Facebook Completely Bans QAnon | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Completely Bans QAnon

theverge.com

17 pointscjlm14 comments

This is a cancer equivalent in the society. The internet has brought us amazing things, but its starting to show its downsides as well. I've said this before - that before the Internet, we had to rally up support locally and physically in person. If we sound too crazy, it will not take off. The internet allows for small voices to reverberate and pick off individuals that resonate, enough momentum is built up through this and then it is unstoppable.

I am a life long believer of free speech and free press. We need better ways to deal with these fringe theories and how they propel through society like cancer while still maintaining reasonable level of freedom of speech. At this point, QAnon is clearly unsubstantiated by any stretch of logic, reasoning and data. It needs to be killed hard with a strong dose of radiation.

Don't feed the cancer. I am terrified of what else is brewing on the internet today.

I thought you were talking about FB. This is the natural course of any platform that can’t self moderate. Everyone gets a megaphone. FB is the norm, there might be rare outliers like HN.

But Eternal September is always a semester away.

> We need better ways to deal with these fringe theories.

"Don't feed the cancer" is correct in my opinion. There are countless news reports from established media about QAnon just from the last 1-2 days. Maybe the ban on its own would have worked but I doubt it.

Curbing free speech is certainly a way to get even more of those even if many people don't like this opinion.

Of course and as expected. Because at Facebook, 'banning' and 'hiding' these guys will definitely change their minds, Right. Instead they will manifest their conspiracies on other underground platforms like Mastodon or Gab.

Meanwhile: https://gab.com/a/posts/104989941511561699

The point isn’t to change their minds, it’s to prevent it from spreading. If it’s banned from Facebook, it’s much less likely that random people will encounter it and fall down a rabbit hole of radicalization.

What's concerning is how people easily fall into these conspiracy theories. To me, it seems like vast swaths of people are uneducated, illinformed, and flatout unintelligent to think on their own feet and reject unsubstantiated claims. The fact that religion exists on a global scale is a testament to this.

Which creates the Streisand effect as a consequence of banning it. [0] They may have heard about it right there on the Verge or other sites reporting on the ban but some will still peek into that rabbit hole anyway.

One can say that many if not all these social networks are already the enablers of radicalising people with users freely posting / re-posting extremist content from both sides of the political spectrum. The difference is whether if it "violates" their content policies if a user reports it and whether to 'take action' is at the platform owners discretion.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Do you have any concrete evidence that deplatforming doesn't work outside of rare anecdotal examples (e.g. Barbara Streisand's house) where it backfired?

The rabid insistence that deplatforming doesn't work reeks of wishful thinking rather than evidence-based reasoning.

Deplatforming basically comes down to removing unpopular opinions or those not conductive to advertising and business. While you get some nasty fishes removed, you also get a lot of other users. Mostly those you don't hear about. That isn't something I would want on the platforms I use.

If you ignore them long enough, most followers will evaporate out of boredom or because it became too stupid. These movements live on reactions, positive or negative. Your solution is to make platforms less accessible.

> Do you have any concrete evidence that deplatforming doesn't work outside of rare anecdotal examples (e.g. Barbara Streisand's house) where it backfired?

I regret to inform you that it appears your comment has not aged very well. [0] Especially at the moment when you asked for 'any concrete evidence'.

Facebook and Twitter have censored and in some cases 'deplatformed' multiple accounts as soon as they shared the Biden-Ukraine post. The Twitter CEO has admitted that the handling of this was 'unacceptable' and 'not great' and has been summoned to testify on Oct 23rd 2020 due to this. [1]

They have given it more attention that it should have and it has backfired [2] They have successfully created the definition of the Streisand Effect; once again confirming the previous comment you replied to.

> The rabid insistence that deplatforming doesn't work reeks of wishful thinking rather than evidence-based reasoning.

Are you sure?

[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/16/1010644/twitter-...

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-ceo-admits-handling-ny-013413...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/16/twitter-backtracks-allows-sh...

It has been shown over [1] and over [2] and over [3] again that deplatforming is effective.

Sure, there will likely be an initial wave of interest. But long term, this will hurt QAnon, not help it.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf...

[3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-ba...

They'll still spread through sites like Gab or Parler, but with a reduced audience.

Yeah, I can see a lot of propaganda-vulnerable grandparents figuring out how to set up a Mastadon account. “Is that on the googles?”

Deplatforming works. Most pizzagaters had no idea it was a homophobic conspiracy. The save the children shit is as predatory as those spam callers from india or nigerian prince stuff.

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