Nazis don’t deserve to be handed the “2 Live Crew effect.” For those who don’t know this was a mediocre booty rap group whose record went triple platinum after attempts were made to ban it.

A parent poster raised another great point: the echo chambers that are full of this toxic stuff are themselves not free speech zones. They are heavily moderates safe spaces for specific ideologies and cultures. I am not convinced that this stuff would fare so well on a level intellectual playing field. It’s asinine.

On a final note it’s important to point out that the original explosion of e.g. Qanon happened not via some decentralized free speech zone or even the chans (where it was always ironic or a prank for most) but on social platforms with algorithmic timeline.

The algorithmic timeline is what has really ruined online discourse and promoted an explosion of insanity. Discourse on these sites is not equals but is weighted toward what will maximize engagement. Trolling, demagoguery, shock mongering, and various forms of “porn” (outrage porn, fear porn) are what maximizes engagement.

The algorithmic timeline would be extremely hard to implement in a decentralized system. That’s perhaps a good thing. It might look more like the genuinely flat forum world of the old Internet where discourse was comparatively far more reasonable.