[adamch]

A lot of people say "censorship radicalizes" but I've never seen any studies or evidence for this claim. Your comment is purely speculative. There is some evidence that banning extremist content reduces its potential to radicalize [1]. Do you have any evidence to suggest it increases radicalization?

[1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

[lubesGordi]

Maybe not radicalizes but seems obvious that censorship sort of 'funnels' the extremists onto the same forums which turn into an echo chamber / amplification chamber for their ideas. It seems like if they were tolerated on other forums that there'd be enough mediating comments to prevent the amplification. I'd also be interested in seeing studies that echo chambers increase radicalization in the first place. That seems to be a given right now.

[DrDimension]

That study only proves that it moves extremists somewhere else...

If a man can't speak his truth, what alternative does he have to violence?

[mcbutterbunz]

> If a man can't speak his truth, what alternative does he have to violence?

No one is stopping anyone from speaking their truth. They're just saying they're not going to help you.

If you want to speak your truth, speak it. Go down to a public square and preach. Write your truth down, print it, and hand it out. If its truth and you believe it so much, you'll do the work necessary in getting it out there.

[lliamander]

People are used to treating the Internet as the new public square. Obviously, there are many private entities that make up the Internet, but if want it to continue to serve as the public square (rather than a patchwork of corporate fiefdoms) then I think we have to accept the moral (and possibly legal) obligation of these private entities to maintain the Internet as a public square.

[ggggtez]

I essentially agree. The internet is not the public square, until you legally make it so.

And that essentially is not going to happen. Companies are "people too". They are allowed to express their free speech by not doing business with you.

Cloud Flare is within their rights to protect their stock value by doing business with whomever they choose. If the government declared the opposite, then it would truly require a massive shakeup of law and precedent.

[lliamander]

> The internet is not the public square, until you legally make it so.

Culture and custom generally precede law and government. If the Internet is a public square, it is only so as a result of our various social relations. Passing laws would be merely to preserve it as such.

[La1n]

In this case their "truth" is violence. The thing being censored is them advocating violence...

[lliamander]

Someone once said "The pen is mightier than the sword. But when you have taken my pen, what choice do I have?"

[adamch]

Forgive me if I prefer to base my policy analysis on quantitative studies rather than idioms.

[lliamander]

Shallow statistics are never going to replace empathy* when it comes to sound policy making.

That study does show that banning content within a forum means that you will get less of that content on that forum. A useful but not entirely surprising result. As a Reddit user, I'm glad that the site has less of such content.

It does not prove that censorship reduces "radicalization" (whatever that is). As the study says, many of those users just moved their content to Voat.

*By which I mean cognitive empathy: the capacity to infer the motivational states of other people and anticipate their actions.

[afiori]

> Shallow statistics are never going to replace empathy* when it comes to sound policy making.

Agree, hyperrational people often forget how easy it is to lie with (true) numbers.