> The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall.
This is simply not an accurate representation of history.
Milo Yiannopoulos fell out of popularity because of repeated issues with pedophilia, which even the right doesn't condone.
Katie Hopkins was financially ruined Monroe v. Hopkins[1].
InfoWars still has a larger readership than The Economist or Newsweek[2], so I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have lost influence. It sounds like you might be inside of an echo chamber.
You may be looking at a different study, but the only study[3] I know of on the banning of hate sub-Reddits showed that content didn't pop up elsewhere on Reddit. It doesn't show that the hate didn't just move over to Voat, which is my theory as to what happened. Yes, the study was publicized as "deplatforming works", but only because people didn't know where the people who were deplatformed went.
The rest of your post follows suit with claims that aren't based in reality.
Voat is discussed elsewhere here, too. In short, the point was precisely to get the speech off Reddit because it was poisoning Reddit. People said it wasn’t worth them trying because it would move to other subreddits. It didn’t, it moved offsite entirely.
De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
Thank you for responding with actual data. I'll have to read the article.
> De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. There is one.
I'm not sure how one can look at Reddit being more consistently liberal, and Voat being... Voat, and see this as "reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces".
Reddit also delisted the Chapo Trap House subreddit, it's not exclusively conservatives that are toxic. And Reddit's clean up wasn't about liberal vs conservatives, it was about teen-ogling perverts, overt racism, and threats of violence.
I’m with you on this. After the big Reddit hate sub quarantine a few years back, I started including /pol/ in my list of websites to check when a big geopolitical event is happening because I don’t trust Reddit et al. to give me the “complete” story anymore. If you read with a skeptical eye, it can be surprisingly informative.
I actually find these alternate sites useful for monitoring the latest foreign propaganda because my spouse is from a country with a hostile relationship to the U.S. and consumes most of her news in her native language, which is full of misinformation. I can now more clearly understand where she gets her opinions from sometimes and we can talk it out.
When they ban the "extremists" the "moderates" thrive making youtube/reddit/etc posts about the obvious double standards, and the impossible to pass purity tests created to ban those "extremists". The logical inconsistency of both sides of the current "culture" war parties in the US create a near unending supply of "gotcha" moments, which are just fuel for the fire.
If anything, banning extremists makes these ideologies more palatable to a larger group of people by creating a more gradual on-ramp at the entry level. I believe this is becoming more obvious as we see the middle ground position in the current "culture" conflict (which would still probably get you banned from facebook) rapidly becoming acceptable. The pendulum keeps swinging, and not many people involved seem very interested in stopping the broken cycle and finding a more sustainable solution.
This is simply not an accurate representation of history.
Milo Yiannopoulos fell out of popularity because of repeated issues with pedophilia, which even the right doesn't condone.
Katie Hopkins was financially ruined Monroe v. Hopkins[1].
InfoWars still has a larger readership than The Economist or Newsweek[2], so I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have lost influence. It sounds like you might be inside of an echo chamber.
You may be looking at a different study, but the only study[3] I know of on the banning of hate sub-Reddits showed that content didn't pop up elsewhere on Reddit. It doesn't show that the hate didn't just move over to Voat, which is my theory as to what happened. Yes, the study was publicized as "deplatforming works", but only because people didn't know where the people who were deplatformed went.
The rest of your post follows suit with claims that aren't based in reality.
[1] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars (top section)
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...