Let's shut them down, shut them out and generally rebuke them. History shows that higher order ideals generally need to be preserved with actions when words have failed, and make no mistake we are past words with these folks.
Shutting down anyone talking pro trump in the whole country will have downsides, and just make them more angry. Prohibition isn't an answer that will work.
Hopefully sending all of the insurrectionists to jail will help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
"Maybe 2,000" was a precursor event to the rise of Nazi germany.
You mean, the things a tiny handful of people post there. Most posters are center-right and don't advocate violence.
I would also note that there's been plenty of talk of violence against conservatives on left-leaning platforms, Twitter especially but many others. These people are never called out even if they talk about "rounding them up and putting them in camps" and similar Nazi-like talk, even killing them seems to be permissible. I've reported lots of such tweets and sometimes they're taken down, other times, not.
Do they also condemn or apply moderation to violence being advocated? Or is it condoned? Honest question, I have not even remotely invested enough time (nor do I plan to do so) to understand this facet.
> I've reported lots of such tweets and sometimes they're taken down, other times, not.
I agree that such messages should be taken down and condemned just the same.
My personal "favorite" of such: "this country is not safe for you". Not a threat, just stating a fact.
Say 45% support their party
70% believes in the lie that the election was stolen
20% believes that violence is warranted
10% is willing to do violence.
Start with a population of over 330M and you get over 2 million insurgents.
Peace requires those funnel steps to be way smaller.
"de-platforming right wing voices" is such a bad faith interpretation of what's happening and I'm getting really frustrated that the right continues to pretend they're being censored.
You can have different opinions on plenty of political issues. Taxes, healthcare, abortion, gun rights, military spending, education spending, etc. Arguing in favor of low taxes, eliminating funding for public healthcare, banning abortion, etc. will not get you de-platformed.
What gets you removed is racism, bigotry, and inciting violence. Of course, nobody thinks they're racist. Even Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer denies being racist.
I agree, that it's unfair to (a-priori) castigate free-speech-absolutist platforms; there are good-faith, civil-libertarian reasons for them to exist. Nonetheless, they inherently act as a moth-flame to specifically those people that are banned from more mainstream platforms; after all, what motivation would non-controversial communities have to migrate? I absolutely the right of such platforms to exist, but from Voat, to Gab, to now Parler, in practice they quickly skew towards conspiracies and "hate speech" and the like.
I consider SSC's heterodox "Culture War Thread" [0] to be the canonical case study in this pattern: "It's very easy to remove spam, bots, racial slurs, low-effort trolls, and abuse... But once you remove all those things, you're left with people honestly and civilly arguing for their opinions. And that's the scariest thing of all."
[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
I will agree that "Voat" is a nasty place, but I'm not comfortable with shutting them down either, or cutting them off from pay processors and certificate authorities. This kind of game tends to come back and bite one in the ass. It's the old "First they came for xxx and I said nothing".
The line is very tricky, as to what constitutes colorful metaphor, vs. explicit calls to violence. (My favorite satire on this dilemma: https://youtu.be/eg3_kUaYFJA) Regardless, the emotional energy and goals of that community on Jan 6th was extremely clear: to alter the due process of law by threat of force.
All that said, I'm quasi-absolutist on free speech issues, for the slippery-slope reasons you describe. Free speech doesn't end at 1A: it's a cultural value as well. Yet, it's also a tall order to enforce that value proactively: if a newspaper is not obligated to print every letter, should Twitter be obligated to let everyone have an account? There's a good argument for a "digital commons", and regulating tech giants as utilities; but the balance between an individual's freedom to share offensive views, and the freedom of service providers to choose to whom they offer service, is extremely murky.
Speaking of gatekeepers, however, I wonder, how soon Google and Apple will boot Parler from their AppStores?
"BREAKING: Apple is currently threatening to ban Parler -- the free speech alternative to Twitter -- unless the service enacts draconian censorship policies demanded by left-wing Big Tech oligarchs, according to two sources familiar with Apple's threats."
[1]: https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1347660160806825984
Please forgive the language it is verbatim and I think threats of violence are more offensive than bad words.
> You had better be ready partriots! It is go time very soon. We must attack all central communications to big cities are democratic cities. Fiber optics telecom bridges supply routes we can starve those motherfuckers to death. The people are ready it is time.
>We got to give it until Monday but after that partriots we must take the fight to them, make that rally look small. Load your magazines gather your things it's time to go and take out the sorry bastards.
While we worry about the very legitimate question of what the limits of free speech are and how we ought not to create a situation where anyone serves as the gate keeper they are planning to kill us and install an autocracy.