This is simply not an accurate representation of history.
Milo Yiannopoulos fell out of popularity because of repeated issues with pedophilia, which even the right doesn't condone.
Katie Hopkins was financially ruined Monroe v. Hopkins[1].
InfoWars still has a larger readership than The Economist or Newsweek[2], so I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have lost influence. It sounds like you might be inside of an echo chamber.
You may be looking at a different study, but the only study[3] I know of on the banning of hate sub-Reddits showed that content didn't pop up elsewhere on Reddit. It doesn't show that the hate didn't just move over to Voat, which is my theory as to what happened. Yes, the study was publicized as "deplatforming works", but only because people didn't know where the people who were deplatformed went.
The rest of your post follows suit with claims that aren't based in reality.
[1] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars (top section)
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...
Voat is discussed elsewhere here, too. In short, the point was precisely to get the speech off Reddit because it was poisoning Reddit. People said it wasn’t worth them trying because it would move to other subreddits. It didn’t, it moved offsite entirely.
De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
Thank you for responding with actual data. I'll have to read the article.
> De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
I'm not sure how one can look at Reddit being more consistently liberal, and Voat being... Voat, and see this as "reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces".
I actually find these alternate sites useful for monitoring the latest foreign propaganda because my spouse is from a country with a hostile relationship to the U.S. and consumes most of her news in her native language, which is full of misinformation. I can now more clearly understand where she gets her opinions from sometimes and we can talk it out.
If anything, banning extremists makes these ideologies more palatable to a larger group of people by creating a more gradual on-ramp at the entry level. I believe this is becoming more obvious as we see the middle ground position in the current "culture" conflict (which would still probably get you banned from facebook) rapidly becoming acceptable. The pendulum keeps swinging, and not many people involved seem very interested in stopping the broken cycle and finding a more sustainable solution.
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/
Deplatforming was a big part of that. Deplatforming didn't stop Milo. His base dropped him because he started defending hebeaphiles & pedophile / men being attracted to teens/pre-teens/boys (there's actually something sadder here; with Milo not realizing he was himself abused ... there's an entire tragic story lost there people don't seem to understand or pick up on because they're too busy hating him).
They might leave the platforms you like, but they move over to Voat, Gab or startup their own Pleroma/Mastodon instances (that get banned from everywhere). Deplatforming doesn't really work in the way you thin it does. It literally gives people more drive to stand up for and behind what Capital-T "truth" they think got themselves banned.
Sure, something like Voat pops up. But Reddit improves. And Reddit is where all the people are.
There will always be dive bars, there will always be rough online neighbourhoods. But start by cleaning up the civic square.
It's also not black and white. Sure 99% of us can agree that banning or de-platforming such horrendous stuff like NAMBLA is good. But MSM starts to push out and group non-extremists into the same bucket and ban them all, and you get where we are today, with a good chunk of society that doesn't listen to or trust the MSM.
All the people in your echo chamber, that is.
If that's what you think I was saying, let me clarify: no, that's not what I was saying.
To be clear, I definitely don't agree with most of what is said on Voat, and I'm not really familiar with Gab.
Let's keep the discussion on the topic, not on me.
You aren't making any concrete statements on where you think I'm wrong, and you are evading any questions I've asked to try to get clarity, so to be honest, I have no idea what you actually think I'm wrong about, or even whether you think I'm wrong.
If it were someone else, I'd just dismiss you as a troll, but I've read and respected your opinions in the past, which makes your current method of arguing a bit disappointing for me. You're well-positioned to change my mind if you ever decide to share what you actually think.
Yes, they may. But while they do the workplace where most people interact is a livable place for the rest of us. We shouldn't make it easier to be heard if you have despicable views just because of the implied threat it might get worse.
These are people that the MSM is trying to cancel quite literally right now.
I don't think Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro should get fired from the average workplace (I'm not familiar with Jeanine Cummins) unless they insist on trying to impose their views. I don't think they should be banned from presumably neutral platforms (reddit, Facebook, Twitter).
On the other hand, I don't think they should be given a column in other media publications and they're more than fair game for ridicule and criticism. I don't think they have a moral right to publish in any subgroup within ostensibly neutral platforms (Facebook group, subreddit).
Oh I bet the Woke Twitterati (tm) would if they could, but Joe Rogan is in the same stratosphere as Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle where they are effectively impervious to cancellation barring some Harvey Weinstein/Bill Cosby-level misconduct.
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/joe-rogan-cancel-culture-sme...
Surely you can tell the difference between talking about odious opinions on the internet, and making decisions as a representative of a company based on those odious opinions.
Either way advocating for an ethno-nationalist state in the U.S. is akin to supporting the forced removal of at least a third of the population, which is a despicable view to have.
They're not really good for recruitment (because they're echo chambers that only appeal to people already invested in a point of view), nor do they provide much amusement from baiting other people with very different opinions; these two factors are in stark contrast to mainstream platforms, which provide an abundant supply of both.
Naturally, you get cross-platform raiding where people organize on one platform to attack another and then enjoy the spoils if their attack results in upset, outrage, bans of the target etc. But off-platform raids are relatively easy for platform operators and target populations to monitor, detect, and repel. Likewise, the extremist or highly toxic platforms that people do congregate on function well for a policy of managed containment.
Those who likely moved to Gab and Voat and 4/8chan are likely persons that fit the latter description. There is no need to even have discussions with people like these on the internet. The best is for them to be deplatformed and continue their self flagellation. They are simply too far gone. If anything, these sites will probably radicalize, but it will also be easier for authorities to keep tabs on particularly dangerous accounts.
The concept of deplatforming is to protect the integrity of good faith discussion. The key idea there is "good faith". Persons like the aforementioned Milo clearly do not engage in any concept of good faith discussion. IMO there is no need for any discussion base like reddit or facebook to protect these types.
In your example, what they were doing was fundamentally wrong and if you asked any good person today they would tell you as much.
Your last sentence is essentially indistinguishable from the position held 50 years ago by people who also felt they were "morally right" in deplatforming.
I think that it would be wise to doubt one's own ability to differentiate between these two groups.
I also think that the purpose of public debate is not to persuade the person you are debating with: that's almost never possible. It's to persuade the audience. Bad faith arguments, if they really are bad faith arguments, are usually pretty easy to shoot down, so I don't think that we have anything to fear from bad-faith arguers.
In fact, deplatforming benefits bad-faith arguers because their bad-faith arguments look more reasonable when nobody confronts them.
At another level, deplatforming is a bad faith argument, by your own definition. Aren't you trying to put forth your agenda, regardless of what anyone says, by deplatforming people? Your agenda may be good, but that doesn't justify bad faith actions to support it.
Some of those have indirect diffusion paths back out into the mainstream culture. But the direct ones are blockaded.
Well of course. That's like a prohibitionist using the reduced alcohol consumption overall as justification. Data often suggests that prohibiting <thing> means less of <thing>.
The question is not whether the goal of the silencing is mostly achieved, the question is whether that goal is worth the precedent. If your goal is to silence at all costs, it will always seem worth it. You'll find the less forceful actions (e.g. ignoring, dissuading, etc), when possible, have less slippery trade offs.
If relatively mild critics of these things are shut out of the mainstream media, then they get fans on mainstream social media platforms. If they're banned from mainstream social media, they'll find some other place. These fans haven't all been bitten by reactionary zombies, they often come up with their own doubts about the mainstream left, and look for people discussing the questions they have.
Here's an article suggesting that 'alt lite' speakers or skeptics of social justice aren't necessarily creating some 'rabbit hole' effect, but may actually sap views away from hardline extremists - https://www.wired.com/story/not-youtubes-algorithm-radicaliz...
Even if you think that critics of social justice are wrong, they exist (in large numbers). If you don't want the moderates on mainstream platforms, a number will go to darker corners of the internet where there is a genuine danger they will be radicalised.
I guess maybe that's OK? Extreme right-wing radicals might tend to hurt the right. Maybe the goal is to drive away moderate anti-feminists or moderate anti-social justice types (e.g. Milo who seems to me to be a bit of a jerk, but is hardly radical), and if a few end up becoming alt-right then maybe that's OK (and "it's their fault" anyway).
And how will you feel when whatever you personally have interest in gets deplatformed because someone else finds it to be disagreeable?
If you don't think power will eventually be applied against you, you haven't read enough history.
Then they turn up and vote...
You can go two ways. You can not want to leave your political home and double down and go harder left ... or you find dissenting voices. If those voices aren't centrists, they're going to be hard right, and people will start to shift their entire political leanings because they want a political home.
People need to be okay with others believing things they don't agree with. Even controversial things. I've noticed people on the left who refuse to be friends with or hand out with people who have different beliefs about certain things .. and that's insane! How do you learn and grow if you cut off everyone with a different opinion than yourself? We're probably all wrong about something.
It’s a position of some security to be able to complain that “people on the left who refuse to be friends with or hand out with people who have different beliefs about certain things .. and that's insane”. I belong to at least one minority group. I’m not even what you’d call “left”, but I’d certainly refuse to be friends either someone whose belief was that a group to which I belong should be denied some rights. I’d probably refuse to be friends with people who had certain other views I find particularly offensive too. Is that strange or unhealthy? I’d find it really weird to be friends with someone who held beliefs I find to be grossly offensive.
"Acceptable" is a pretty vague word. What actions are we talking about here? Lobbying and petitioning companies? Boycotting them? Demanding governments regulate speech on their platforms?
It's my opinion that forcing people to propagate ideas they disagree with is just as bad as preventing people from propagating ideas they do agree with: these are two sides of the same coin: free speech. So at the level of government, I would never support laws that forced platforms to allow any sort of speech on their platform.
However, Reddit/Facebook/etc. respond to the demands of their users, so the question I'm trying to answer is: what should we, as users, be demanding?
I think the correct response to hatred isn't to shut them out: that's just responding to hatred with hatred. I think the correct response to hatred is to respond with love: assuage fears, correct ignorance, and help the hateful person to find a better way.
> I’d probably refuse to be friends with people who had certain other views I find particularly offensive too. Is that strange or unhealthy?
This certainly isn't going to be a popular opinion, but yes, I would say this is unhealthy.
Communication is a two way street. If you want to communicate your ideas into the world, you have to be willing to hear the ideas of others. In this sense, connection is power: people who disconnect themselves from people give up the ability to change those people. And the people who you can change the most are those the most unlike you.
You have to realize that people come to the beliefs they have due, at least partly, to circumstance and education. Maybe there's some degree of nature in it--maybe some people are inherently hateful. But if that is the case, I haven't met any of those people. When I talk to bigoted people at length, I often discover that they have led difficult lives, and based on their experience, blame some other group they don't understand for the difficulties they have experienced. They aren't doing this out of malice: on the contrary, they are usually doing it because they care about their own families and communities. The problem isn't that they are naturally bigoted, it's that they're afraid and ignorant, and both of those things are fixable.
By choosing to cut someone out of your life, you're choosing to treat them not as a normal person with fears and gaps in their experience, but as an inherently bad person. I don't think that is a healthy position to take.
Don't conflate strong disagreements with toxic speech.
Do you think that Voat, Fox News, InfoWars, etc are somehow less effective platforms?
When did they ever have agenda-setting influence? I need more specific citations for these claims than "the data" and "studies".
> Banning disruptive speakers works. Every pub landlord knows it.
I'm no expert on pubs, but my understanding is that "disruptive speakers" in that context are ones who make it hard for others to speak.
Could you provide a source for this?
On the other hand, there is the ongoing background corruption of power afoot. Taking power, utilising it and branding anyone who disagrees as 'toxic' is going to cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering, as it has in the past every time a group uses power in an unchecked fashion.
Revolutions are often started by people who were deplatformed, it doesn't help when the situation is serious. If I recall correctly; Hitler, Stalin, Galileo and Gandhi are all people who were deplatformed and imprisoned. Jesus was deplatformed rather violently. Deplatforming is not a tool with a particularly proud history of success and prudent implementation; and its failures tend to be spectacular. Two sides sticking to reasoned debate, explanation, moderation and compromise has a much better track record of not-so-bad outcomes.
An anti-vax post on a FB newsfeed is quite likely to have counterarguments. An anti-vax website is unlikely to run into such problems.
And going back to the original post: does "vaxxers on FB, anti-vaxxers elsewhere" sound like more polarisation, or less?
The ubiquity of the platform and the ease of sharing massively amplifies the problem.
Yes. Why would they not be?
edited because of grammar
It’s important to remember too there are incentives for people to argue and behave otherwise: FB, Twitter, hate-speech mongers who want easy access to large audiences — All have commercial cause to act in favour of more and more extreme speech.
People like that benefit from more and more extreme speech. They permit or encourage it on their platforms. This in turn causes the white blood cell count of the body politic to spike as it tries to counteract the bile and hate. This angry counter-speech then gets presented as “polarisation”.
The solution to ignorance _can often be_ silencing the ignorant, yes, in order that the educators can be heard.
Would we still have an anti-vax problem if FB banned it across its properties? Really?
Banning disruptive speakers works. Every pub landlord knows it.