6 ms·

Definitely agree. Back a year ago when you saw this kind of stuff all over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc it felt so normalized. But now you have to go to fri

by jdlyga 6y ago

Definitely agree. Back a year ago when you saw this kind of stuff all over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc it felt so normalized. But now you have to go to fringe websites. It's still out there of course. But it's very back-alley and definitely makes you take what people are saying with a grain of salt.

ralusek 6y ago
And would you describe things as having gotten better this last year? And I don't mean in the sense that you see less of what you think there should be less of online, because then of course it's gotten better if that's the variable being minimized. I mean, do you think the state of extremism and political unity has improved via marginalizing views held by enormous portions of the population?
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Yeah, absolutely! In the US, Trump lost the election and we have a genuine shot at police reform for the first time in a generation. In Europe, the pandemic has exposed the incompetence of empty populism.
  - splistud 6y ago
    summary: looks great through your rose-colored telescope eh?
  - meshenna 6y ago
    > has exposed the incompetence of empty populism. I'd say it has exposed incompetence in general.
CyberRabbi 6y ago
If it’s difficult for you to see political opinions with which you disagree being normalized, imagine how they feel.
- Falling3 6y ago
  It's completely disingenuous to categorize statements like "the US tax code is too complex" and "Jews are starting forest fires with space lasers" both as just 'political opinions'.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    It’s only “disingenuous” if you aren’t a liberal. I’m a liberal so I believe people are free to hold any opinion they want as long as they are not promoting direct harm to anyone else and I will not be shamed out of a liberal position by exceptional strawmen.
    - NoodleIncident 6y ago
      https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-gree... Blonde, sure, but IDK if I'd call her hair straw.
      - bavila 6y ago
        I truly love this exchange. Any rational person, upon hearing a suggestion that Jews are responsible for starting forest fires by using laser beams from space, would quite naturally dismiss the claim as nonsense. And the claim is so ludicrous on its face that a rational person would, quite justifiably, assume that it could only ever be offered as a strawman. Yet, here we are--with a duly elected congresswoman of the United States House of Representatives subscribing to (or at least passively entertaining) said strawman. There are, perhaps, too many well-intentioned, good-natured, level-headed people out there who are simply far too sheltered from the outright insanity that is permeating throughout our society. They are far too quick to assume that human nature tends toward the same pursuits of truth, justice, and liberty which they value--and that merely offering a level playing field for ideas to compete will inevitably result in the triumph of those which are most noble. While this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed approach to life is certainly tempting to adopt, it is quite disconnected from the world around us. Rationality and competence are under siege by people who do not adhere to an evidence-based view of reality. One cannot be reasonable with unreasonable people. Moderation and ostracization are perfectly valid tools for dealing with such individuals.
vkou 6y ago
It also has much lower reach. Ideas are viral - and don't spread very well when they have less exposure. You don't see too much pro-Al-Qaeda or ISIS material on Facebook or Twitter. Somehow, we've managed to censor that extremism away.
- tanseydavid 6y ago
  I have to wonder out loud whether many commenters actual took the time to read the article. Because the responses seemed heavily skewed towards "Yeah, but..." responses that sort of ignore the article's main point.
  - vkou 6y ago
    The article's main point is that apparently, 10-15% of the population voting for unabashed fascists is a colossal policy failure. Whereas I don't actually see that as a problem. In any given population, about ~10% of it is going to be sympathetic to fascism. That is what it is. It's an appealing ideology for a lot of people. The problem is when you get closer to 40%, or 50%, and unabashed fascists start making their way onto first, and second-rate political party tickets, as opposed to ineffectively screaming into the void on third-rate ones. We've just had a bit of a brush with that, here. Not interested in repeating it.
    - throw_nbvc1234 6y ago
      And when the systems/mechanisms for them to oppress their opposition were already put in place in an attempt to limit them from getting that power in the first place. If you go down the path of "censorship", you better get it right. Otherwise you'll probably be worse off in the end.
      - vkou 6y ago
        As the history of repressive governments has shown, they don't need any help in building these systems. Once they are in power, they really don't give two figs about how open and accepting your society was of viewpoints like theirs, and they can quickly assemble any instruments of oppression that they find lacking.
betwixthewires 6y ago
This is a shortsighted take IMO. "Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down. The problem is people want to talk about these things, and if that's what people want to talk about they're going to go where they can talk about them. This is directly addressed in the article (when we say we want to ban hate speech, what we really want to ban is hate, but hate cannot be banned). These big legitimate sites only feel permanently dominating now, but are not permanent by any means. People don't go on the internet and talk because talking is a way to use Facebook, people go on Facebook to talk about what they want to talk about. If people want to talk about edgy or even hateful stuff, they will, and if they can't do that on Facebook they'll do it elsewhere. That's not to even get into the fact that all to often these terms like "fringe websites" are used by entities to shame users into not using their competition, which further degrades the integrity of any anti hate message.
- spaced-out 6y ago
  >"Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down. source?
  - salawat 6y ago
    Better question: If increasing, is it because more topics of conversation are getting binned as 'fringe'? Or are extremists merely circumventing centralized efforts at blocking by moving around, which is exactly what those anti-censorship weenies like me jave been saying will be the inevitable result? The problem you ignore or quash never goes away. It just gets harder and more distributed.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I don't know about engagement on mainstream sites declining, but the rising popularity of sites like Parler and Gab seems undeniable. Parler's recent (attempted) deplatforming is evidence enough: you don't bother with a tiny fringe site that isn't growing or wielding any influence.
    - 6y ago

by jdlyga 6y ago

ralusek 6y ago

And would you describe things as having gotten better this last year? And I don't mean in the sense that you see less of what you think there should be less of online, because then of course it's gotten better if that's the variable being minimized. I mean, do you think the state of extremism and political unity has improved via marginalizing views held by enormous portions of the population?

ForHackernews 6y ago
Yeah, absolutely! In the US, Trump lost the election and we have a genuine shot at police reform for the first time in a generation. In Europe, the pandemic has exposed the incompetence of empty populism.
- splistud 6y ago
  summary: looks great through your rose-colored telescope eh?
- meshenna 6y ago
  > has exposed the incompetence of empty populism. I'd say it has exposed incompetence in general.

CyberRabbi 6y ago

If it’s difficult for you to see political opinions with which you disagree being normalized, imagine how they feel.

Falling3 6y ago
It's completely disingenuous to categorize statements like "the US tax code is too complex" and "Jews are starting forest fires with space lasers" both as just 'political opinions'.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  It’s only “disingenuous” if you aren’t a liberal. I’m a liberal so I believe people are free to hold any opinion they want as long as they are not promoting direct harm to anyone else and I will not be shamed out of a liberal position by exceptional strawmen.
  - NoodleIncident 6y ago
    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-gree... Blonde, sure, but IDK if I'd call her hair straw.
    - bavila 6y ago
      I truly love this exchange. Any rational person, upon hearing a suggestion that Jews are responsible for starting forest fires by using laser beams from space, would quite naturally dismiss the claim as nonsense. And the claim is so ludicrous on its face that a rational person would, quite justifiably, assume that it could only ever be offered as a strawman. Yet, here we are--with a duly elected congresswoman of the United States House of Representatives subscribing to (or at least passively entertaining) said strawman. There are, perhaps, too many well-intentioned, good-natured, level-headed people out there who are simply far too sheltered from the outright insanity that is permeating throughout our society. They are far too quick to assume that human nature tends toward the same pursuits of truth, justice, and liberty which they value--and that merely offering a level playing field for ideas to compete will inevitably result in the triumph of those which are most noble. While this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed approach to life is certainly tempting to adopt, it is quite disconnected from the world around us. Rationality and competence are under siege by people who do not adhere to an evidence-based view of reality. One cannot be reasonable with unreasonable people. Moderation and ostracization are perfectly valid tools for dealing with such individuals.

vkou 6y ago

It also has much lower reach. Ideas are viral - and don't spread very well when they have less exposure. You don't see too much pro-Al-Qaeda or ISIS material on Facebook or Twitter. Somehow, we've managed to censor that extremism away.

tanseydavid 6y ago
I have to wonder out loud whether many commenters actual took the time to read the article. Because the responses seemed heavily skewed towards "Yeah, but..." responses that sort of ignore the article's main point.
- vkou 6y ago
  The article's main point is that apparently, 10-15% of the population voting for unabashed fascists is a colossal policy failure. Whereas I don't actually see that as a problem. In any given population, about ~10% of it is going to be sympathetic to fascism. That is what it is. It's an appealing ideology for a lot of people. The problem is when you get closer to 40%, or 50%, and unabashed fascists start making their way onto first, and second-rate political party tickets, as opposed to ineffectively screaming into the void on third-rate ones. We've just had a bit of a brush with that, here. Not interested in repeating it.
  - throw_nbvc1234 6y ago
    And when the systems/mechanisms for them to oppress their opposition were already put in place in an attempt to limit them from getting that power in the first place. If you go down the path of "censorship", you better get it right. Otherwise you'll probably be worse off in the end.
    - vkou 6y ago
      As the history of repressive governments has shown, they don't need any help in building these systems. Once they are in power, they really don't give two figs about how open and accepting your society was of viewpoints like theirs, and they can quickly assemble any instruments of oppression that they find lacking.

betwixthewires 6y ago

This is a shortsighted take IMO. "Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down. The problem is people want to talk about these things, and if that's what people want to talk about they're going to go where they can talk about them. This is directly addressed in the article (when we say we want to ban hate speech, what we really want to ban is hate, but hate cannot be banned). These big legitimate sites only feel permanently dominating now, but are not permanent by any means. People don't go on the internet and talk because talking is a way to use Facebook, people go on Facebook to talk about what they want to talk about. If people want to talk about edgy or even hateful stuff, they will, and if they can't do that on Facebook they'll do it elsewhere. That's not to even get into the fact that all to often these terms like "fringe websites" are used by entities to shame users into not using their competition, which further degrades the integrity of any anti hate message.

spaced-out 6y ago
>"Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down. source?
- salawat 6y ago
  Better question: If increasing, is it because more topics of conversation are getting binned as 'fringe'? Or are extremists merely circumventing centralized efforts at blocking by moving around, which is exactly what those anti-censorship weenies like me jave been saying will be the inevitable result? The problem you ignore or quash never goes away. It just gets harder and more distributed.
- kelnos 6y ago
  I don't know about engagement on mainstream sites declining, but the rising popularity of sites like Parler and Gab seems undeniable. Parler's recent (attempted) deplatforming is evidence enough: you don't bother with a tiny fringe site that isn't growing or wielding any influence.
  - 6y ago