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by ardy42 2023 days ago
>> Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it.

> Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it.

Oh everyone understands it, but there's a trade-off you're not acknowledging:

1. Letting these people stay on twitter, YouTube, or reddit gives them an audience to recruit. The people in these toxic groups then may be less radical on average, but there will be more of them overall.

There also will still be highly radicalized members, and the sympathy of the less radical gives them support that could allow them to do more damage.

2. Quarantining them to Gab or Parler or whatever denies them the recruiting opportunities. The dead-enders who migrate will become more radicalized, but their numbers will be smaller, and perhaps decline over time, due the the lack of new blood.

1 comments

Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership?

Even if the plan is to marginalise Republicans by selectively suppressing their views on YouTube, it seems questionable if that will provoke the same response as banning "fatpeoplehate" and "coontown" from Reddit. Tensions are likely to increase.

> Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership?

I had in mind white supremacists, QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, etc. I don't think the people making false and baseless claims about the election being stolen from Trump can easily be dealt with this way, because too many high-status people have joined that bandwagon.