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I think this one from Vice arrives at an opposite conclusion. I think they're covering at least similar things? https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-socia

I think this one from Vice arrives at an opposite conclusion. I think they're covering at least similar things? https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-... This is from 2018 & talks about Alex Jones. “We’ve been running a research project over last year, and when someone relatively famous gets no platformed by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, there's an initial flashpoint, where some of their audience will move with them” Joan Donovan, Data and Society’s platform accountability research lead, told me on the phone, “but generally the falloff is pretty significant and they don’t gain the same amplification power they had prior to the moment they were taken off these bigger platforms.”

rwcarlsen 6y ago
But what we are seeing here is deplatforming of organizations and people that represent the leadership of a much more mainstream movement that includes a huge fraction of the U.S. - half the country voted for trump! So this is one of those things where a difference of degree becomes a difference of kind. I don't think this is going to end well. [edit] - as an nuclear engineer - that study you cited reminds me of perturbation theory. You make a small tweak to the system and develop a model to fit how such small changes affect the larger system. But perturbation theory conclusions don't scale accurately up to "large" perturbations. If you pull the control rods a tiny bit in a subcritical reactor - you get higher neutron-multiplication factor for your existing/present neutron sources. So you might think that if you pull the rods 10 times as far, you get 10 times the multiplication - but you'd be wrong. If you pull them 10 times as far you go super critical and then you get like 1,000,000,000 times as much multiplication.
- macg333 6y ago
  I don't think everyone who voted for trump is aligned with the most seditious followers....at the end of the day there are really only two parties to vote for and a lot of different issues lumped into those two parties...single issue voters (e.g.,those against abortion) are going to vote for the Republicans. It also wasn't half the country, it was less than half of everyone who voted which was ~25% of the country. While it's still a substantial number of people I think saying that its half the country and that they all support the most heinous party leaders is disingenuous.
  - blakesterz 6y ago
    I do wonder if we're going to end up with a fractured Republican Party after this, or even a new third party with a base made up of all those most seditious followers. From what I can see happening, it seems pretty likely. I'm not sure what the consequences might be for all of us if that happens.
    - macg333 6y ago
      Personally,I would like to see this happen in both parties. A seperate party for tea party fatalists and a seperate party for leftist-progressives. I think such a change would be helpful for better parsing out where each proportion of the populations values lie outside of the RNC/DNC framework.
      - loopz 6y ago
        Democrats are too diverse to agree internally, and Republicans seem to be co-opted by disruptive movements. More parties could change the discussions toward policy and projects.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      If the "most seditious followers" leave to form a third party, then the Republican Party can become a normal, center-right party. That's not a bad outcome.
    - taylodl 6y ago
      Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) provides insight as to why this is unlikely to happen.
  - rwcarlsen 6y ago
    Yeah, but when someone's "preferred" side (even if they didn't really like them) is being steam-rolled like this many of those people are not going to be okay with it - not the least of which is because of the authoritarian/dystopian precedent being set. This could be a path to a 1-party system. China and Russia are good examples of how well 1 party systems turn out. I think anybody who doesn't want a 1 party system should be concerned about all this.
belorn 6y ago
Did any of the companies loose a lot of stock value after de-platforming Alex Jones?
hacknat 6y ago
You're talking about a very complex phenomenon. I don't think predicting what will happen is an easy thing in this situation. Also, Alex Jones is a special case, because he was overwhelmingly and universally de-platformed. This stuff might work differently when the de-platforming is also ideologically bifurcated (i.e. they are not universally de-platformed). Also, you have to ask yourself: While pushing a community underground might decrease their reach significantly, does it radicalize them, and increase the overall potential violence for society?

rwcarlsen 6y ago

But what we are seeing here is deplatforming of organizations and people that represent the leadership of a much more mainstream movement that includes a huge fraction of the U.S. - half the country voted for trump! So this is one of those things where a difference of degree becomes a difference of kind. I don't think this is going to end well. [edit] - as an nuclear engineer - that study you cited reminds me of perturbation theory. You make a small tweak to the system and develop a model to fit how such small changes affect the larger system. But perturbation theory conclusions don't scale accurately up to "large" perturbations. If you pull the control rods a tiny bit in a subcritical reactor - you get higher neutron-multiplication factor for your existing/present neutron sources. So you might think that if you pull the rods 10 times as far, you get 10 times the multiplication - but you'd be wrong. If you pull them 10 times as far you go super critical and then you get like 1,000,000,000 times as much multiplication.

macg333 6y ago
I don't think everyone who voted for trump is aligned with the most seditious followers....at the end of the day there are really only two parties to vote for and a lot of different issues lumped into those two parties...single issue voters (e.g.,those against abortion) are going to vote for the Republicans. It also wasn't half the country, it was less than half of everyone who voted which was ~25% of the country. While it's still a substantial number of people I think saying that its half the country and that they all support the most heinous party leaders is disingenuous.
- blakesterz 6y ago
  I do wonder if we're going to end up with a fractured Republican Party after this, or even a new third party with a base made up of all those most seditious followers. From what I can see happening, it seems pretty likely. I'm not sure what the consequences might be for all of us if that happens.
  - macg333 6y ago
    Personally,I would like to see this happen in both parties. A seperate party for tea party fatalists and a seperate party for leftist-progressives. I think such a change would be helpful for better parsing out where each proportion of the populations values lie outside of the RNC/DNC framework.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Democrats are too diverse to agree internally, and Republicans seem to be co-opted by disruptive movements. More parties could change the discussions toward policy and projects.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    If the "most seditious followers" leave to form a third party, then the Republican Party can become a normal, center-right party. That's not a bad outcome.
  - taylodl 6y ago
    Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) provides insight as to why this is unlikely to happen.
- rwcarlsen 6y ago
  Yeah, but when someone's "preferred" side (even if they didn't really like them) is being steam-rolled like this many of those people are not going to be okay with it - not the least of which is because of the authoritarian/dystopian precedent being set. This could be a path to a 1-party system. China and Russia are good examples of how well 1 party systems turn out. I think anybody who doesn't want a 1 party system should be concerned about all this.

belorn 6y ago

Did any of the companies loose a lot of stock value after de-platforming Alex Jones?

hacknat 6y ago

You're talking about a very complex phenomenon. I don't think predicting what will happen is an easy thing in this situation. Also, Alex Jones is a special case, because he was overwhelmingly and universally de-platformed. This stuff might work differently when the de-platforming is also ideologically bifurcated (i.e. they are not universally de-platformed). Also, you have to ask yourself: While pushing a community underground might decrease their reach significantly, does it radicalize them, and increase the overall potential violence for society?