Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdlyga | Hacker News Reader

Definitely agree. Back a year ago when you saw this kind of stuff all over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc it felt so normalized. But now you have to go to fringe websites. It's still out there of course. But it's very back-alley and definitely makes you take what people are saying with a grain of salt.

View on HN

This is a shortsighted take IMO. "Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down. The problem is people want to talk about these things, and if that's what people want to talk about they're going to go where they can talk about them. This is directly addressed in the article (when we say we want to ban hate speech, what we really want to ban is hate, but hate cannot be banned). These big legitimate sites only feel permanently dominating now, but are not permanent by any means. People don't go on the internet and talk because talking is a way to use Facebook, people go on Facebook to talk about what they want to talk about. If people want to talk about edgy or even hateful stuff, they will, and if they can't do that on Facebook they'll do it elsewhere.

That's not to even get into the fact that all to often these terms like "fringe websites" are used by entities to shame users into not using their competition, which further degrades the integrity of any anti hate message.

>"Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down.

source?

I don't know about engagement on mainstream sites declining, but the rising popularity of sites like Parler and Gab seems undeniable. Parler's recent (attempted) deplatforming is evidence enough: you don't bother with a tiny fringe site that isn't growing or wielding any influence.

>but the rising popularity of sites like Parler and Gab seems undeniable

It does? Any evidence to support this?

Just look at the “leaks”... Their user base is not so big to be worrisome, but it’s undeniably big. And it’s growing too.

https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/GabLeaks https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Parler

Better question: If increasing, is it because more topics of conversation are getting binned as 'fringe'? Or are extremists merely circumventing centralized efforts at blocking by moving around, which is exactly what those anti-censorship weenies like me jave been saying will be the inevitable result?

The problem you ignore or quash never goes away. It just gets harder and more distributed.

If it’s difficult for you to see political opinions with which you disagree being normalized, imagine how they feel.

It's completely disingenuous to categorize statements like "the US tax code is too complex" and "Jews are starting forest fires with space lasers" both as just 'political opinions'.

It’s only “disingenuous” if you aren’t a liberal. I’m a liberal so I believe people are free to hold any opinion they want as long as they are not promoting direct harm to anyone else and I will not be shamed out of a liberal position by exceptional strawmen.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-gree...

Blonde, sure, but IDK if I'd call her hair straw.

I truly love this exchange.

Any rational person, upon hearing a suggestion that Jews are responsible for starting forest fires by using laser beams from space, would quite naturally dismiss the claim as nonsense. And the claim is so ludicrous on its face that a rational person would, quite justifiably, assume that it could only ever be offered as a strawman.

Yet, here we are--with a duly elected congresswoman of the United States House of Representatives subscribing to (or at least passively entertaining) said strawman.

There are, perhaps, too many well-intentioned, good-natured, level-headed people out there who are simply far too sheltered from the outright insanity that is permeating throughout our society. They are far too quick to assume that human nature tends toward the same pursuits of truth, justice, and liberty which they value--and that merely offering a level playing field for ideas to compete will inevitably result in the triumph of those which are most noble.

While this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed approach to life is certainly tempting to adopt, it is quite disconnected from the world around us. Rationality and competence are under siege by people who do not adhere to an evidence-based view of reality. One cannot be reasonable with unreasonable people. Moderation and ostracization are perfectly valid tools for dealing with such individuals.

As insane as that idea is, we have a democracy to effectively allow the public litigate the acceptability of holding such ideas. If her district finds no fault with her holding that opinion, then it matters not what others think. Democracy doesn’t mean politicians that you don’t elect can’t hold opinions you don’t like, however disparate from your own. If you disagree with that then you simply do not believe in democracy.

> If her district finds no fault with her holding that opinion, then it matters not what others think.

You know, this is literally what the infamous poem warned about:

"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --- Because I was not a Jew." (Also, it wasn't my district.)

Again: I will not be shamed out of a liberal position by exceptional strawmen. Please make a real argument for why you think democracy is flawed. Appeals to emotion only degrade discussion.

> Greene "liked" posts calling for the assassination of prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Greene also used social media to boost false claims that deadly mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, Newtown, Connecticut and Las Vegas, Nevada were actually staged.

>In light of the revelations, the Democratic-controlled House took the unusual step of voting to force Greene to be removed from her committee assignments on Thursday after GOP leaders failed to act on the matter themselves. Democrats were joined by 11 Republicans who voted to strip Greene of the assignments.

https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-has-average-...

That's a lot of "they came for the [...] and I did nothing" and not a lot of straw in the "straw-congresswoman".

There is no evidence that a significant amount of the population seriously entertains that idea, regardless of this politician, so it remains an exceptional strawman that seems to used for the purpose of justifying censorship.

And would you describe things as having gotten better this last year?

And I don't mean in the sense that you see less of what you think there should be less of online, because then of course it's gotten better if that's the variable being minimized. I mean, do you think the state of extremism and political unity has improved via marginalizing views held by enormous portions of the population?

Yeah, absolutely! In the US, Trump lost the election and we have a genuine shot at police reform for the first time in a generation. In Europe, the pandemic has exposed the incompetence of empty populism.

> has exposed the incompetence of empty populism.

I'd say it has exposed incompetence in general.

It also has much lower reach. Ideas are viral - and don't spread very well when they have less exposure.

You don't see too much pro-Al-Qaeda or ISIS material on Facebook or Twitter. Somehow, we've managed to censor that extremism away.

I have to wonder out loud whether many commenters actual took the time to read the article.

Because the responses seemed heavily skewed towards "Yeah, but..." responses that sort of ignore the article's main point.

The article's main point is that apparently, 10-15% of the population voting for unabashed fascists is a colossal policy failure.

Whereas I don't actually see that as a problem. In any given population, about ~10% of it is going to be sympathetic to fascism. That is what it is. It's an appealing ideology for a lot of people.

The problem is when you get closer to 40%, or 50%, and unabashed fascists start making their way onto first, and second-rate political party tickets, as opposed to ineffectively screaming into the void on third-rate ones. We've just had a bit of a brush with that, here. Not interested in repeating it.

And when the systems/mechanisms for them to oppress their opposition were already put in place in an attempt to limit them from getting that power in the first place.

If you go down the path of "censorship", you better get it right. Otherwise you'll probably be worse off in the end.

As the history of repressive governments has shown, they don't need any help in building these systems. Once they are in power, they really don't give two figs about how open and accepting your society was of viewpoints like theirs, and they can quickly assemble any instruments of oppression that they find lacking.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Do you really believe that because it isn't on Facebook people have stopped believing it? That people don't believe these things, teach their kids, find other avenues to organize? We have not censored anything away, ever, in human history. This article actually directly addresses that.

You're not hanging out in the correct circles or reading in the correct language. The proper nouns aren't there but the ideas and principles are. White supremacists spend more time praising police killings than they do saying "Heil Hitler". Change your language to Arabic and you'll see much more praise for the beheading of Samuel Paty than "praise IS"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com