[fighterpilot]

  "Do you consider the town square a centre of inspiration for mass shootings"

Before the internet, yes, definitely. Maybe not mass shootings specifically because that seems to be a recent fashion trend after Columbine, but violent extremism in general. How do you think Hitler managed to secure over 40 percent of the democratic vote in the early 1930s? How did Osama Bin Laden recruit extremists who were willing to put a bomb into the WTC basement? Propaganda, speech.

This idea that unfettered speech in the public town square, even if it isn't directly inciting violence, can't lead to pathological outcomes just doesn't hold up.

This isn't even an argument for government censorship. It's merely me recognizing that these type of outcomes can come about.

Nowadays almost all extremist speech is online, because that's where there is distribution and anonymity, so the analogy breaks down.

  "where they are exposed to the general ideas of the community rather than an echo chamber"

This isn't a bad argument, but you have to balance it off with the knowledge that ideas are highly, highly contagious. On balance, I think giving such ideas distribution to a billion eyes is far more harmful than pushing a fringe into echo chambers which already existed before social media censorship began anyway (such as the Stormfront forum).

Moreover you have to recognize that these isolated echo chambers would naturally self-segregate on Reddit if given free reign, and so in practice you haven't changed anything aside from giving these ideas more distribution. It's not like /r/88 or whatever would be interacting with the rest of Reddit thus helping their members deradicalize.

[notchFilter54]

I appreciate your honesty in believing the public square is a center of inspiration for mass shootings.

I believe quite the opposite. It has been a place for the public to plan self defense, both to organize themselves in defense from natural disaster, hostile forces, wildfires, and anyone who seeks to do them harm. It is a place for the public to engage in the marketplace of ideas and inspirations, which ultimately leads to the saving of lives, prosperity, security, and bonding of the populace. Harmful ideas can be shamed and those espousing bad ideas have a chance of learning the holes in their ideas. The mass shooter espousing violent ideas in the public square is as likely to have alerted his neighbor to be alert for any evidence of crime, as he is to convince the general populace of his nutjob ideas.

I don't buy your hypothesis that Hitler came to power because of free speech, and quite frankly it is laughable to think banning Hitler from Reddit (were it to exist in his day) would have any effect whatsoever. You seem quite ignorant of the factors precipitating Naziism, including the economic situation of Germany at that time. It's also worth noting that Hitler was quick to stifle certain speech that went against his ideas, meaning he found free speech at odds or even dangerous to Naziism.

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>How did Osama Bin Laden recruit extremists who were willing to put a bomb into the WTC basement? Propaganda, speech.

Bin Laden attempted to blow up the WTC basement with bombs, not free speech. Bin Laden lived in Muslim nations with more limited speech regulations than Reddit.

>Moreover you have to recognize that these isolated echo chambers would naturally self-segregate on Reddit if given free reign, and so in practice you haven't changed anything aside from giving these ideas more distribution. It's not like /r/88 or whatever would be interacting with the rest of Reddit thus helping their members deradicalize.

Some may, some may not. I've stopped using reddit because I was banned because I simply said things like I didn't believe forcefully shutting down a restaurant is an appropriate way to deal with coronavirus. Now maybe that is a very wrong and bad idea, but I'm willing to debate with others on it and learn their perspectives. Instead these communities said fuck you, you're banned, and now you have to go to some echo-chamber where everyone agrees with it. I'm not interested in an echo chamber, I'm interested in engaging with others so my bad ideas can be brought to light and shown to be bad, or my good ideas can be integrated. Your argument sounds more like one against having subreddits.

[fighterpilot]

Hitler convinced almost half the country to vote for him because of speech that drummed up resentments stemming from the Versailles Treaty and the depression, channeling and anthropomorphizing those resentments towards Jews, the lugenpresse, the military establishment, and so on. So you've missed my point, which is that town square offline speech can directly cause pathological outcomes when it is weaponized by bad faith actors.

The belief that sunlight is the best disinfectant is nothing more than empty sloganeering and it flies in the face of everything we know about social contagion and the willingness of humans to be led astray by tribal hatred.

Town square offline speech didn't lead specifically to mass shootings historically only because this particular medium of terrorism is a modern fashion trend, so it follows that it's a phenomenon that's going to be motivated online more than offline in the modern context.

[notchFilter54]

And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

[fighterpilot]

You're trying to draw analogies between modern technology and the old town square. You should stop doing that because instant distribution to a billion people isn't the same thing as a speech to a thousand.

I provided examples of speech in the old town square leading to pathological outcomes, but we are in a very different regime now and analogizing too much isn't helpful.

[notchFilter54]

So who should decide what moderation policies we have for the public? The general populace, who as you say would elect literally Hitler, or the government itself of which Hitler was once a part and used these very moderation mechanisms to suppress the Jews? The tyranny of a minority of special moderators like perhaps a nominally communist censor committee may have? We allow Naziist speech to exist precisely because we don't want the government or the tyranny of the majority or minority choosing what political speech is allowed, such as outlawing speech that doesn't promote Naziism.

>You're trying to draw analogies between modern technology and the old town square.

No I'm trying to find out how you want to apply moderation strategies to "reduce the likelihood" (my apologies if I misquoted your deleted comment) of democratic election of those who some censors decide have the wrong political views or speech.

>You should stop doing that because instant distribution to a billion people isn't the same thing as a speech to a thousand.

Are you also one of those that thinks the first amendment doesn't apply to the internet because the founders never imagined something that distributes so much faster than the printing press could exist? I know this is a straw man but I can't help but think this is where this is leading.

>And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

The fact that you didn't answer this question (well you did, but you deleted it) really is an damning answer of itself.

[fighterpilot]

> So who should decide what moderation policies we have for the public?

There's three possibilities:

(1) No moderation at all, beyond what's illegal.

(2) Private voluntary self-regulation.

(3) Government censorship.

In my opinion, (2) is the lesser evil, which isn't to say that it doesn't have its own pitfalls. (1) is infeasible due to the 8chan experience, and our understanding of social contagion and human tribalism. (3) has a much bigger slippery slope risk.

> The fact that you didn't answer this question

I deleted my answer because these analogies are too tenuous. You're trying to compare modern social media with how information spread 90 years ago. How can I map "Reddit's moderation policies" onto 1920s beer halls and Der Sturmer and newspapers? You can't do it. We're in a new regime and we need to reason about this new regime from first principles.