7 ms·

Is the issue here that all republican/right-wing biased platforms and influencers encourage hate-speech? Or simply that the platforms with the ability to block

• timeon 4y ago
  I do not think that it is "all republican/right-wing" platforms. It is just that these are more amplified because of former POTUS.
  • qabqabaca 4y ago
    That's exactly my point. How can something like 4chan still exist online? There have been multiple mass-shooters bred there. It also used to be known for extremely questionable adult content. Why do Trumps preferred platforms get taken down but not this?
    • Kbelicius 4y ago
      > How can something like 4chan still exist online? Has google removed truthsocial from the internet? Does 4chan have an app in play store?
    • timeon 4y ago
      Well your probably have point but I was not clear in my comment. What I wanted to say is that Republican / right-wing platforms exists without extremists it is just that former president brought them to the spotlight. That is also why you mention 4-chan while we are talking about Republican / right-wing platforms which I thing normally would not be fair for them - as all sides do have extreme parts. But it is how it is now.
    • colinmhayes 4y ago
      I do not believe 4chan is on the play store. Truth social is still reachable on your browser...
• PaywallBuster 4y ago
  Project Veritas captures some interesting bits undercover from the left wing media https://www.projectveritas.com/ https://www.projectveritas.com/
  • andybak 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas
    • upsidesinclude 4y ago
      Sorry, but the inherent weakness of Wikipedia has been fully exploited. You can't crowdsource political information.
      • pritambaral 4y ago
        You don't have to trust Wikipedia. Look at the citations. Wikipedia can be used as just an index of excerpts from what it cites.
  • upsidesinclude 4y ago
    Yeah, your comment is getting erased because you provide evidence of how they play the game. Edit: Now my comment too! Of course no input or reply.
    • kthejoker2 4y ago
      Project Veritas is a supremely biased source, they selectively edit all of their gotcha videos, use entrapment and other techniques that are completely disqualifying in terms of trusting their conclusions, and are currently under investigation for commissioning the theft of Ashley Biden's diary. No serious person should take them seriously. It wpuld be great to have a ProPublica from the right.
      • upsidesinclude 4y ago
• awelxtr 4y ago
  I'm sure it's related to the paradox of tolerance
• luxeo223 4y ago
  Yes to the former: in my impression, the far right discourse and memes, in the broad sense of the word, tend to be more threatening and violent on average when the posts are directory towards the opposing political group or marginalised communities (e.g. racial or sexual). This happens both towards the group broadly or when targeting particular individuals, such as jail Hillary, hang Pelosi, or shoot the gays, or that women are not worth anyone's time (Andrew Tate example). You can have a less polarised left- or right-wing discussion, and that results in less moderation for both sides. For example in the UK, you may not have liked Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson, but you'd hardly have anyone calling for them to be jailed or murdered.
  • qabqabaca 4y ago
    This is a good observation. It's also probably not coincidence that any "free speech" (i.e. zero content moderation) platforms inevitably end up full of racists/homophobes/xenophobes etc
    • mjevans 4y ago
      I agree, but it's also a natural consequence of excluding that speech from other venues. Of course it will all concentrate in what few places still allow it. However is that desirable? It might be healthier for society if the speech is in less concentrated quantity, and seen for the bile it is so that it can inoculate those exposed in such low quantities. We should also look at the motivating factors, not necessarily the stated reasons, but the source of the logical and emotional driving factors that lead to that hateful rhetoric. Society and social contracts have serious systemic issues that are complex, interwoven issues. It's not just one thing, or one problem, but a big picture with a lot of things that all must get solved in the same broad effort.
      • kajecounterhack 4y ago
        > I agree, but it's also a natural consequence of excluding that speech from other venues. Of course it will all concentrate in what few places still allow it. However is that desirable? It's desirable in that your kids, who mostly frequent mainstream social media with their friends, aren't exposed to the scary bad content as easily. Also it's better for the mental health of everyone who isn't bigoted or vitriolic to see less of that stuff on the regular.
• dapf 4y ago
  [dead]
• tibbydudeza 4y ago
  SOME right-wing communities are rather racist and frankly unhinged with the worst aspects of online behaviour - just look at QAnon and Proud Boys and the hatred of LGBTQ people. It is not like the old days of conservatism - Big govt is bad - lower taxes- unions are bad - abortion is bad - work at will is the way to go. Most left wing communities even the extreme ones in comparison get upset full of vitrol but that rarely veers into that sort of behaviour - health care for all - single payer - socialism works is hardly offensive to many.
  • sol_invictus 4y ago
    False comparison - you’ll find plenty of vitriol against white people, christians, traditional values and such in extreme left
    • batmanturkey 4y ago
      But no calls to violence, despite our desires to oust politicians who make hay off of threatening violence.
      • sol_invictus 4y ago
        Just an example from, uh, 2 days ago: https://www.chronicle.com/article/professor-fired-for-alleged-threat-to-kill-all-white-people-is-named-interim-provost-of-troubled-college https://www.chronicle.com/article/professor-fired-for-allege...
        • the_why_of_y 4y ago
          This earlier article is far more interesting; most importantly it contains the words the professor actually said; the quote in the headline of the article you link is disputed. (Interestingly, both articles have the same author.) https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-disenchantment-of-a-black-professor https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-disenchantment-of-a-bl... It's a long story about an ambitious academic losing at university politics, to the point of being fired from a tenured position without, allegedly, due process. https://www.thefire.org/fired-for-criticizing-his-administration-and-discussing-racism-indiana-professor-sues/ https://www.thefire.org/fired-for-criticizing-his-administra...
• tentacleuno 4y ago
  What happened to Trump always made me feel a bit uneasy. Seeing companies from Stripe, a payments company, to all social media companies block him all at once was staggering to see. The collective power of all these companies is staggering, and I've never seen anything on this scale before.
  • karmakurtisaani 4y ago
    I feel like on January 6th something happened that could influence this.. I mean let's not pretend this kind of action happens just because the companies decide someone is not woke enough or some bs like that. Trump is dangerous and seriously doesn't deserve to be on these platforms.
    • tentacleuno 4y ago
      I'm not arguing that he should not have been banned. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree that his removal from social media was a good idea. It may have even saved lives. My point is that I have never seen companies join together to de-platform one person so quickly. P.S. I don't really subscribe to this "woke" nonsense. It feels like a tired cliche at this point. We need to find more meaningful terms to describe a set of morals.
• upsidesinclude 4y ago
  1. No. 2. Yes. 3. That is the nature of the social media business. Take for example the fact the a vast majority of government workers self identify as democrats/liberal. People that don't believe in a large government (conservatives) choose not to work in government positions.
  • batmanturkey 4y ago
    3) so how do you explain either conservative or right wing politicians, judges, or secret service agents? Aren’t you really just complaining that reality has a left wing bias? Perhaps seeing how governments actually work dissuades you from erroneous conclusions you had drawn from right wing brainwashing?
    • upsidesinclude 4y ago
      I suppose you could explain that quite easily as I didn't state 100%. Government employment =/= Reality That's the weird disconnect, I've explained it in my commemt and it is verifiable information. Your last question doesn't make sense unless you mean to say it ironically, I can't tell, but whatever. The words you have chosen do not illustrate the point you intended to make. I'm not right wing. I'm able to see and also think critically of both conservatives and liberals. I'm capable of self awareness. It is clearly an uncommon trait.
• Yoric 4y ago
  I don't know about this specific service, but I've read up about the general context. What is happening here to US Conservatives is similar to what happened to Muslims around 2016. Until that time, most online services didn't want to touch anything religion-related with a ten foot pole because they felt that it would be religious censorship and/or feared the backlash. But then, with Daech stepping up its online recruitment effort and hiding much of it among benign Muslim/Muslim-adjacent conversations, services decided to do something. So a loosely coordinated effort started around 2016 to marginalize Daech. This meant investing time and effort in moderating Muslim and arab-speaking communities. This meant banning extremist users and closing extremist groups – even as they migrated from service to service. This also meant banning communities that refused to moderate extremist speech. And, to the best of my understanding, it worked. Daech lost most of its capability to recruit online for terrorism, civil war and funding, while, after an initial scare, regular users (including Muslims and arab speakers) continue using the services without any real disruption. Until 2020, nobody dared to touch US Conservatives for the same kind of reason. US Conservatives are powerful, well funded, well organized, they own a large fraction of US media and they are very much in a position where they can boycott and destroy plenty of services (possibly not Big Tech, but many services are much smaller). This was a problem because the number of terrorist attacks planned by groups hiding in plain sight among regular Conservatives users had reached scary levels, not to mention the amount of dangerous propaganda hiding among regular Conservative discussion. I assume that there were plans to try and do something about that, but they were rejected by business fiat because of the fear of backlash. Then came the assault on the Capitol and the plans were not rejected anymore. We have entered a stage in which services attempt to get rid of/marginalize extremists from within the ranks of US Conservatives, in the hope that this will help decrease far right terrorism. It is scary for US Conservatives, just as the 2016 operations were scary for Muslims and arab-speaking users. As far as I can see, right wing communities very much continue to exist – they just can't operate in a "we're not going to moderate extremist speech". Is it specifically targeting US Conservatives? Yes, it is, because US Conservatives communities are being used by extremists to hide in plain sight. Is this a good strategy? Is it successful? Too early to tell, I guess. But there is a historical precedent that suggests that it should be, in time.