[squibbles]

> The pending disruption for DDoS-Guard and Parler comes compliments of Ron Guilmette, a researcher who has made it something of a personal mission to de-platform conspiracy theorist and far-right groups.

While this may solve immediate problems (such as the planning of unlawful or otherwise socially harmful events), we should consider the long-term impacts of de-platforming. Does censorship, even if justified, fuel anger and distrust, potentially increasing social conflict in the long-term?

Is it possible to bring fringe groups back into the fold of peaceful civil discourse, or are we simply throwing up our hands and declaring that some percentage of the population must always have their speech regulated? (I suppose this question applies for both social groups and for individuals.)

[danans]

> Does censorship, even if justified, fuel anger and distrust

Anger and distrust are sparked, stoked and fueled far more by personalities in media and politics who actively promote them than by de-platforming.

> Is it possible to bring fringe groups back into the fold of peaceful civil discourse

People organizing and advocating violence are not fringe groups. The paradox of tolerance applies here: You can't extend tolerance to those who advocate for intolerance without destroying tolerance in the process.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The paradox of tolerance applies here: You can't extend tolerance to those who advocate for intolerance without destroying tolerance in the process.

I don't understand how this is a paradox. You can't extend tolerance to people who commit arson and murder, or e.g. refuse to hire black people because they're black.

You can let people say whatever they want, because then you can refute their arguments and refuse to implement their proposals.

[danans]

> You can let people say whatever they want

Indeed, you can let them say whatever they want. But that doesn't mean that anyone else should or should not. It's not like there aren't companies and service providers willing to host the content.

> refuse to implement their proposals

There are real practical limits to free speech.

A "proposal" that is an incitement to organized violence is of the same kind as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

That is fundamentally different than a proposal to eliminate the estate tax, provide a universal basic income, or organizing to peacefully protest using civil disobedience.

[AnthonyMouse]

> But that doesn't mean that anyone else should or should not. It's not like there aren't companies and service providers willing to host the content.

Isn't the service currently down?

> yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

> A "proposal" that is an incitement to organized violence

But then you need not worry about what some website or service is doing because that is illegal and the police can arrest them for it.

Basically, a call to violence isn't information, it's action, like ordering a hit. The prohibited act is really the order, i.e. participation in a conspiracy to commit an act of violence, and the communication is only the evidence of it.

Compare mob boss who says "whack that guy" and goes to jail for it vs. news reporter who reports that mob boss ordered a hit, unintentionally informing a hit man who wasn't aware of the order. News reporter doesn't go to jail for that because their intent was only to communicate information, not enable the act of violence, even though they conveyed the same information and it had the same result.

[danans]

> Isn't the service currently down?

They are working on getting it up and running under a Russian ISP, DDos-Guard.

https://www.cnet.com/news/parler-website-is-back-online-in-l...

If sites like Gab and its ilk can figure it out, so cab Parler.

> > yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. > https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

From that article:

"[In Brandenburg v. Ohio] the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"."

> But then you need not worry about what some website or service is doing because that is illegal and the police can arrest them for it.

You don't need to worry, but the website is well within their rights to worry about what people are posting to their site and take action to limit that if they see fit.

[AnthonyMouse]

> They are working on getting it up and running under a Russian ISP, DDos-Guard.

The article this discussion is attached to is called "DDoS-Guard to forfeit internet space occupied by Parler".

> If sites like Gab and its ilk can figure it out, so cab Parler.

Parler was bigger than Gab. It remains to be seen whether the scale presents an issue.

> "[In Brandenburg v. Ohio] the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"."

But that isn't the case where the phrase "fire in a crowded theater" came from and that quote doesn't even appear to cover the phrase itself, since a panic is potentially dangerous but not illegal.

Here's some more on why the phrase should be discontinued:

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

Bottom line, it's too vague to mean anything because all it implies is that unprotected speech exists without specifying any meaningful boundaries for it, so people regularly quote it in support of arbitrary overreach.

> You don't need to worry, but the website is well within their rights to worry about what people are posting to their site and take action to limit that if they see fit.

But we were talking about tolerance.

[AshWolfy]

Yeah well just refute the arguments for the people who think democrats, hollywood, and the (((globalists))) and kidnapping and killing children to drink their blood, thatll convince them

[AnthonyMouse]

Here's a pretty good start:

https://www.thestreet.com/phildavis/news/a-game-designers-an...

Show them the method of operation of the theory building so they can recognize it and stop participating in it.

[AshWolfy]

People dont like to think they are being tricked, and will actively reject truth if it contradicts what they already believe.

Doing something like this can be great, but it takes time and effort, meanwhile acts of terrorism are being committed now.

Most qanoners dont really believe it, and if separated from their echo chambers, will deradicalize themselves

[danans]

> Most qanoners dont really believe it

Not only that, for many of them it's just fun - in exactly the same way that some people find supermarket tabloids entertaining. The audience for these conspiracies is quite similar (probably overlaps) with the audience of the National Enquirer.

[AnthonyMouse]

> People dont like to think they are being tricked, and will actively reject truth if it contradicts what they already believe.

I never liked that study because people always read it like that.

When people receive new information, they try to make it consistent with what they already believe by making the smallest possible change to the existing belief system to make them consistent.

That could be as simple as just not believing you.

This can strengthen their belief in the existing thing because they just evaluated it against some potentially conflicting new information without rejecting it.

Just not believing you doesn't work for an article like that because it's reasoning rather than facts. They have to find a hole in the logic if they want to keep their existing beliefs. So they'll come up with something like, maybe that's how it works for other conspiracy theories, but this one is real so it doesn't apply.

But now the logic is in their head, so the next time the conspiracy theory has to be reframed to match a changing reality, they notice that what's happening is consistent with the logic. It makes them doubt.

And the more information and reasoning they're exposed to which is inconsistent with the conspiracy theory, the more they doubt. It just like how the Big Lie works, but in reverse. You expose them to truth and logic over and over until they can no longer make the conspiracy theory consistent with it.

> Doing something like this can be great, but it takes time and effort, meanwhile acts of terrorism are being committed now.

"Acts of terrorism" aren't speech so as soon as they go there they go to jail. I mean they were planning it openly on Facebook, it was kind of a discredit to law enforcement that they weren't arrested for the conspiracy to begin with.

> Most qanoners dont really believe it, and if separated from their echo chambers, will deradicalize themselves

But that's why we need free speech, right? To avoid echo chambers.

Even if private censorship is allowed, that doesn't make it a good idea if it causes people to leave for some Voat-like cesspool where they won't encounter ordinary people anymore.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Paradox of Tolerance is a hypocrisy. If you are shutting down someone's ability to communicate because you don't like what they are saying, you are not tolerant.

[BrianOnHN]

> you don't like what they are saying

This is incorrect.

Not tolerating intolerance is objective.

Sad so many people can't wrap their head around this incredibly simple paradox.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Tolerance is a willingness to accept behaviour and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them. [1]

If you don't tolerate "intolerance", you are intolerant, it's as simple as that. And if you make yourself a clause to exclude some beliefs from acceptance and still deem yourself tolerant, you are a hypocrite.

[1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/toleranc...

[krageon]

Tolerance isn't a binary state, but a sliding scale.

[roenxi]

The paradox is a real thing. The subtle problem is the paradox is often invoked by people who believe 'tolerance' means accepting things that they either agree or have no quarrel with. A very weak form of tolerance.

I suspect actually tolerant people wouldn't be invoking the paradox.

[russellendicott]

These fringe groups are always going to be looking for things to get upset about. What we have to be careful with is lumping 40% of the country in with these groups and pushing the divide further. We can't make generalizations and say that anyone who downloaded Parler to see what a right wing platform was like is a white supremacist any more than we can say anyone who downloads Reddit to hear a left wing perspective is only there for /r/fatpeoplehate.

There are very few ideas that can be invented and spread by a media personality without that idea already having a foothold. Unless you truly believe that 40% of the voting population are dumb mindless automatons. It's pretty condescending to anyone who considers themselves center right to be generalized like that.

Due to the realities of the two party system most people are going to "fall in line" with the party that is closest to their fundamental principles. For center right this means small government, lower taxes, merit based incentives, law enforcement, etc. You're asking a lot to ask a conservative to switch sides when the other side is so far from these fundamentals.

The same goes for republicans trying to convert democrats. Hard line ssues such as anti-abortion and "taxation is theft" are too much for center left people to handle. They're going to fall in line with whatever the Democrats are into at the time in order to make sure their fundamentals are upheld.

Trump was a symptom. The seeds were already planted. Once that weed began to grow it was inconceivable to the left and center left that anyone who called themselves human could look past the rhetoric and the character defects in order to support their deeper fundamental principles. The left began to see these people as less than human and showed their opinion with every newsreel, tweet, and post. It was, understandably, their moral duty. The only choice for someone on the right is to abandon their principles or dig deeper. He can't be THAT bad right? The conservatives are locked in and the other side isn't offering any olive branches to non-humans.

Both sides are then locked in a moral dilemma and the media is just fanning the flames. And then to top it all off during the reelection cycle we're forced to isolate and have our window to the world altered by bias confirming algorithms. There's no hope for unification under those conditions.

So many differences can be overcome by two people sitting face to face and seeing each other as two humans with different ideas experiencing the exact same stimuli. I just hope we can get back there some day.

[zimpenfish]

> Is it possible to bring fringe groups back into the fold of peaceful civil discourse

It's not really "fringe" groups that are the issue here; it's "extreme" groups - no-one is calling for the flat earthers to be deplatformed, for example.

> Does censorship, even if justified, fuel anger and distrust

Probably but I'd guess only among the people who are already inclined that way already.

> the population must always have their speech regulated

If you put "some of" after "have", it's the situation we already have.

[wolco5]

I believe deplatforming of flat earthers is already happening. Anyone who holds that position is not allowed on television and not allowed to run national tv ads and wouldn't be allowed to teach.

[zimpenfish]

Here's Mark Sargent (King of Flat Earth) on reasonably high profile UK TV show less than a year ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wClJlarfyhE

[rhizome]

This isn't censorship, and saying that it is censorship is a bad-faith tell or a sign of naivete. Furthermore, these people are already angry and distrustful, so how much of a movement's psychoses should the commercial world be forced to accomodate?

Fringe groups have options they've always had: colo and common-carrier lines into their own server/racks/datacenter. Only thing missing is talent, which is nobody's problem but theirs.

[harry8]

I must be naieve because I don't think I'm bad faith here. I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not, I haven't made up my mind and may not.

Please elaborate why you think this is not censorship and the distinction. What do you think this is? These are not leading questions they're genuine because I don't understand your point the way you're assuming I do.

[djrogers]

GP is under the (incorrect) impression that censorship is only possible if enacted by a government entity. That’s blatantly and provably false, but nevertheless comes up in many discussions of censorship.

[AnthonyMouse]

Yeah, it's three different things.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution applies to the government.

Free speech is the principle that suppressing allegedly false information is more dangerous than not suppressing it because if the information is actually false you can refute it but if the information is actually true then it allows powerful actors to suppress atrocities and lie with impunity.

Censorship is the suppression or prohibition of speech. Private censorship is not a violation of the First Amendment but it's still censorship.

[amanaplanacanal]

That stretches the meaning of the word beyond anything useful though. Is it censorship if The NY Times doesn’t publish your letter to the editor? Is it censorship if I kick you out of my party when you get drunk and start yelling racist slurs? You could take a maximalist view and say yes, those are censorship, but I doubt you would find many people that would say you shouldn’t do those things.

[AnthonyMouse]

Censorship is the suppression or prohibition of speech. If the NY Times doesn't publish your letter to the editor but you can post it on Facebook and have a reasonably proportionate number of people able to read it in practice, it's not being effectively suppressed. If neither they nor anyone else with a similar reach will carry it, that's censorship.

It has nothing to do with who does it and everything to do with whether the idea is being suppressed in practice.

[djrogers]

> That stretches the meaning of the word beyond anything useful though.

No - it’s literally the definition of the word censorship: “suppression or prohibition of speech”. It really sounds like you’re trying hard to redefine the word to mean what you want to say, but maybe you should just pick a different word?

[Ir0nMan]

It is truly amazing that so many people do not understand that free speech is a principle that exists beyond, and in fact existed before, the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution.

[wolco5]

Free speech is a concept that exists outside of the US.

Free speech is about being able to express ideas and these can be supressed by private entities, communities or a number of non-government entities like a church.

[rhizome]

If you want to call something self-censorship then do so, but it's not capital-C Censorship. Hopefully you understand the distinction. :P

[3np]

Tone it down. It’s semantics, not logic.

[rhizome]

The distinction is between a publisher deciding what content they want to publish and an outside party enforcing a standard.

Should TV Guide have to publish porn because I want it to?

[grayfaced]

Too soon to say on this current round. But it's generally considered to have been an effective strategy in dealing with Isis and Al Qaeda. But that was a combined campaign to eliminate recruitment by de-platforming, and eliminate existing membership militarily.

It's possible de-platforming these domestic groups will just further radicalize the existing members. But it should inhibit their growth.

[sonotathrowaway]

There’s good data to show that deplatforming did wonders for Reddit in reducing the amount of hate speech and harassment that flowed across their platform. Similarly, deplatforming 8chan has done wonders in reducing the amount of mass murderers they inspire.

I think a dispassionate analysis would dispel the idea that it’s not effective, and most such arguments are fueled more by emotion than objective facts.

[rhizome]

Milo was wiped off the map of public consciousness, which is good evidence for the effectiveness of deplatforming in itself.

[Number157]

Every time I open reddit there's harassment and hate speech right on the front page.

It's just happening against people the reddit admins hate and "good hatred" doesn't count.

[ABeeSea]

These groups are already generating social conflict. De-platforming ISIS from Twitter and YouTube worked to stop their massive growth of new members through propaganda. There is no reason to believe it won’t also work on American right-wing terrorist and Christian terrorists.

“Capitol Hill Attack Video Shows Rioters Pray With Lifted Hands After Violating Senate Chamber”

https://faithfullymagazine.com/capitol-hill-attack-video-pra...

“How QAnon uses religion to lure unsuspecting Christians”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/us/qanon-religion-churches/in...

“How White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/how-white-evangelical-...

Edit: Changed “American right-wing and Christian terrorists” to “American right-wing terrorists and Christian terrorists” to remove the ambiguity on whether I mean “American right-wing” as an adjective or a noun (I meant it as an adjective to the noun terrorist.)

[kart23]

False equivalence. Look, I know where you're coming from. But 99% of ISIS members would be tried and convicted of terrorism because of hard evidence showing intent to kill. 99% of right-wing people are not going to be convicted of terrorism. Sure, there are some that are making serious threats and have shown intent to follow up on said threats, but believing in conspiracy theories and weird cults isn't a crime.

I'm open to hearing evidence otherwise.

[JumpCrisscross]

> 99% of ISIS members would be tried and convicted of terrorism because of hard evidence showing intent to kill. 99% of right-wing people are not going to be convicted of terrorism

ISIS being a foreign terrorist group, the U.S. can criminalise membership. Extremists being a domestic group, mere association can’t be criminalised [EDIT: is difficult to criminalise]. Only individual actions can be criminally pursued.

Other than that legal distinction, the two groups (right-wing extremists, not all right wing Americans, and bona fide ISIS members, not everyone in ISIS-occupied territory) are comparable. They spread their misinformation similarly. And could be expected to be similarly curtailed by deplatforming.

[ABeeSea]

> ISIS being a foreign terrorist group, the U.S. can criminalise membership. Extremists being a domestic group, mere association can’t be criminalised. Only individual actions can be criminally pursued.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse suggested RICO’ing the militia groups today. The members could be criminally liable even if individual actions can’t be proven (similar to how the mob was taken down.)

https://mobile.twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/135238211274...

[ABeeSea]

I never said the entire right-wing is terrorists. The militia groups and q-anon recruit right-wing Christians to extremist causes in the same way ISIS recruited right-wing Muslims to extremist causes. In both cases, they use propaganda and recruitment tactics to radicalize a segment of these groups. They even target the same demographic of disillusioned or aimless young to middle-aged men.

The radicalized militias like oathkeepers, 3%ers, vanguard, proud boys, etc are serious threats.

[sleepysysadmin]

>These groups are already generating social conflict. De-platforming ISIS from Twitter and YouTube worked to stop their massive growth of new members through propaganda. There is no reason to believe it won’t also work on American right-wing and Christian terrorists.

If I am following this correctly. The American right-wing(republicans) is equivalent to a terrorist organization that beheads people amongst other war crimes.

If I may make a recommendation. Don't treat half your country as if they are terrorists.

[ABeeSea]

You did read it wrong. “American right-wing” was an adjective on the noun “terrorist.” You interpreted “American right-wing” as a noun. I updated the language.

[lettergram]

And BLM & ANTIFA use Facebook and Twitter? We banning those?

It’s insane to say “because “terrorists” use Twitter, let’s shutdown Twitter” instead we remove them from the platform.

Parlor was working with the FBI and was kicking people off their platform breaking their terms.

It makes no sense what’s currently happening.

[ABeeSea]

I’m looking through the @blklivesmatter Twitter account and I don’t see any calls to violence. Can you point me to one?

https://mobile.twitter.com/Blklivesmatter

[IronWolve]

Twitter just removed a bunch of Antifa, after the last few days of violence, and twitter was not deplatformed.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1352399672594345985

[DarkWiiPlayer]

> Is it possible to bring fringe groups back into the fold of peaceful civil discourse [...]?

I'd say yes, but not by shifting the whole movement away from extremism, but by slowly siphoning individuals out of those groups until only a small minority of crazy extremists is left.

The best counter to a massive disinformation campaign is information on the same massive scale. Sadly, it often seems easier to just silence lies instead of charging straight at it.

[wolco5]

I don't think it is wise because whoever is in power will change fringe groups who need to be censored. Today it's the far right, during wwii it was anyone from Japan tomorrow it could be blm or women with tails. The one thing we know is it will change.

What's important is to being as open as possible and having open structures.

All of these are education problems not free speech problems. Speech is a signal not something to be repressed