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NYT: The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space

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DedValve

Banned
Hey but what about that unity guys? First you say you hate us and to go fuck ourselves, then you demand unity on our end, then you leave.

Oh well. Enjoy your new hate space.
 

Ripenen

Member
i think this is a super bad long term trend though. reinforced bubble walls.

i absolutely understand the "fuck em" sentiment. but it's half the country. on some level. at the risk of sounding like a condescending Canadian, you guys need to talk to each other. balkanizing the social space will lead to even weirder manifestations of things like PizzaGate.

i can only hope the infighting and lack of sponsors or money (although who knows - fake news is lucrative after all) will slow the progress of things like this.

i mean consider the recent Guardian thing on Google auto complete searches.

I agree but the part I haven't seen answered yet is how you can force people to engage with one another, and who gets to decide which voices get heard. The behavior of surrounding yourself with like-minded people began way, way before social media. It's why extremists move to compounds out in the middle of nowhere.
 

Oppo

Member
I agree but the part I haven't seen answered yet is how you can force people to engage with one another, and who gets to decide which voices get heard. The behavior of surrounding yourself with like-minded people began way, way before social media. It's why extremists move to compounds out in the middle of nowhere.

oh i know. i haven't got a clue what to do about it aside from maybe some highly immoral top-end social engineering at Google, Facebook and so forth. A conspiracy, if you will.
 

RJT

Member
Limiting fake news to niche websites could be a really good thing.

One of the major problems with Facebook and Twitter is that they are seen as legitimate sources: nobody says "I saw it on reallyobscuresite.com", they say "I saw it on Facebook".
 

mid83

Member
Yup. That's part of the problem. People watch news which provides a 24x7 circle jerk for what they already believe while shitting on the other side for being so dumb. It's quite unhealthy for political discourse.

One of the biggest issues is that each side typically sticks to their respective echo chamber. Most people aren't willing to consider anything put out by a news source that is deemed to be on the other side.

Granted this is an issue that is far worse on the right, in many cases due to decades of being told that every major media organization outside of Fox and the WSJ are untrustworthy. In many cases even the WSJ is untrustworthy according to many on the right. That really leaves nothing but hyper partisan blogs that just make the problem even worse, which makes people double down on only consuming opinions they agree with.
 

gutshot

Member
From a money making standpoint, this is genius. And the word of mouth potential is huge.

But morally, I couldn't get down with it. It'll be a cesspool of hate.

I'm not sure how this site will be making any money tbh. Unless they charge a monthly fee or something. Advertisers will be steering well clear of the cesspool of hate.
 

Blueingreen

Member
I think it is naive to think that the only users would be far right trolls. There are many people who genuinely believe that social media like Twitter and Facebook are out to silence the political right. They feel persecuted. We are at the point where our polarization has entangled far-right trolls with run of the mill conservatism. They're part of the same bloc now.

I agree with this sentiment, they need to be dealt with in a pragmatic and rational manner instead of branding anyone with slightly leaning right views as Clayton Bigsby and banning them, we run risk of pushing them to further right views.

I thought as liberals we pride ourselves in our open minded stance when it comes to addressing issues, so why are we becoming so black and white when addressing those with different views of our own?
 
How easy would it be to turn Gab into a shitshow? Part of the problem with those asshats being on Reddit was that Reddit is a public site, filled with way more people unlike them than like them.

Having all of them transition to an almost alt-exclusive site just paints a big red target on their back, doesn't it?
 

Mindwipe

Member
The thing with this places is they usually die out, because without targets they end up just shouting at each other.

As I said on the last thread, I don't think that's true any more. I'm sure Bannon will end up posting on Gab. And then Trump will probably, at least, have his Twitter posts on both services.

And then mainstream bands will follow, even if it is a toxic shitshow. And mainstream republican voters. And we'll have created that echo chamber, with Nazi's as the most influential users.
 

NandoGip

Member
I think this is good. They will only get crazier and crazier to the point that even your dumbest most gullible average person won't be able to follow along.
 
I'm not sure how this site will be making any money tbh. Unless they charge a monthly fee or something. Advertisers will be steering well clear of the cesspool of hate.

I dunno, I have a feeling that there will be companies willing to promote their products. Like if I was a national gun company for example. There's a market for everyone especially if they have money to spend.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I agree but the part I haven't seen answered yet is how you can force people to engage with one another, and who gets to decide which voices get heard. The behavior of surrounding yourself with like-minded people began way, way before social media. It's why extremists move to compounds out in the middle of nowhere.

This is the crux of the issue, but no one's come up with the solution. As you say it's easier than ever to self-segregate, and that's a problem in general, not just for right-leaning people with fringe opinions. I'm not sure what can actually be done aside from basically having the social networks work against users in favor of wider interests, because people like self-segregating themselves and seem to always want to.

I dunno, I have a feeling that there will be companies willing to promote their products. Like if I was a national gun company for example. There's a market for everyone especially if they have money to spend.

Not to mention that if it's a big enough group and no one else is advertising to them, it's a ripe opportunity for anyone who just doesn't care about the moral implications.
 

mnannola

Member
These social networks eventually will have to choose which one they want:

1. Normal folks
2. Hateful folks

These two groups cannot coexist. This is why eventually companies like facebook, twitter, reddit, etc start swinging the banhammer on the fringe hateful elements of society. Normal people don't want to have to deal with hate groups on a day to day basis.

So if a social media platform wants to cater to group 2 that is great. But they can't expect to also get group number 1 to join in large numbers.

This problem is close to the Ultima Online problem. Everyone says they want full open PvP, but then when the crazy hardcore PvP'ers start to wreck everyone as soon as they leave town, normal folks leave and go find a nice cozy MMO to play instead. So all that is left are the hardcore PvP players.
 

Slayven

Member
As I said on the last thread, I don't think that's true any more. I'm sure Bannon will end up posting on Gab. And then Trump will probably, at least, have his Twitter posts on both services.

And then mainstream bands will follow, even if it is a toxic shitshow. And mainstream republican voters. And we'll have created that echo chamber, with Nazi's as the most influential users.

Why would trump to some startup when twitter won't dare kick him off? He already has that audience ear
 
I don't really understand how people could decry this kind of freedom of speech. Its the equivalent of doing things privately in the sense of doing something within your own community.

These people exist, if we just push them under the rug we can't address them head on. Even hateful people have rights. I'm super liberal, but I also believe in letting people have their voice as negative as it can be.
 
I'm honestly tired of the media giving so much attention to the alt right

I wouldn't mind if more of them would unequivocally call them white supremacists/neo-nazis and making it clear how much of their views reflect that of one of the most destructive and genocidal movements in the 20th century.
 
Limiting fake news to niche websites could be a really good thing.

One of the major problems with Facebook and Twitter is that they are seen as legitimate sources: nobody says "I saw it on reallyobscuresite.com", they say "I saw it on Facebook".

This is the worst thing harming political discussion these days. The notion that Facebook is a reliable source of info is a cancer.
 

jmood88

Member
I heard about Gab when Milo was banned from Twitter but I thought it'd just be one of those things people always talk about using because of draconian moderation but never actually use.
 
I wouldn't mind if more of them would unequivocally call them white supremacists/neo-nazis and making it clear how much of their views reflect that of one of the most destructive and genocidal movements in the 20th century.
No way they'd call them that out of fear of upsetting them.
 

Totakeke

Member
I don't really understand how people could decry this kind of freedom of speech. Its the equivalent of doing things privately in the sense of doing something within your own community.

These people exist, if we just push them under the rug we can't address them head on. Even hateful people have rights. I'm super liberal, but I also believe in letting people have their voice as negative as it can be.

Before engaging them you have to stop their ideology from spreading further. Who do you think these people were before they become radicalized?
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Gab’s 25-year-old founder, Andrew Torba, dreamed up the site after reading reports that Facebook employees suppress conservative articles on the site. Mr. Torba — who previously created Kuhcoon

Missed opportunity for Cuckoon
 
The only way to deal with any of this is to pull out the plug. I'm hoping for another Carrington event so we can reboot and get rid of theses cunts. But alas, we're stuck with them forever. Nothing will change. There are just too many cunts among us. Personally I'm somewhat resigned to the fact. And considering we'll be running out of food within the next 60 years or so we'll probably barely last as a civilisation for many more generations longer. Honestly, there's no reason for optimism. I just feel sorry for the younger generation (up-to-a-point).
Morality isn't exponential. It's like a roller coaster with ups and downs. We are currently heading down. We have a way to go to reach the bottom.
I just have no faith in dialogue and discussion. You can not be reasonable with the unreasonable. You can not be rational with the irrational. We've allowed our emotions to guide our thinking too far and now all we do is push each others buttons. We're fucked.
 

Dali

Member
This is preferable to having them on Twitter and other networks. If they want to be known as a place for white supremacists and fake news, let them.
Yeah it sounds good to me. Stormfront don't bother me either. If the racists wanna circle jerk I don't mind this guy throwing them lube.
 
I don't really understand how people could decry this kind of freedom of speech. Its the equivalent of doing things privately in the sense of doing something within your own community.

These people exist, if we just push them under the rug we can't address them head on. Even hateful people have rights. I'm super liberal, but I also believe in letting people have their voice as negative as it can be.

You can't address a lot of them, especially online where most of them drive-by troll and then hide in their safe space caves with other neo nazis. They are a lost cause. Might as well keep them under a thousand rugs so they can't crawl out of them till they die living their shitty life filled with hate for a person because of his pigmentation.

Life is too short to try and convince people who don't want to be convinced that something is seriously wrong with their world view.
 

NandoGip

Member
Social media should model itself on how society has learned how to deal with these situations. Hateful bigoted people are pushed to the shadows of society. They are not allowed to take advantage of the same platforms as everyone else.

I think this is good. They will eventually eat themselves alive through rival crazy factions.
 
I'm for putting baby in the corner. The right in America has proven they're too ignorant to suss out any degree of reason or validity from the noise, so trying to have a fully-inclusive conversation is a waste of time. Marginalize the message to the fringes and just accept that anyone who dips into that cesspool is a lost cause.

Yes, it's depressing, but that's the state this sad-ass country is in.

I agree, let them shit up their own corner of the internet.
 

Ithil

Member
Reading the article, seems to me the toxicity of the people will ruin the whole thing anyway. If you simply want a White Supremacy board, Stormfront already exists.



Stuff like that is gonna start a discord between even the most hardcore right wingers. May even convince a Trumpette or two that they actually voted for the champion of these kind of people.

They live to hate everything, including each other. So lock them in a room and they'll immediately turn on each other.
 

Future

Member
Only a problem if everyone else legitimizes it. There have always been fringe pockets of the internet doing stupid shit. The problem is when mainstream media actually tries to give it a voice, or political parties are so loyal that they accept and embrace it. The republicans have been treading that line for awhile now, and really is the scariest thing about it all
 

Fox Mulder

Member
great for them, go splash around in the slop together so I din't have to see it anywhere else. No point in talking to them and legitimizing their fucked views.
 
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