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> "In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers."[1] Be that as it may, cable is also on the way out [1], and 2.5 million v

• kerkeslager 5y ago
  > Parler has since been forced off of AWS, and has been forced to block hate speech as a condition of being added back to the Apple app store [3]. I don't think Google has added it back to the Play Store. This was possible because there are no laws on the books requiring AWS, Apple, and Google to unconditionally do business with Parler, as long as their decision isn't based on discriminating against a person in one or more protected classes (and political affiliation is not a protected class). 1. So how sure are you that the harmful conversations haven't moved on from Parler to another venue you don't know about? I don't know the direction things have gone, because these things move fast and I don't have time to keep track of them. But I do know that every time people tout a deplatforming success, I find out about a new cesspool a few months after the fact. Twitter -> Mastadon. Reddit -> Voat. Facebook... is anyone even claiming that Facebook has deplatformed hate speech when every few months there's another private hate group being Doxxed? And even on the supposedly "cleaned up" platforms, the hate is still there, with better branding--if Jim Crow could become the War on Drugs and the KKK could become the Proud Boys decades ago, what makes you think that racism can't rebrand today? The primary success of deplatforming is that "woke" white folks don't think about racism because they don't see the N-word on social media any more--actual racists still have very little difficulty organizing. 2. Could you point out where I proposed laws that force companies to host content? I don't think I did that, and if I did, I'd like to retract it. My ideal solution would be for people to stop using corporate social media entirely, because it's nothing but toxic, but that's seemingly not realistic. A possibly more realistic solution would be for people to learn to talk to racists instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. Racism is a disease but it's curable in many cases. We need to stop just canceling people the minute they offend us, and learn to engage in a dialogue that changes minds.
  • jude- 5y ago
    > But I do know that every time people tout a deplatforming success, I find out about a new cesspool a few months after the fact. Good, keep them scrambling. Time spent scrambling to re-establish your online presence is time not spent trying to get people lynched. > The primary success of deplatforming is that "woke" white folks don't think about racism because they don't see the N-word on social media any more--actual racists still have very little difficulty organizing. The purpose of deplatforming is to stop the racists from recruiting on that platform and harassing that platform's users. I don't think most people believe that deplatforming ends racism itself, anymore than deplatforming terrorists ends terrorism. But, making it hard for racists to grow their numbers is still a morally-worthy action, no? > My ideal solution would be for people to stop using corporate social media entirely, because it's nothing but toxic, but that's seemingly not realistic. Why would "non-corporate" social media be any better or worse than "corporate" social media? Honest question. I think the fact that social media in which bad behavior (racism, trolling, or otherwise) doesn't carry the social cost that it would in real life is precisely what enables it online. The fact that it's corporate or non-corporate is orthogonal to this. > A possibly more realistic solution would be for people to learn to talk to racists instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. Why should I believe that "engag[ing] in a dialog that changes minds" will "cure" racism online? Have you successfully convinced online racists to stop being racists? Do you have a methodology you can share? Again, honest questions. Asking because what has stopped racism in the real world was that it ceased to be socially acceptable behavior. Acting like a klansman in public usually gets someone banned from mainstream establishments (social cost), loses them non-klansmen friends (social cost), and if their employer, colleagues, and and business clients find out, they lose their respect and business as well (more social cost). Effectively, being an overt racist gets you shunned -- something societies have been doing to enforce social norms for all of history. I don't think we as a society have yet developed a healthy and effective shunning protocol for ensuring that online racists receive offline social consequences, but I think that this is a matter of establishing better social norms about it. "Cancelling" is the latest take on shunning, except that relative to past forms of shunning, it's (1) not that effective of a deterrent for actual racists, (2) it's currently far less forgiving for putting your foot in your mouth (since the Internet doesn't forget), and (3) it offers very little room for expressing sincere repentance. I'd be interested in figuring out ways to implement item (3), since I think that will precipitate a way for society to figure out how to mitigate item (2). I think the way to deal with item (1) is to make it possible to identify the actual racists to the communities they live in, so that offline shunning can be effectively used to deter bad online behavior.