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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

freddiedeboer.substack.com

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Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#151

Post by oblio »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #125
sagichmal wrote: post #14

Eliminate? No. Reduce to the point of practical irrelevance? Yep. Deplatforming works.

It works....in the short term...within a very narrow scope. And then suddenly, for no reason at all, someone incredibly well aligned with everyone you deplatformed rises to power.

They don't rise to power if the political system is sane. In many countries without First Past the Post systems, an extremist rises in popularity. Then when the final vote comes, it is revealed that most people are moderate and the crazy does not get into power.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#152

Post by XorNot »

So, what is extreme left to you?

Which groups, existent groups, are they?

This whole line of discussion seems to consist of some rich false equivalency being mediated by presuming the existence of equivalent opposing forces and then making them appear equal in size and threat by not talking about who they actually are.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#153

Post by vladvasiliu »

tshaddox wrote: post #95
vladvasiliu wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I don't really use Twitter, so my understanding of its mechanics might be wrong. Isn't "trending on Twitter" a popularity contest? As in something's "trending" because more people (users, as opposed to Twitter the company or their moderators) have chosen to interact with that tweet instead of some other? I think that "to defend your right to say it", in this context, does mean "to defend your right to be…

I think you’re making a common mistake, which is to assume there’s some “natural” algorithm that determines which tweets trend, and that human intervention is “unnatural” and unfair. But on the contrary, Twitter’s trending feature (and indeed all distribution on all public social media networks I’m aware of) is active promotion of speech. Humans at Twitter are deciding which tweets trend, regardless of whether they’r…

> I think you’re making a common mistake, which is to assume there’s some “natural” algorithm that determines which tweets trend, and that human intervention is “unnatural” and unfair.

That's partly true. I think it's "unfair", or rather disingenuous, only when the company claims there's no manual intervention. I wouldn't really have an issue with a company saying "we're looking to promote this or that speech". I think no one really takes issue that Democrat or Republican conventions don't have speakers from the opposing parties. They are clearly labeled "Democrat", so people expect this going in.

I think the crux of the matter is these platforms pretend being an unbiased space for people to communicate, when they clearly aren't. Or rather, they aren't as open anymore. Once people flocked to them, and they became a common place of exchange, the rules drastically changed.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#154

Post by caslon »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #143
caslon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200 people isn't very much. Twitter has 192 million users. Assuming (extremely generously given that twitter is on the Internet and has a userbase that skews younger) that twitter matches America's partisan divide, it probably has around 90 million users. It seems unlikely that at least a thousand people out of 90 million aren't gullible enough to be swayed by hellbanning.

Show me proof that twitter censorship has converted even ONE racist/nazi and I'll entertain this notion. "it seeming unlikely" hardly compares to a man with 200 trophies to prove his method works.

Hellbanning has a history of working well for deradicalization of online communities that were a lot worse than twitter is; Jeff Atwood has a good post giving a brief look at the history of it: https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#155

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

hef19898 wrote: post #135
glogla wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jean-Paul Sartre has a good quote on this - he framed it around anti-semitism but it covers othes as well, it might as well been written about QAnon or COVID deniers: Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly,…

Today they complain about being cancelled before going silent. Very good quote.

>Today they complain about others who were silenced before they themselves are silenced.

FTFY!

Which ironically runs right into the famous poem:

>First they came for the Communists >And I did not speak out >Because I was not a Communist

>Then they came for the Socialists >And I did not speak out >Because I was not a Socialist

>Then they came for the trade unionists >And I did not speak out >Because I was not a trade unionist

>Then they came for the Jews >And I did not speak out >Because I was not a Jew

>Then they came for me >And there was no one left >To speak out for me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#156

Post by [deleted] »

hef19898 wrote: post #114
dmingod666 wrote: post #17

My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize (I'm sure it applies to the right equally as well) that scolding people into guilt is not a viable approach to affect action or to change perceptions when you're dealing with adults. Neither does boxing people into this, that and that category do any good. Like if all you want to do is dehumanize those guys so you can happily insult / hurt them without hurting…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#157

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

tsimionescu wrote: post #124
Griffinsauce wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem there lies in the market power of the monopolies, not their speech.

So if there were 50 companies, and all of them censored you for saying something really unpopular, would things be any better? Critical infrastructure must be legally protected from censorship and (private, mandate-less) eavesdropping. Whether it is run by a monopoly or many small companies is immaterial.

>Critical infrastructure must be legally protected from censorship and (private, mandate-less) eavesdropping. Whether it is run by a monopoly or many small companies is immaterial.

Well said.

What we have today is an oligopoly on speech by a small handful of ideologically identical technotyrants who have managed to circumvent the first amendment without ever having had to so much as introduce a bill to Congress.

If this keeps going it isn't going to end well.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#158

Post by hef19898 »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #146
hef19898 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they deny being racist, sexist or whatever more often than not when called out? It sure seems so.

I'm not even sure if you're talking about the racist left or the racist right and that is mildly amusing. I don't know a lot (any?) racist right folks, but I know a shitload of racist left and they ALL publicly, verbally, in writing, rail against racism in one breath, and then shit on white people in the next. I acknowledge that this is anecdotal, but still...

There is no racism against white people in the, what, northern hemisphere. And never was. In that part of the world, racism comes from the white population and is aimed at others.

Calling white racists out definitely isn't racism.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#159

Post by XorNot »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #71
cheschire wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I would suggest you use the same logic about labelling anyone in any part of the political spectrum then. Using terms such as "the left" might seem less antagonistic than calling someone a "fascist" yet come across just as harshly when read / heard by someone who hears "the left" preached in the 2 minutes hate of their preferred news source.

Yeah but nobody here said "you can't talk with leftists, they're all extremists and closed-minded." edit: At least nobody I've seen yet. People are probably gonna say it (this goes for any "it" as conversation length grows), but I'd expect it to be downvoted.

People have been real happy to say "extreme left and extreme right" and yet mysteriously seem to have no idea who the extreme left actually is.

Fascist is not just "extreme right" it's a specific political ideology or goal. The extreme left is therefore ???

Because while the US certainly has a small following of communists like how every country has a small following of everything, they're certainly not the group which attempted to seize the Capitol building on January 6.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#160

Post by kristopolous »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #146
hef19898 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they deny being racist, sexist or whatever more often than not when called out? It sure seems so.

I'm not even sure if you're talking about the racist left or the racist right and that is mildly amusing. I don't know a lot (any?) racist right folks, but I know a shitload of racist left and they ALL publicly, verbally, in writing, rail against racism in one breath, and then shit on white people in the next. I acknowledge that this is anecdotal, but still...

Here's three, you need an account to see them.

https://gab.com/tags/whitepower

https://gab.com/tags/jews

https://gab.com/tags/blacks

Just scroll. They also have literal Nazi groups such as https://gab.com/groups/248 that are genuinely and sincerely advocating for nazism.

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