| > Yes, extremist bigots do tend to favor deplatforming: they just want to deplatform a different group. > Surely we can behave better than the bigots? In a vacuum, I'd agree. As in, in the real world, I would agree. If this were a true human contact based forum, the voice of many regular, busy people will always trump the voice of a few raging bigots. Culturally, we've moved past that; at least in urban centres where this sort of discussion could actually happen. On the internet, it is different. Posting on the internet is gamified. The rules are simple. To get more influence, you need to be upvoted/favorited/hearted. If your opinion sucks, you are downvoated/blocked/etc. It's simple, right? But it's also very easily gamed via astroturfing/botting/upvote-downvote farming/influence manipulation. Case in point, any political subreddit prior to the general election in 2016. Because of this fact, any attempt at good faith discussions in popular forums simply do not exist anymore. Just take a look at how many garbage posts are at the top of any popular subreddit vs actually insightful posts. Politicians who use these to gain grassroots support have learned to game the system. And enterprising individuals from all over the world are flocking to them. There is big business in upvote/downvote farms, botnets, and influence manipulation via social engineering. Clearly none of these is done in good faith. Places that have been deplatformed are not always simply people who harbor alternative opinions from the norm. They are places or groups of people who wilfully try debase discussion via the aforementioned methods. There are bad actors on all sides of any discussion, but it seems to me like organized bad faith is always at the core of the most toxic, polarized places on the internet. To fix polarization, we must fix the gaming mechanics of these places. More moderation for cheaters is priority number 1. |