Can We Do Better Than Deplatforming?

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Charlie Warzel
@cwarzel
what if the way we think about deplatforming is wrong?

Can We Do Better Than Deplatforming?
An interesting proposal.
warzel.substack.com

https://warzel.substack.com/p/can-we-do-better-than-deplatforming

In the next few days or weeks, Facebook’s independent Oversight Board will offer its ruling on whether the company ought to continue its ban (deplatforming) of Donald Trump. As you might expect, quite a few people have thoughts as to what the social network ought to do — so much so that the Oversight Board received over 9,000 public comments on the case and had to delay its decision in order to read them. Elected officials around the world are weighing in, perhaps because they’re worried that the decision might add a little friction to being a powerful person online.

Deplatforming is controversial. With groups, it seems to work so well that, at some point, it also becomes a potential liability. A paper published in October 2020 examining the aftermath of Reddit’s ban of r/The_Donald and r/Incels found that deplatforming toxic communities decreases the ability of bad actors or groups to attract new members. But it also suggested that the group then migrates to a new, more obscure platforms tends to get more radical.

For power users, deplatforming can work. The best (recent) example: former Breitbart writer and noted troll Milo Yiannopoulos, who was banned from Twitter in 2016. In Yiannopoulos’s case, deplatforming didn’t cut him off from his audience as much as it cut him off from the rest of the mainstream media, who frequently amplified his bigoted, misogynistic, trolly posts, if only to debunk them. What good is a MAGA pundit who has lost the ability to trigger the libs?

Infowars’ Alex Jones is a slightly tricker example, because Jones spent the last thirty years building out a media empire that’s so bought in to the Infowars Cinematic Universe Of Conspiracies that they will tune in directly to his programming. Donald Trump falls far more into Jones’ category — but his laziness may ultimately hurt him. As both a brand and a former president, Trump has the alternative platforms and could very easily have the broadcast infrastructure, should he seek it. That he has hardly opted to leverage these opportunities and has taken to sending out Kid Mayor style press releases with a fake presidential seal remains one of my genuine 2021 surprises.

*snip*

[superpatriotman]

1. Truth telling helps

If the truth was hammered over and over maybe we wouldn’t need to have this conversation.

[yagotme]

2. I understand the desire for deplatforming,

but when it's done, as noted, it drives the subjects deeper into the woodwork. Can't see it, can't comment on it. Like cockroaches, you need to shine the light of day on some of these organizations. If they go deep, the general population won't see how bad they're getting, and unable to shame/ridicule them into some sense, maybe. Freedom of expression works both ways, and if you say something really stupid on Facebook, or Twitter, you should receive the comments you deserve. When you're exposed to only one side of the argument in a hidden, deplatformed subject, with no one offering rebuttal, it's more likely, in my opinion, radicalization can get even higher.