[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.

[danans]

> But we were talking about tolerance.

Tolerance for incitement to violence? I don't personally support tolerance of that, which is my right, and what I personally feel is better to avoid the spread of toxic cultures like found on Parler. Tolerance of diverse and non violence-provoking political opinions, including those I disagree with? That is something I totally support.

Parler clearly does tolerate incitement to violence, which is their right. Good for them for exercising it, but nobody has to support them, nor should anyone be prevented from supporting them. Likewise, if there are consequences (commericial or legal) for tolerating incitement to violence, Parler owns those too.

You are also free to tolerate it and provide services to support those who do.

[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.

[AshWolfy]

You should reach eichmann in jerusulem, most people who follow movements like these are just conformists like eichmann, they usually cant be convinced otherwise because they dont really believe anything at all

I know a qanoner in real life, and when i talked to him about it he denied easily provable facts, shifted goalposts, assumed i made arguments i didnt make, and now has taken to literally yelling over me so he cant hear the words im saying

[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.

[danans]

> 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.

Absent access to "ordinary people" to recruit to violent causes, the inhabitants of such a "cesspool" will likely bore of their own conversation.

If, as you state, any of them are engaged in illegal provocation to violence, they will be easier to find there, since they lack the shield generated by the noise of "ordinary" conversation.

Besides, nobody is going to "helped" away from violent provocation by casually interacting with them social media. The only thing that can help such people is real in-person and trusted interaction, like at church, with a community help group, or with a therapist.

At best social media can be used to identify candidates to be offered an off-ramp from the road they are on, but that needs to be done by people who do de-radicalization as a full time job or mission, not casual social media acquaintances. Very few people are dedicated to that kind of work today.

[AshWolfy]

Thats assuming they engage with the logic at all, which is an assumption you cant make

> "Acts of terrorism" aren't speech so as soon as they go there they go to jail.

preventing terrorism is generally considered better than just arresting people after it happened

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

Unless you are suggesting we ban all moderation, no echo chambers form due to selecting information sources you only agree with and information sources pandering

> 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.

censorship at least gets rid of the non true believers, the reason stuff like qanon spread so quickly is because they used sites like facebook and twitter and didnt stay in cesspools like 8chan, we cant get everyone but most is better than none

[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.

[account42]

Which is exactly what makes the "Paradox of Tolerance" hypocritical - you are more or less arbitrarily deciding who you can be intolerant towards.

[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.