[italicbold]

And then you wake up one day to Brexit and Trump being elected. Forcing content/ideas underground doesnt stop it spreading, you just become totally unaware of the spread, its not even talked about in social settings. But still it silently spreads. Do you want a situation when it becomes vacine time, half your country revolts? Do you just not care about these people? If thats the case why bother supressing it at all. The time to address these ideas is now, but no its all too easy to stick your head in the sand and exclaim shock after the fact.

[pknight]

Forcing content out off mainstream media quite plainly does limit the spread of information and does limit radicalisation, we have plenty of examples of that. Conartists rack up millions of views because they can use free infrastructure of companies (companies that in turn convert human attention into profit via advertising, the sale of user data etc.). Without access to the infrastructure they can't have their business flourish as it does.

The link with Brexit and T you make doesn't make sense either, both of these phenomenon got plenty public exposure, with all information available to those who wanted to find it. The central theme tieing both those developments was the ability for people to use the architecture built by digital corporations to quickly spread misinformation unopposed. People receive the information in isolation, they don't get it side-by-side with other views. People engineering the spread of misinformation know it's not a fair contest, that's why it is so effective.

And that's the point being missed by people who say keep the content up and let bad ideas be exposed by better arguments, the problem is that the ideas aren't being opposed or presented in a robust way. Hosts like Brian Rose and others for instance interview in a way that don't challenge their controversial guests, instead they add credibility to their guests. And because we are thinking of these characters as individuals expressing themselves and exchanging their personal views, people are distracted from the fact that they are businesses operating a money making scheme. And they are only able to do that on this scale because they can use other corporate infrastructure for free.

[TheOtherHobbes]

This content has been deliberately weaponised. Various interests, some of them hostile, have a stake in promoting it. See e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

Of course various US (Chinese, UK, Israeli, Saudi, Indian, Iranian, etc, etc) interests run their own versions, both at home and elsewhere.

And corporate astroturfing is not a new thing.

There's a huge difference between kooks sharing a bit of kookiness with each other, and industrial misinformation campaigns created for political and strategic ends - which may include political destabilisation, radicalisation, and the promotion of extremism and domestic terrorism.

The two phenomena are not even remotely comparable. But at the moment information consumers literally cannot tell them apart, because there is no practical way to do that.

The crucial distinction is between individual freedom of speech, where people with unusual views are allowed to say whatever they want as long they don't incite violence, and industrial misinformation, which is inherently toxic and cannot be excused or justified.

There is no principle that can defend deliberate mass manipulation of the public through lies, exaggeration, and wilfully misleading manipulation.

The challenge is getting that principle enshrined in law. So-called free speech advocates will of course agitate against it, and they will be wrong. Knowingly and deliberately running a campaign to mislead the public should be considered a criminal act with criminal consequences.

[zimpenfish]

> you wake up one day to Brexit and Trump being elected > Forcing content/ideas underground doesnt stop it spreading

In what way were Brexit or Trump "forced underground"? Trump got millions of dollars worth of free advertising from the second he announced he was running because the media could not stop covering him. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox aired 30 minutes of an empty podium for him!

And Brexit was constantly in the media in the UK. There was no "underground" at all. The BBC were almost a full-on propaganda arm with their fawning over Farage and terror that any even slight non-worship of the Tories would be reflected in yet more license fee beatings by ukgov.

[italicbold]

Well thats my point, they werent forced underground. It was clear for anyone who looked to see what was going to happen. My point is there was an oportunity to engage and faciliate real conversations around these things. That oportunity was squandered with these two instances, because despite them not being outright supressed it was not socially acceptable to have a reasonable conversation around them without being labeled racist etc etc.

If you force them underground you have no idea how prevalent the ideas are, nor do you have any oportunity to genuinely change peoples minds. You cant address a problem you are not aware of.

[zimpenfish]

> Well thats my point, they werent forced underground.

My mistake, I misfollowed your logic.

> it was not socially acceptable to have a reasonable conversation around them without being labeled racist

Well, that's because Trump is an outspoken racist, the GOP is also pretty racist (but better at keeping it quiet), and Brexit was largely predicated on racism.

[italicbold]

Do you really believe there are 15,188,406 racists in the UK and 62,984,828 racists in the USA?

If you truly believe that then I feel sorry for you, because you live in a really sad world. Is that really the experience you have living in or visiting these countries or travelling around them, that 1 in 2 people you meet are racist?

I think its a bit lazy and easy to substitue fringe views from within these two camps as the views of the majority.

If you agree that they are not the views of the majority of peoplpe who voted in these directions then clearly there are other areas that made them vote this way that could have been discussed and had there minds changed over but werent, because well racist. Everyone loves to complain that trump supporters and brexiters suffer from a lack of critical thinking, and especially conspiracy theorists, but come on. How lazy is it to say all these people are/were racists or that is why brexit/trump won.

[jashmatthews]

Sadly, this is quite evidence backed. Somewhere around 1/3rd of the UK population have racist attitudes based on multiple surveys across multiple decades. In the 60s and 70s there was close to 75% support for ending immigration into the UK for non-whites.

So yes, it's absolutely believable to have 15M racist wankers in the UK.

[zimpenfish]

> Everyone loves to complain that trump supporters and brexiters suffer from a lack of critical thinking

Which is easily demonstrated by their support for platforms and policies that crumble under the merest hint of application of critical thinking.

[pbhjpbhj]

I'd say most people want their country to "win" against others, they want to be richer than other people and want their country to be the richest sat the expense of other nations.

That's racism/xenophobia, isn't it?

Brexit seems to be predicated on the idea that Brits would rather suffer than risk the possibility that mutual benefit would be weighted towards others in the EU. That's pretty extreme racism (albeit founded on greed) IMO, and is endemic in British society AFAICT.

[CathedralBorrow]

How many racists would you guess are in the USA? I ask because it seems like you're using a very binary definition of the word.

[zimpenfish]

> How many racists would you guess are in the USA?

Obviously that depends on how you define "racist". If you define it as "votes for an explicit racist from a racist party espousing distinctly racist policies", about 62M.

[PureParadigm]

Sure, you may think all these people are racist. Does calling them racist change anyone's mind? No, it just makes them and their supporters mad at you and just poisons the well.

Instead, debate the policies. Explain why they're wrong in a reasonable conversation. You'll actually have a shot at changing people's minds this way.

[MaxBarraclough]

> Explain why they're wrong in a reasonable conversation. You'll actually have a shot at changing people's minds this way.

This seems to be expecting the opponent/interlocutor to be open to having their mind changed, while not being open yourself.

Also, when it comes to values (as opposed to questions of fact), you can't really argue the point, you can just understand the differences between the positions. If someone values sovereignty so highly that it outweighs any possible cost of Brexit, for instance, then they're not likely to change their mind after a discussion.

[Spooky23]

Trump and Brexit aren’t silent spreaders, both used targeted video and social media to hit the people most open to their message. MAGA is magical for certain populations — they basically took the people who were loving Ron Paul back in the day and weaponized the message.

It was silent to you, because the broadcast wasn’t aimed at you.