Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by throw3848 1976 days ago
Please, QAnon is overhyped and promoted by centralized media. On presidential debates corruption was not even mentioned (biggest scandal since watergate), but some crazy fringe group gets 15 minutes.

It is 2016 election all over again, media chooses their favorite "evil" and promote it to death.

Decentralization stops radicalisation, because it allows free discussion.
2 comments
Pfhreak 1976 days ago
Free discussion does not axiomatically stop radicalization. There is a reasonable argument to be made that as we've seen communication get easier, it's made radicalization more possible rather than less.

That said, I'd invite you to continue your line of reasoning: decentralization leads to free discussion. Free discussion leads to X. X leads to the reduction in radicalization. What is the X you see?

link
throw3848 1976 days ago
There are studies, just google "free speech". Your way does not work, unless you go full China. Then it sort of works fpr couple of decades.

For example I converted several hard antivaxers by explaining importance of each vaccine one by one. They agreed that at least some of them are important. They went to less radical position.

Another example was Brexit referendum. Populists had stupid arguments like 350 million/week for NHS, or about stoping immigration (UK was not in Schengen). It would be very easy for media to discus it, and debung those arguments. But instead of discussion and deescalating situation, they called oposition racist.

link
Pfhreak 1976 days ago
The idea that you can just debate every point with every person is frankly absurd. It doesn't scale, it's always easier to produce more garbage that will appeal to folks on the fringe than to meticulously debunk it all point by point.

And even if you could keep up, not everyone will even engage. Folks don't want their beliefs challenged point by point -- it feels bad. It takes energy and commitment to be willing to hear challenges to ones own beliefs and not everyone has that ability.

And there's clearly positions that effectively reduce radicalization between fully open and "full China". There are also studies that say deplatforming is effective.

link
Barrin92 1976 days ago
QAnon has made it into the halls of congress, literally in the form of the now infamous 'Q Shaman' but also in the form of elected representatives[1], it's made it to Harvard educated now socially isolated loners who are part of groups that encompass hundreds of thousands[2], and it has even made it to my homecountry[3], where it is co-mingling with anti-vaxers and covid-deniers. It is not a joke at all. That's how far crazy ideas go if they can spread unopposed.

[1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-twitter/twit...

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/qanon-meme-que...

[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/world/europe/qanon-is-thr...

link