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The Data of Hate

nytimes.com

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Re: The Data of Hate

#51

Post by clarkm »

sethsd wrote: post #20
tinco wrote: post #6

A shame he didn't go deeper. The analysis here is very superficial, basically consisting of him browsing the forum for a while and doing some number crunching on profile data. A bit disappointing for a NYT article, even if it is just on their website. It would have been much nicer if he did a proper data analysis of forum posts. If we've ruled out social economic class and education, what big factor remains? I suppos…

Hey, thanks for comment. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole linguistic analysis thing, for various reasons. But I could be convinced otherwise (Also this would bias the analysis away from people who just register and lurk) ... Another thing I looked at was Facebook profiles. But this part was cut due to space. Here's what I found: Not surprisingly, most Stormfront users do not want to announce their white nationalism t…

Eh, I don't think the number of Facebook friends is a meaningful comparison here. At least, not without additional controls. If a user takes the time to seek out such niche likes on Facebook, they also probably take the time to seek out friends to add. I know Facebook doesn't have the massive fake user problem that plagues Twitter, but still, I'd wager that fake profiles, inactive accounts, and users from countries with low Facebook usage skew the average significantly.

You can't really tell if they are "social [media] pariahs" unless you compare them to a representative sample. You could control for the average number of likes, and compare that to the average number of friends. Or even better, you could compare them to several groups of users who like other fringe topics (from all parts of the political spectrum) and see if they're significant outliers. In fact, this is going on my idea list. :)

Re: The Data of Hate

#52

Post by morgante »

QuantumChaos wrote: post #41

Even though they take their views to ridiculous extremes, sites like Stormfront do have a valid critique of the hypocrisy of liberal American Jews. Exactly the same people and groups who claim that White people desiring to live among other White people is stupid and immoral, also believe that Israel being a Jewish nation is non-negotiable. Only the far-left (e.g. Norman Finkelstein and Chomsky in some moments) are co…

> sites like Stormfront do have a valid critique of the hypocrisy of liberal American Jews.

No, they don't. Don't legitimize their nonsense.

Also, Israel is not meant to be solely Jewish. It's just majority Jewish, just like other nations are majority Christian/white. That's a security measure, not an expression that Jews are inherently superior to other races—most Jews I know (including Israelis) support the inclusion of other people in their communities.

Please don't bring Stormfront to HN.

Re: The Data of Hate

#53

Post by rdtsc »

kijin wrote: post #49
rdtsc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we could locate the source of these ideas, perhaps there could be a way of battling it. That is interesting. It would be nice if there was a source for these ideas (well besides human nature) and if it was curable. We want to think these people a basically good but sick. Something happened to them and they became like this. If we could only prevent or even undo that. Could it be for example that by default peopl…

Very interesting idea, and I think there are large grains of truth in what you said. I don't think humans are racist by default, but rather that the way in which most societies have evolved so far are conducive to racism. Most communities around the world are either ethnically homogeneous, or if they're not, they have active conflict among ethnic groups in adjacent regions/towns/villages/neighborhoods. It's easy to b…

> The only way to combat racism is to make people live together.

This is how I see it too. It has to start earlier, in kindergarten. By the time kids hit highshcool they already carry prejudices that might be hard to undo.

The best antidote is to personally know someone from the other "group".

The cliche defense for "I am not racist" is "I have a friend, I swear". But there is truth in there. Having a friend, a coworker or acquaintance, is a good way to reduce racism probably.

Re: The Data of Hate

#54

Post by sethsd »

clarkm wrote: post #51
sethsd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks for comment. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole linguistic analysis thing, for various reasons. But I could be convinced otherwise (Also this would bias the analysis away from people who just register and lurk) ... Another thing I looked at was Facebook profiles. But this part was cut due to space. Here's what I found: Not surprisingly, most Stormfront users do not want to announce their white nationalism t…

Eh, I don't think the number of Facebook friends is a meaningful comparison here. At least, not without additional controls. If a user takes the time to seek out such niche likes on Facebook, they also probably take the time to seek out friends to add. I know Facebook doesn't have the massive fake user problem that plagues Twitter, but still, I'd wager that fake profiles, inactive accounts, and users from countries w…

yea, that seems a better way to do it. and regardless you're dealing with such a small percentage of white nationalists and such a selected sample that it can only be suggestive. but i'm really not sure how else you could get any clues, so it seems worthwhile. -- seth

Re: The Data of Hate

#55

Post by morgante »

jqm wrote: post #3

Why would anyone register for a site like this? Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move? I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care. I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being sp…

> Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move?

You're being downvoted unfairly. I think this is actually a very legitimate point.

In fact, someone in this thread shared links to Stormfront and I refused to visit them out of fear that I'll end up on a list of white supremacists at the FBI.

Re: The Data of Hate

#56

Post by Stratoscope »

incision wrote: post #31

The maps alone [1] seems to sum up so much of my experience with prejudice over the years. I grew up in and around and still live near DC which is near/at the bottom of the scale here. First, it wasn't until I found my way onto the Internet regularly and into online games in particular in the second half of the 90s that I witnessed hate for Jews outside of history lessons. Suddenly, mixing in real-time with a not ter…

> ...I ended up working with the people who vendors would fly in from cheaper parts of the country.

As someone who grew up in a cheaper part of the country, I was tempted to be offended by that comment (and particularly by the subsequent suggestion that people from cheaper parts of the country were more likely to be prejudiced).

I felt like you were pre-judging me based on where I was born - something I had as little control over as the color of my skin or my religious and cultural background.

But then I realized you're probably not always aware of your own prejudices, any more than I am. So no worries, we are all still learning how to get along and respect each other.

Re: The Data of Hate

#57

Post by tinco »

sethsd wrote: post #20
tinco wrote: post #6

A shame he didn't go deeper. The analysis here is very superficial, basically consisting of him browsing the forum for a while and doing some number crunching on profile data. A bit disappointing for a NYT article, even if it is just on their website. It would have been much nicer if he did a proper data analysis of forum posts. If we've ruled out social economic class and education, what big factor remains? I suppos…

Hey, thanks for comment. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole linguistic analysis thing, for various reasons. But I could be convinced otherwise (Also this would bias the analysis away from people who just register and lurk) ... Another thing I looked at was Facebook profiles. But this part was cut due to space. Here's what I found: Not surprisingly, most Stormfront users do not want to announce their white nationalism t…

Thanks a lot for making an account and taking part in the discussing, and my apologies for bashing your article a bit. Obviously the topic is very interesting and I'm very happy you made the article.

I would actually be wary of the lurkers, I suppose there is a significant amount of people who are 'interested' in stormfront without actually sharing the belief who have accounts there.

The Facebook statistic would be very interesting if it had been of the average Stormfront user. There's a chance the sort of person who has extreme opinions on their FB just has more friends, with only 100 out of 200.000 it's hard to tell.

It's funny you are skeptical of the linguistic analysis thing while you opened the article with a quote from a girl who was impressed by the linguistic analysis of that NYT quiz ;) You can make this sort of analysis without any specific knowledge at all, a very generic n-gram analysis could give you anything from common phrases used by stormfront users to linking their identities across mediums (i.e. stormfront to twitter/facebook).

Re: The Data of Hate

#58

Post by tinco »

rdtsc wrote: post #23
tinco wrote: post #6

A shame he didn't go deeper. The analysis here is very superficial, basically consisting of him browsing the forum for a while and doing some number crunching on profile data. A bit disappointing for a NYT article, even if it is just on their website. It would have been much nicer if he did a proper data analysis of forum posts. If we've ruled out social economic class and education, what big factor remains? I suppos…

> If we could locate the source of these ideas, perhaps there could be a way of battling it. That is interesting. It would be nice if there was a source for these ideas (well besides human nature) and if it was curable. We want to think these people a basically good but sick. Something happened to them and they became like this. If we could only prevent or even undo that. Could it be for example that by default peopl…

I'm not sure if it is accurate, but I think of someone who is hateful as someone who was hurt. This is also why I think it's so hard to fight hate, as even if you mend a wound, the memory of hurt lasts and fosters hate. How do you make someone forgive and forget?

Re: The Data of Hate

#59

Post by QuantumChaos »

morgante wrote: post #52
QuantumChaos wrote: post #41

Even though they take their views to ridiculous extremes, sites like Stormfront do have a valid critique of the hypocrisy of liberal American Jews. Exactly the same people and groups who claim that White people desiring to live among other White people is stupid and immoral, also believe that Israel being a Jewish nation is non-negotiable. Only the far-left (e.g. Norman Finkelstein and Chomsky in some moments) are co…

> sites like Stormfront do have a valid critique of the hypocrisy of liberal American Jews. No, they don't. Don't legitimize their nonsense. Also, Israel is not meant to be solely Jewish. It's just majority Jewish, just like other nations are majority Christian/white. That's a security measure, not an expression that Jews are inherently superior to other races—most Jews I know (including Israelis) support the inclusi…

>No, they don't. Don't legitimize their nonsense.

I share this critique, and I outlined it in my post, so I'm not legitimizing them, but rather outlining what things I think they are correct about.

I simply do not believe that Israel as a Jewish state is a "security measure". Almost no one thinks of it in these terms, neither Israeli Jews or American Jews (Einstein did, but he was in a minority). Israeli's (and American Jews) typcially describe Israel is existing for the protection of Israel identity, religion and culture, not the physical protection of individual Jews.

You say that most Jews support the inclusion of other people in their communities, and yet the Prime Minister of Israel said "If we don't stop their [African asylum seekers] entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state ... This phenomenon is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity."

>Please don't bring Stormfront to HN.

I will bring my own beliefs to HN, feel free to deal with it however you like.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/20/israel-netanyah...

Re: The Data of Hate

#60

Post by HCIdivision17 »

Stratoscope wrote: post #56
incision wrote: post #31

The maps alone [1] seems to sum up so much of my experience with prejudice over the years. I grew up in and around and still live near DC which is near/at the bottom of the scale here. First, it wasn't until I found my way onto the Internet regularly and into online games in particular in the second half of the 90s that I witnessed hate for Jews outside of history lessons. Suddenly, mixing in real-time with a not ter…

> ...I ended up working with the people who vendors would fly in from cheaper parts of the country. As someone who grew up in a cheaper part of the country, I was tempted to be offended by that comment (and particularly by the subsequent suggestion that people from cheaper parts of the country were more likely to be prejudiced). I felt like you were pre-judging me based on where I was born - something I had as little…

Sorry, I wish the downvote button wasn't so close to upvote. This chain's interesting, not... Not.
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