Hacker News Reader

Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

Are you completely blind to the countercultures that have popped up completely unchecked because of social media bans?

Evidence is that when large social media sites ban hateful groups, they re-congregate somewhere else in much smaller numbers. So while the bans don’t eliminate all of them, they are actually fairly effective at turning the temperature down.

Consider people like Alex Jones. He’s still making stuff, his hardcore fans still subscribe to his stuff, but he’s lost all of his marginal followers as well as the massive on-ramp that YouTube provided him in the form of search and recommendations.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...

With the rise of more mainstream alternatives to Twitter and Facebook like Parler, I think that affect is going to be minimalized.

I don't know anyone who even knows what Parler is, let alone has used it. This is gonna be the next Voat.

Websites that are predominantly extremist content because the only people using them are those banned from all the major platforms don't tend to succeed.

I think that largely speaks to your bubble has blinded you, and thus the problem as a whole.

With people on the right, Parler is very well known. There are a pretty large number of celebrities and politicians - and unlike Gab not merely people who were dumped from other social media platforms.

Can you give some specific examples of these well-known people who are on Parler? Ideally ones that have been banned from the major platforms?

Scott Adams, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Sean Hannity, Ted Cruz, Mark Levin, The Daily Mail, a number of other conservative politicians I'm not particularly familiar with - That's just from a quick scan of the recommended people to follow.

None of these people have been banned from the major platforms though, and as far as I can tell all of them are still active on the majors. Parler is thus only one of many social networks that they use, and likely not the one with the most reach. So deplatforming them from the majors would have an effect.

Why do people fight against deplatforming if according to you it's actually beneficial for their cause?

Because it’s a huge pain to re-establish their platform elsewhere, not that it can’t be done.

Can it be done? Who's been banned from the major platforms and has then established a similarly sized platform of their own elsewhere? You have to admit that this is at least a huge roadblock for hateful extremists, no?

Whose definition of "hateful extremist"?

Anyone who would censor another person qualifies as a hateful extremist in my book.

The platform operator's, of course.

Let's take an extreme example of someone almost everyone agrees was a hateful extremist -- Osama bin Laden. Prior to his death, should he have been allowed to post on Twitter encouraging the murders of more people? Would Twitter have been a "hateful extremist" for banning him and other Al Qaeda accounts? Or -- and here me out here -- would it have been acceptable to ban him? If so, then there is a line somewhere. And if there is a line, then why shouldn't modern day Neo-Nazis calling for the deaths of Jews be on the other side of the line as well?

I mean death threats are clearly the line. That’s not the issue at hand though.

Death threats are already banned from facebook unless their against celebrities / politicians - which to me is a weird distinction to make.

It seems to me that the normalization of Neo-Nazi Holocaust denialist content will directly lead to more deaths in the near future, so that's clearly beyond the line for me too. I mean, it already lead to the deaths of tens of millions, so we do in fact have an answer here to "What's the worst that could happen?"

And if you're willing to defer to Facebook's judgment here, then the problem is solved. Holocaust denial is banned from Facebook, same as death threats. Discussion resolved. We're in agreement.

The textbook definition of people not on your side is “hateful extremist”. Everyone who doesn’t agree with someone is the worst person ever. Attempting to claim that your censorship holds the moral imperative can be used to make dubiously ethical decisions under the guise of a divine mission.

Also this has recently happened with many Twitch streamers. Destiny, Vaush, Sargon, and others got deplatformed and moved elsewhere.

One could argue that Andrew Wakefield, the founder of the anti-vaccine movement, has found/made a stronger platform after losing his license and being publicly denounced than he ever had as a doctor.

What if 99+% of people agree that someone is a hateful extremist? Isn't "the only important moral imperative is unrestricted free speech above all else" itself an extremist position? Very few people agree with what you're espousing, so, just practically speaking, there's always going to be extremist views considered so far beyond the pale that they are always "censored" by society (pro-pedophilia would be a good example of one in the west).

If you live your life by moral imperatives such as utilitarianism/the veil of ignorance, then you will in fact be compelled by moral imperative to denounce people whose views do not lead to doing the most good for all (as e.g. is true of anti-vaxxers).

Such a person or belief should still be afforded due process or a reasonable platform to state their case. Otherwise, how else could it be evident to all that they’re truly wrong? I would hardly regard the ideas of due process or balanced debate to be niche ideas.

Also, to my knowledge, what you said is incorrect. It is perfectly legal to debate the legality and ethicality of pedophilia and vaccination. It is not legal to advocate for them, but advocation and debate aren’t the same thing. For example, the Wikipedia articles on Holocaust denial steelman the opposition quite well but no one would accuse those articles of advocating for denial of the Holocaust.

You're making all sorts of arguments here against various strawmen that don't represent my actual points in this discussion.

idk, maybe I am.

However anecdotally, I was a part of the occupy movement back in 2011. A large part of our spread was to stay on the street and deliver propaganda. After we were de-platformed by the police using various scare tactics (including arrest) our spread was heavily restricted and the movement quickly died. It seems to me that these tactics of stopping our spread by the police were pretty successful.

So, unless hate is completely unchecked, it will be completely unchecked?

It should be argued against, not silenced. Silencing it merely pushes underground where you don't hear it, and festers.

See Ashtonkem’s reply for why this is a false dichotomy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754897

Refutation is not predicated on first disseminating the hatred as widely as possible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com