[ceejayoz]

Many harmful things are popular and well liked.

I dislike his interviewing style, in that I think he reliably lets guests just make assertions that go unchallenged. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/9kv9qd/the-joe-rogan-experie...)

I find this particularly problematic when he's having "provocative" folks on; it gives them an enormous platform, and one that allows them to get Rogan to nod along where another interviewer might push back on readily debunkable things. We've substantial research indicating deplatforming folks like Alex Jones is effective at reducing the impact of their misinformation. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...)

[read_if_gay_]

It's really ironic that you are backing up your claims for "substantial research" with links to Vice. The first one is literally just a hitpiece on Elon Musk. The second one's reasoning, built upon a lot of anecdotes, basically goes like this: Reddit banned deepfakes, and subsequently there were no more deepfakes on Reddit, so that's proof that it worked! I can't see it anymore in my bubble so it must be gone!

There is zero "substantial research" in there.

[ceejayoz]

The first is an example of where Rogan doesn't push subjects and takes an overly credulous line of interviewing. A more recent example is him spreading the "antifa is starting fires" bullshit, which he later had to walk back.

There are actual studies on the impact of Reddit deplatforming, specifically around the /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/coontown bans. http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

[read_if_gay_]

Going as far as boycotting Rogan because he's not being critical enough of his guests seems pretty dumb to me. It's a mainstream podcast, and he has high profile guests. No wonder he's not going to grill them.

As to the paper, I think you can poke a lot of holes in it. For example, AFAICT they found that hate speech went down, measured via the frequency of words commonly used within these subreddits. Certainly much of the decline is then attributable to the subreddit's subculture getting killed, and taking with it their slang words. It might just be that other words are in fashion now. And it's not a given that this even generalizes from deplatforming subreddits to deplatforming individuals.

So I still think it's a stretch to call it substantial research, but without getting hung up in any more details, I think the fundamental effectiveness issue with deplatforming is that by taking away the platform, you don't change people's opinions. You just won't see them talk about it anymore, and that's you as in you, the one who banned them, and no one else. They'll still be out there. It's just that now, you're sticking your fingers in your ears and going lalala (this is also mentioned in the paper). See the democrats losing to Trump in 2016 even though basically the whole mainstream media demonized him and his supporters.

[pmarreck]

It might reduce the impact of THEIR misinformation, but... I know a guy who loved Alex Jones (sigh) and he's now just reposting stuff by the likes of "The HighWire with Del Bigtree" instead, who is (unfortunately?) a LOT more convincing (has misinformation... evolved?)