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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

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-...

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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.

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