GOP’s Big Tech plan ignores consumers, targets censorship of Republicans instead

You're not doing a full cost/benefit analysis here: you're looking at the benefit without looking at the cost.

The cost is that you're helping to radicalize these people, feeding into their persecution complex, and placing them in echo chambers where they never get to hear non-racist points of view.

And I'm also not actually convinced that the benefit really exists: if deplatforming actually prevents recruitment, where are all the people flocking into QAnon coming from? The fact is, racism is often learned in person from your parents and the people in your immediate social circle, without social media at all. A person in rural Tennessee may never meet a person of color or an out gay person, and if you ban them from social media the first time they use the N-word, you've confirmed what they've heard about the "liberal media" while ensuring that they never have the bigoted beliefs they grew up with challenged.

All the successful civil rights movements of the past worked by exposing bigoted people to the truth so that they change their minds. MLK positioned peaceful protestors dressed in their Sunday best where they would be beaten by police on television. Harvey Milk showed Americans that gay people were their neighbors, friends, coworkers, and family members, with coming out days. The modern left, on the other hand, doesn't seem to think that the truth is worth telling--we've given up the power of the truth for trying to silence our opponents. It's bad ethically and it's bad strategically.

> Why would "non-corporate" social media be any better or worse than "corporate" social media?

Because corporate social media is designed to addict you to it so that they can increase engagement and serve up more ads. Decentralized social media which isn't driven by profits instead exists to meet users' needs for communication.

> I think the fact that social media in which bad behavior (racism, trolling, or otherwise) doesn't carry the social cost that it would in real life is precisely what enables it online. The fact that it's corporate or non-corporate is orthogonal to this.

I agree that bad behavior doesn't carry the social cost that it would in real life on social media, but it's worse than that: bad behavior is actually rewarded because it creates engagement. Flame wars sell ads.

> Why should I believe that "engag[ing] in a dialog that changes minds" will "cure" racism online? Have you successfully convinced online racists to stop being racists? Do you have a methodology you can share?

"Cure" is maybe a strong word, and the racist/not racist dichotomy is also too black-and-white. Progress is slow, people rarely admit when they're wrong, and sometimes the person you convince is a lurker rather than the person you're talking to. For my part, I do know that I've convinced people here and there of some things, but the real compelling example is myself and my family. I was brought up pretty conservative; my parents were anti-racist, but while I was growing up I almost never came across any viewpoint in my life that was accepting of homosexuality, for example. My views on a lot of issues changed because people talked to me respectfully, and showed me gently where I was wrong. I'm grateful that people didn't cancel me or give up on me, and I think that other people deserve the chance I was given to change.

Strategically: I think what we need to recognize is that bigots are people too, and that bigotry comes from hopes and fears that are very reasonable. Bigots want to protect their families, to work profitable jobs, to be able to do the things they enjoy doing, to be able to have their own beliefs. These things are good things to want! But they become bigotry because of ignorance. The solution isn't to write these people off, it's to correct the ignorance. Usually, if you're debating someone online, they're too invested in their own view to be convinced, so it's more important to convince other people reading the discussion. Hearing the truth in isolation doesn't give people responses to the lies spread by bigots. Wherever lies are presented, we need to combat them with truth.

At a more fundamental level it's just who we're supposed to be. Aren't we supposed to be on the side of love? If we're just giving up on our fellow humans and treating them as garbage to be discarded, isn't that just hate? If we only tolerate people who we agree with, how can we claim to be tolerant? If people are written off at the first mistake they make, who among us actually meets that standard?

> Asking because what has stopped racism in the real world was that it ceased to be socially acceptable behavior. Acting like a klansman in public usually gets someone banned from mainstream establishments (social cost), loses them non-klansmen friends (social cost), and if their employer, colleagues, and and business clients find out, they lose their respect and business as well (more social cost). Effectively, being an overt racist gets you shunned -- something societies have been doing to enforce social norms for all of history.

The idea that racists need your acceptance is incorrect, and highly reflective of the urban-rural divide. I have family in rural areas, and I've spent a good amount of my time in the rural south, and in those places, being openly racist has little social cost--on the contrary, if you decide to mention that you think black lives matter, that has a social cost. The "social norms" you're talking about aren't social norms outside of your bubble. You think we don't need to convert racists because you look around you and think that antiracism has already won and we just have to maintain the lead, when in fact, the result is still very much in question.

You're also choosing a pretty old-fashioned and extreme example: sure, literally wearing white robes will get you shunned just about anywhere. But that's just because the face of racism looks different today.

And finally: if you're going to talk about how people enforced social norms for all of history: realize that for all of history, racism has been the social norm that was being enforced. Antiracism is a new thing. Only a few generations ago, the social norm was that humans legally owned other humans because of their race in the supposed "land of the free". If we are going to change the social norms, I'm highly skeptical that we can enforce the new social norms with the same tools that enforced the old ones.