Seems like a win-win to me. Far right users congregate to a niche platform where they can do as they please, and as a result it's easier for everyone else to ignore them.
It's a real dilemma: pushing these people to niche platforms limits their ability to spread their hateful ideology, but then those same niche platforms could then become radicalizing cesspits for the few that get sucked into them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting:
> Bowers had earlier posted anti-Semitic comments against HIAS (formerly, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) on the online social network Gab.[11][12][13] Dor Hadash[14] had participated in HIAS's National Refugee Shabbat the previous week. Referring to Central American migrant caravans and immigrants, Bowers posted on Gab that "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."[15]
Maybe. But then again they're radicalizing people on the mainstream platforms as well.
Of course, if we admit that radicalizing people with hateful ideology is a problem, then we might have to admit the ideology itself is also a problem, and that would suggest that all speech isn't perfectly equal and equally valid relative to all other speech, and that some speech can actually be harmful. We would have to treat different ideas, ideologies and claims differently, and judge their merits on a case by case basis, and allow there to be consequences for harmful speech just as there are consequences for harmful actions, both in society as well as legally.
We can't do that in the current political climate, so perhaps the next best thing is to simply reduce the number of people being radicalized as much as possible by not giving racists as big a megaphone as possible.
If I say I'm anti-racist, but disagree with you as to what constitutes "racism", which of us is right and which should be banned? Who gets to judge?
Saying the term "racist" is "constantly in flux" seems to imply its definition is completely arbitrary, or that no commonly accepted or generally agreed upon definitions exist. Regardless of what else people may say it does or doesn't mean, I think most people would agree that the white supremacist views of David Duke could be considered racist.
>If I say I'm anti-racist, but disagree with you as to what constitutes "racism", which of us is right and which should be banned? Who gets to judge?
In the specific case, obviously the owner of the platform. Despite what people say (or want to be true) Twitter is not a public space, it's a private platform and its owners can ban whomever they please for whatever reason they want, and that's probably spelled out in their terms of service somewhere.
In the more general case, possibly a framework of law, common societal or religious norms and cultural influences, or no one. Truth can't always be determined with absolute certainty when one is dealing with social constructs in the subjective and abstract landscape of modern hyperreality. People can't even agree on the world being round anymore, and it's easier to accept that everything one is told is a lie than attempt to reconcile a complex and fragmented media universe of mutually opposed, violently overlapping magisteria. Obviously, if we can't even agree on what race is, we may not agree on what what racism is, or opposition to it. How do you even do that when some people believe most of the people they pass on the street are holograms in the Matrix?
That said, when David Duke talks about "the Jews" and their campaign of "white genocide" or about his desire to live in an all "white" society, it's entirely possible to see what he means in that context and form an opinion accordingly.
Twitter absolutely safe-harbors the extreme left. I think it's the only tech company I would refuse to work for due to their moral failings.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Gopal#%22White_live...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/20/cambridge-...
Edit as reply due to posting limit: It wasn't meant to convince you the KKK shouldn't be banned. It was only meant to correct the misleading implication that opposing the KKK is as "left" as Twitter gets.
(Scare quotes around "left" because I don't believe there's anything inherently left about "white lives don't matter". I.e. one can be a radical leftist without believing that.)
That said as much as I think that that professor is a door knob that should’ve been fired instead of promoted I also don’t think that she has nearly as much impact as the fucking leader of the KKK on social media.