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Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

You can't know anything, but you can form beliefs that have various levels of confidence. For example, there is reporting about the objective reach of Jones' properties post-deplatforming. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf... This type of reporting, plus my priors about how viral media spreads, inform my belief that deplatforming these individuals was moderately efficient for decreasing their reach. But it is an empirical question that would benefit from further study.

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They didn't count app/twitter or other views. So you are measuring two different datasets.

I don't need perfect evidence to form beliefs. It seems unlikely that Jones' reach increased on Twitter enough to offset his bans on other platforms. If it did, that doesn't seem consistent with the loss of traffic to his website. After he was banned on Twitter, it seems very unlikely that there was any other platform where his reach grew enough to offset that loss. Anything's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.

We only see what is in our bubble.

Bring me information from outside my bubble and I'll happily incorporate it into my schema. Ominous pronunciations don't count, though. Is there some social media platform Jones is using that I haven't heard of that allows him to reach tens of millions of people and make up for his losses on FB, YT, and TW? Are his website stats wrong or irrelevant for some reason that is uniquely invisible in my bubble? These would be valuable bits of information to me.

They would be valuable to people who kicked people off visible platforms too, no?

You don't need evidence to form a belief but you do need it if you want others to believe you.

If Alex moves to another platform wouldn't part of his following move to this platform? Wouldn't that grow others in that new platform.

Isn't deplatforming just replatforming. With every deplatform doesn't it leak more users to the new platform.

If they deplatform them one day it could be you.

> You don't need evidence to form a belief

Please don't put words in my mouth. I said I did not need "perfect evidence." I cited evidence, albeit imperfect. Whether it's strong enough to change someone's beliefs is between them and their epistemology. That's all I have to say on this subject.

Those are my words. You do not need evidence to form a belief.

But you need one to change hearts and minds.

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