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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

freddiedeboer.substack.com

541–550 of 863 posts

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

#541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's exactly what's being said. The photo has nothing to do with the story. NPR admitted as much. https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1274809408262938624 But your tone suggests that you disagree with something.

The implication was that npr was smearing this woman, rather than the editors being lazy. All in service to the argument that npr focuses on race, despite there being no evidence

Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

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

#542

You can't censor it away completely, but you can help the redeemable extremists __know__ they're indulging in extremism by forcing them to go to fringe websites rather than allow them to stay on Twitter and Facebook as if nothing is wrong. As for the "deplorables" who know what they're doing and will never question it or feel any remorse, we should not be giving them a megaphone. sources[0]: I was susceptible to extr…

Can anyone name a time in history where the people censoring things turned out to be the "Good Guys"?

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

#543
post #382

You can censor obvious examples of extremism. I don't think anyone disagreed that Youtube was correct in censoring Isis recruitment videos, for instance. The problem is that people are trying to censor "dog-whistling" extremism. By its very nature, it's a losing battle. Only dogs can hear dog whistles, so there's a high likelihood that you're censoring someone innocent. Also, even if you do censor a dog whistle, they…

Allowing "dog whistles" to be censored also creates a powerful incentive to redefine ideas the censors don't like as "dog whistles." For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > With the help of two liberal pollsters, Joshua Ulibarri and Celinda Lake, we conducted 15 focus groups with members of various Hispanic communities across the country and ran a national survey. We also polled…

This reminds me of the argument that police forces can't be racist if they employ black officers. Even black police officers are more likely to shoot an innocent black man than an innocent white man in the same situation. Want to find someone who is racist against Argentinians? Go to Peru or Chile. Just because some Latinos in a focus group agree with a message does not mean it's not racist against Latinos.

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

#544

I'm sympathetic to this argument in many ways. For one, extremist movements tend to thrive on oppression - being censored "proves" the system is rigged against them. But the argument in this article is very flawed. For one, yes, Germany has a far right movement. The real question is, how influential would it be without all the legislation to suppress it? Social norms matter, and legislation can reinforce those norms.…

> The real question is, how influential would it be without all the legislation to suppress it?

I had exactly the same thought. The argument is deeply flawed.

> Social norms matter, and legislation can reinforce those norms.

Brexit is a great example for this phenomenon. Directly after the vote, xenophobia and homophobia increased significantly in the UK. It need not written into legislation, the signal of a common understanding is enough to change behaviour.

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

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a few people explaining how they de-radicalized. Now imagine the opposite, someone with some slightly bad opinion suddenly finds themselves shut out of the main platforms because of hate speech rules. They now become more radicalized. Due to the number of people constantly being suspended/banned I think there is a greater chance that these people will become radicalized, than someone will realize they ha…

>How do you balance trying to avoid creating these kinds of echo chambers, versus creating radicals by pushing them to other sites where there are no restrictions? By aggressively removing it to limit how many people are exposed, and ban those who continue to share it despite being warned.

And all those evil drug users need to be aggressively removed to limit how many people are exposed to drugs... /s

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

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we starting deplatforming Jews or reducing Jewish influence to the point of pratical irrelevance? Would that be okay?

No, obviously it would not be okay. What point are you trying to make?

So, deplatforming (silencing) a group is okay, but doing the same for other group is not okay based on some arbitrary criteria.

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only would they disagree with you, but their strategy actually works. Leftists, "wokeness", and social justice wouldn't be the hot topics they've been if the strategy of leftists weren't effective. Is the goal of social justice movements just to be hot topics? Your statement makes it seem like success is measured by the amount of retweets or something. Clearly that can't be true, but if global fascism and ethni…

I think the current primary strategy is to destabilize Western liberalism. Every tenet of liberalism is actively under attack, and successfully so. Individualism? Long gone, the name of the game is collectivism and your identity groups are everything. Color blindness? It's officially considered to be an outdated, laughable mode of thinking. If your identity collective is paramount, how can you be blind to the paramet…

"Individualism" was never really implemented as "western" value; it was only ever a catch-phrase to defend the status quo by insisting those at the top "earned the right" to be there.

"Color blindness" likewise has mostly been used to argue that those on the bottom of society deserve to be there; (again) preserving the status quo. I.E. shutting down discussion by labeling racism a "solved problem".

"Freedom of speech" complaints most often come from those claiming to be "censored" because they are no longer being given a megaphone.

"Rule of law" is used to prevent analysis of those laws by, among other things, demonizing any discussion of those laws' motivations, or the cultural context in which they are enforced.

"Objectivity, Facts, and Reason" are used as buzzwords, often by those who know they aren't actually on their side, because

1) everyone knows they are good, and so claiming to already possess them is convincing rhetoric,

2) painting your opponents as "rejecting" them is also persuasive rhetoric, especially to your uninformed audience.

Claiming that people are actually demonizing them is a mischaracterization.

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

#548
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what would be the problem with changing the name of the movement to ALM all lives matter and making the focus against police militarisation rather than some divisive narrative of racism?

Imagine you are at a dinner party and haven't eaten for a couple days. The guests don't realize this and are delaying dinner to chat, play games, what have you. Then finally someone says "hey morpehos137 is starving" and a large group of the guests dismiss this and say "We are all hungry" and continue to go about their business.

[deleted]

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

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care what "a leftist" has accused another leftist of... I'm taking issue with the fact that you are saying that "discrimination against white people" is not "racial discrimination" with the implication that it's somehow better.

What!? I say that? Are you pointing to the fact that I refer to sibling comments in how the equivalence is wrong? And that is somehow me implying that “discrimination against white people somehow better”? Please, get over your self.

> the equivalence is wrong

That is saying that racism against whites is somehow different from other racism, with the implication that it is not as bad.

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

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a few people explaining how they de-radicalized. Now imagine the opposite, someone with some slightly bad opinion suddenly finds themselves shut out of the main platforms because of hate speech rules. They now become more radicalized. Due to the number of people constantly being suspended/banned I think there is a greater chance that these people will become radicalized, than someone will realize they ha…

>How do you balance trying to avoid creating these kinds of echo chambers, versus creating radicals by pushing them to other sites where there are no restrictions? By aggressively removing it to limit how many people are exposed, and ban those who continue to share it despite being warned.

Which is censorship. The thesis of the article asserts it is ineffective, and counter-productive to the parent comment's point.
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