P.S. I don't really subscribe to this "woke" nonsense. It feels like a tired cliche at this point. We need to find more meaningful terms to describe a set of morals.
What is happening here to US Conservatives is similar to what happened to Muslims around 2016. Until that time, most online services didn't want to touch anything religion-related with a ten foot pole because they felt that it would be religious censorship and/or feared the backlash. But then, with Daech stepping up its online recruitment effort and hiding much of it among benign Muslim/Muslim-adjacent conversations, services decided to do something.
So a loosely coordinated effort started around 2016 to marginalize Daech. This meant investing time and effort in moderating Muslim and arab-speaking communities. This meant banning extremist users and closing extremist groups – even as they migrated from service to service. This also meant banning communities that refused to moderate extremist speech.
And, to the best of my understanding, it worked. Daech lost most of its capability to recruit online for terrorism, civil war and funding, while, after an initial scare, regular users (including Muslims and arab speakers) continue using the services without any real disruption.
Until 2020, nobody dared to touch US Conservatives for the same kind of reason. US Conservatives are powerful, well funded, well organized, they own a large fraction of US media and they are very much in a position where they can boycott and destroy plenty of services (possibly not Big Tech, but many services are much smaller). This was a problem because the number of terrorist attacks planned by groups hiding in plain sight among regular Conservatives users had reached scary levels, not to mention the amount of dangerous propaganda hiding among regular Conservative discussion. I assume that there were plans to try and do something about that, but they were rejected by business fiat because of the fear of backlash. Then came the assault on the Capitol and the plans were not rejected anymore.
We have entered a stage in which services attempt to get rid of/marginalize extremists from within the ranks of US Conservatives, in the hope that this will help decrease far right terrorism. It is scary for US Conservatives, just as the 2016 operations were scary for Muslims and arab-speaking users. As far as I can see, right wing communities very much continue to exist – they just can't operate in a "we're not going to moderate extremist speech".
Is it specifically targeting US Conservatives? Yes, it is, because US Conservatives communities are being used by extremists to hide in plain sight.
Is this a good strategy? Is it successful? Too early to tell, I guess. But there is a historical precedent that suggests that it should be, in time.
Has google removed truthsocial from the internet? Does 4chan have an app in play store?
You can have a less polarised left- or right-wing discussion, and that results in less moderation for both sides. For example in the UK, you may not have liked Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson, but you'd hardly have anyone calling for them to be jailed or murdered.
However is that desirable?
It might be healthier for society if the speech is in less concentrated quantity, and seen for the bile it is so that it can inoculate those exposed in such low quantities.
We should also look at the motivating factors, not necessarily the stated reasons, but the source of the logical and emotional driving factors that lead to that hateful rhetoric. Society and social contracts have serious systemic issues that are complex, interwoven issues. It's not just one thing, or one problem, but a big picture with a lot of things that all must get solved in the same broad effort.
It's desirable in that your kids, who mostly frequent mainstream social media with their friends, aren't exposed to the scary bad content as easily. Also it's better for the mental health of everyone who isn't bigoted or vitriolic to see less of that stuff on the regular.
It means (and this has been repeatedly demonstrated) that there is less of it overall. So: yes.
These things help push people to the extremes and drown out the middle ground. That only helps push people further to extremes, which ultimately leads to conflicts as the two sides disagree with each other.
And while there may not have been calls for Corbyn to be jailed or murdered (I can't remember for sure), there has been a strong anti-semitism push against him (rightly or wrongly) with calls for him to step down as an MP.
The UK is growing more polarised, we just haven't had an inciting incident like George Floyd or Jan 6th yet. It has come close with things like Brexit.
I'm unfamiliar with right wing communities. I've been involved in a fair number of left wing ones and the level of wishing-death-upon-opponents is scary, and it has grown much worse and bare knuckled over the years.
Which makes me think we are in the early stages of an undeclared civil war.
You see people on the left constantly denigrating white men, and calling for attacks against them, the latest I saw being https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11140197/Librarian-...
So yes, to people on the right it very much feels skewed. The worst excesses on the right are blown up, and minimised or ignored on the left
Do you really face daily denigration from non-{white male} folks around you? Have you considered the possibility that you have to look for such occurences to confirm your own biases?
These are a direct extension of this attitude, that’s okay to treat men like shit because of history
The right wing encourages the notion that the second amendment means military grade arms for every yahoo, and that this is to be used in the coming civil war to take “back” America.
Lyndsey Graham warned us of riots if Trump is indicted, and we should prevent the FBI from doing their job to reduce the risk of right wing violence.
The right wing is the exclusive purveyor of political violence, seeing as how there’s no actual radical left wing in American politics in any power holding capacity.
Calling Joe Biden “far left” as the baseline means that no one who can see the actual political spectrum takes you seriously, but it’s sufficiently compelling for Fox hosts to repeat ad nauseum
It is not like the old days of conservatism - Big govt is bad - lower taxes- unions are bad - abortion is bad - work at will is the way to go.
Most left wing communities even the extreme ones in comparison get upset full of vitrol but that rarely veers into that sort of behaviour - health care for all - single payer - socialism works is hardly offensive to many.
And I haven't seen a tally of the results but the amount of political violence could be relatively balanced. Eg, attacks on congress people [0] is roughly balanced, with arguably the Republicans have suffered more (I personally call that 1-1 since 2000, although the attack on the republican baseball game was probably trying to achieve mass slaughter - it isn't obvious the attack on Rand Paul was the normal political assassination variety).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Congress...
You are no doubt from the US watching the the wrong news channel missing out an nuance when it comes to using the word confusing it with the Cuban/Soviet communism.
It is definitely not the same.
And I doubt any of the people who cause that sort of catastrophe go in to it saying "lol we're gonna starve you peasants!". They go in saying "this'll work, you just need to give us power rather than those greedy capitalists". The ideas there turned out to be worse than WWII because they weren't on-the-face scary enough to prompt the violent resistance to them that was needed. I dunno, I suppose just as a point of interest, what part of the communist ideology do you think they got wrong, which needs to be avoided? Particularly from the early days before people realised how bad the famines were going to be?
And I don't think that the US socialists are interested in copying Sweeden. They've got their own plans and they're going to claim "this is what worked in Sweden!" regardless of whether that is true or not. I don't think AOC or Sanders speaks Swedish or has any respect for Swedish legal principle.
I simply don't see how asking for a social safety net, national healthcare and economic justice for the poor relates to that hence my remarks ????.
If that makes me a Socialist then so be it. Perhaps cheap easy labelling of ideas is the issue here.
> social safety net, national healthcare and economic justice
The US already has 3/3 of those things. But where is the limit where you agree that the US has them? And why is that the limit where the power centralising stops?
And how does that compare to the early calls from the communists? They thought they were helping too. There are scary outcomes from bad policies with good intentions.
But this is a bit off topic so I'll appreciate your answers but hopefully stop getting distracted. The point I want to make and I think I've made is that by actual outcomes it needs to be demonstrated which wing of politics is likely to be more dangerous. They are both pretty scary when they go wild. The rhetoric is not the scary part of the left, their rhetoric is like honey. Everyone likes it at some level.
On the social safety net sure there are programs such as SSI/MedicAid/Food stamps etc but there are more efforts esp from the right to curtail than actually expanding it
It is not like the number of poor people in the US are getting less.
"scary outcomes from bad policies" - it is inherent in any govt system whatever you label it not only left - recall the junta's in South America that made people disappear or Spain/Portugal to protect the countries allegedly from the communists.
The best bet is a free press, democracy and hopefully informed voters that participate (sadly that is becoming more of a wish these days)
The political news of the week is that the FBI launched a no-knock raid on the former president, we learned from the Rogan-Zuckerberg interview they were also active in suppressing news stories that would have favoured him and were probably active in the years of stupidity that was exposed as a farce in the Muller report.
If you happen to be in the US, tack FBI reform (or ideally, disbandment) to your list of wants. Because if there is a collapse of press freedom or democracy they'll be involved for the worse. Or indeed, are involved. And they're part of the spies-on-everyone conspiracy wasn't-actually-a-theory.
... you got me, despite myself I liked that answer so much I had to respond.
You don't see lefties burning crosses, displaying Nazi symbols or parading with signs i.r.o Jews now do you ???.
Nope the problem is mainly from one side.
Antifa and BLM don't assault people or destroy property (If people deserve it, it's not assault or something like that. At any rate it just can't be domestic terrorism.)
You can't be racist against white people, because they are the only racists by definition!
I wish some people had a shred of intellectual honesty.
If you knew about their tortured path to emancipation for the black majority and to statehood from colonialism then it makes sense why it is so.
The same for my country - things are nuanced - hammer and sickle is hardly as offensive and can be placed in the same category as the Nazi symbol it does not represent the misguided Mao (killing of sparrows led to locusts = failed harvests) and the nutcases that was Stalin/Beira.
Even if you completely buy into the narrative that it was a giant mistake, what is nuanced about the fact that tens of millions of people died needlessly? That fact alone makes any display of the flag reprehensible.
If 'misguided' is how you describe Mao, then you do not know Chinese history, or you're talking about a completely different person. At the very least, Mao was directly responsible for the millions of landlords that were killed, along with academics and critics. How on earth can you justify that morally?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/professor-fired-for-allege...
(Interestingly, both articles have the same author.)
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-disenchantment-of-a-bl...
It's a long story about an ambitious academic losing at university politics, to the point of being fired from a tenured position without, allegedly, due process.
https://www.thefire.org/fired-for-criticizing-his-administra...
You cited said single incident as an example. It's validity as an example is open to impeachment.
You can't crowdsource political information.
Edit: Now my comment too! Of course no input or reply.
No serious person should take them seriously.
It wpuld be great to have a ProPublica from the right.
Are you saying that despite the evidence they provide, (which really, despite all the editing in the world cannot be misconstrued) you do not believe that the things they claim are occurring?
It's not playing nice because the media organizations are not being honest.
It's unsightly to have the ways one side cheats exposed, but do you really choose to believe they just don't cheat?
2. Yes.
3. That is the nature of the social media business.
Take for example the fact the a vast majority of government workers self identify as democrats/liberal. People that don't believe in a large government (conservatives) choose not to work in government positions.
Aren’t you really just complaining that reality has a left wing bias?
Perhaps seeing how governments actually work dissuades you from erroneous conclusions you had drawn from right wing brainwashing?
Government employment =/= Reality
That's the weird disconnect, I've explained it in my commemt and it is verifiable information.
Your last question doesn't make sense unless you mean to say it ironically, I can't tell, but whatever. The words you have chosen do not illustrate the point you intended to make.
I'm not right wing. I'm able to see and also think critically of both conservatives and liberals. I'm capable of self awareness.
It is clearly an uncommon trait.
People making the decisions about banning right-wing communities are left-wing individuals.
How this became the current state of things? Well, you'll have to go down the rabbit-hole, but a good point to start is to learn about Antonio Gramsci, perhaps the most important individual people have never heard about:
Text: https://mises.org/wire/antonio-gramsci-greatest-political-st...
I am not right-wing nor am I even American, but at this stage I'm of the opinion that these bans are coordinated attacks. Watching Trump get banned from every social platform within two or three days for inciting an insurrection offline left a bad taste in my mouth. A similar thing has just happened to Andrew Tate. It also happens all the time with right-wing subreddits.
Why are right-wing communities not allowed to flourish online like left-leaning ones?