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by gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 3234 days ago
I find it odd that websites seem to either harbor a slowly growing extreme right wing, or choose to seek and destroy it.

It seems like the extreme rights' method of gaining control is to be provocative while the extreme left lobbies admins to remove the provocateurs (see: reddit, youtube). This ends with the tech companies complying with the left. Why isnt it the other way around?

Edit: apparently today okcupid banned a nazi as a publicity stunt. Maybe im looking too much into this

4 comments

It must be said that the "extreme right" is hardly unified. I'm sure some of the groups labeled in this way actively seek to gain new adherents or to influence public discourse. Others still probably simply want to cater to some preexisting audience. I'd like to see more analysis about the different groups involved.
The extreme right is mostly underground, and stay on these platforms a long, long time quietly. Only when they start getting loud and provocative do they get a response. They stay and thrive on these platforms until then.
The far-right is trying to be "counterculture", in an effort to make hate speech "cool". The people lobbying for the removal of the hate speech and its enablers are far more mainstream than "extreme left". People who are victims of hate speech don't have to be extreme anything to prefer that sites choose not to enable harassment.

I'm not even sure who counts as "extreme left" any more, there are very few people trying to do revolutionary communism or actual Maoism in the West.

I'm not sure about "extreme left" as a movement but there are definitely positions I'd attribute to the "extreme left". Universal Basic Income. Replacing the police force with a comparably sized and empowered army of social workers and therapists. Outlawing fossil fuels. Banning GMO.
> Universal Basic Income

Seriously considered and nearly implemented by famous leftist Richard M. Nixon: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-i...

> Outlawing fossil fuels.

A fossil fuel phase out eventually is a requirement, both to deal with depletion and global warming. It's just the schedule that's reasonable to argue over. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agr...

> Banning GMO.

Mainstream position in the EU: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28283-more-than-half-...