[giraffe_lady]

> When you try to be the goody two-shoes and block anything and everything that could potentially be offensive to someone

This is intentionally trivializing the actual approach and making it seem as arbitrary and low impact as possible. I certainly wouldn't support a ban on "everything that could potentially be offensive" and I haven't seen a proposal for one. I do support a ban on violent far right extremist movements on social media platforms though, because they coherently use these platforms as a venue for harassment, recruitment, and messaging.

The "marketplace of ideas" ideology or "don't feed the trolls" tactic don't actually work in practice. It's the sartre quote. Having a public policy debate with, for example, an ethnonationalist is a victory for the ethnonationalist in itself. They don't have to "win" the debate, they've won by getting you to have it in the first place.

Bans do work. Reddits used to have a serious problem with extremist antifeminists and literally, self-identified neonazis brigading semi-related posts in other subreddits. Banning the extremist subs had a huge impact in reducing it! You don't have to give people a forum to self-organize against your other users.

Or like, what is milo yiannopoulos up to these days? His influence and reach shriveled into insignificance after he got banned from everything a few years ago. The idea that the best way to combat extremism is by discussing it with extremists is a particular ideology. It is not a pragmatic goal- or result-based approach to moderation, or an abstinence from making ideological decisions about moderation.