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by ABeeSea 1968 days ago
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.)

3 comments

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.

> 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.

> 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...

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.

>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.

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.
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.

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

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