is just that. And a society of liberal norms of the free exchange of ideas and democracies acts similar to a culture of hand washing and cleanliness in a society where people are free to interact with the sick.

seppin 6y ago

Such further isolation and radicalization was inevitable, large companies weren't going to host the process on their servers. As they have every right not to do.

bosswipe 6y ago

What it does do is prevent them from recruiting from redit's normie population for free.

rorykoehler 6y ago

What would you do?

ng12 6y ago
Leave it alone. Reddit did the right thing early on by minimizing /r/td spam on the front page. Aside from that I'm convinced there were no problems posed by /r/td or /r/donaldtrump aside from those invented by the small, vocal minority of pearl-clutchers complaining that someone somewhere on Reddit was posting things they disagreed with.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  Would you take down posts around organising an attempted coup? Where is the line? I'm asking because I see both sides but err on your side but I also know it's a very suboptimal solution.
- gfodor 6y ago
  An interesting thought exercise is if the whole thing which happened would have been avoided if they were allowed to stay on reddit. They were driven to another site, and I can say for sure the level of extremism was unchecked in comparison by their own community at that point. On reddit, they at least were exposed to more formalized community moderation as well as regular influx of more level headed people who often tried to talk sense into some of the more extreme members. I think some good faith efforts and ground rules were in place on the new site, but a lot of this insurrection shit seems like it would have gone very differently on a more public facing reddit subforum.

triceratops 6y ago

> simultaneously reinforcing the belief that the liberal media is "out to get them". These people are brainwashed. No concrete action normies take can convince them. They have to decide to get better and ask for help. And we must help them, without judgment or scolding, when that happens. But at some point, you have to stop a policy of appeasement because it doesn't work. They'll just keep pushing and taking more and more.