Why rightwing extremists are thriving on Facebook(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Why rightwing extremists are thriving on Facebook
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/09/facebook-rightwing-extremists-michigan-plot-militia-boogaloo
39 comments
Having people plan their terrorist plots on Facebook is a good thing. I'm not sure this is something we should be scolding Facebook for.
I don't think we can rely on right-wing terorists' incompetence for keeping the society safe.
It is handy from the law enforcement perspective that they kept a virtual paper trail easily available
It is handy from the law enforcement perspective that they kept a virtual paper trail easily available
I really wish the media would stop trying to link right to far-right. We may not agree politically, but being rightwing doesn't make you a terrorist or even a terrible human being. There is very clearly a separation between far-right and right in the same way there is a separation between far-left and left. Disagreeing on the position of abortion for example doesn't mean either of our lives are immediately at danger. This sort of conflation is dangerous.
Regarding Facebook hosting only far-right terrorism and organization, this simply isn't true. It also hosts far-left terrorism. As much as Antifa claim to have no structure, there is clearly some form of hierarchy in the sub-groups - if there was none then how do they all turn up to the same place at the same time?
Facebook doesn't have a far-right problem, it has a radicalization problem. The moment you are able to create bubbles and select who to include in them, you can't even rely on the report functionality anymore.
_Any_ service that offers comments can be used for nefarious purposes. I distinctly remember pedophiles commenting timestamps in Youtube comments to indicate the "good" parts in the videos featuring young children. Hell, Club Penguin was used for terrorist planning in the film Four Lions. I know for a fact that Discord has a _massive_ pedophile problem.
What it really comes down to is this: How do you moderate content when the amount of content is so large? You have some attempts to do this via AI, but one common problem with almost every automated system is that they over-train for things like key-words. Machine learning is well known to be too data focused rather than abstraction focused. Until we have generalized AI, I am not sure there is a solution.
Regarding Facebook hosting only far-right terrorism and organization, this simply isn't true. It also hosts far-left terrorism. As much as Antifa claim to have no structure, there is clearly some form of hierarchy in the sub-groups - if there was none then how do they all turn up to the same place at the same time?
Facebook doesn't have a far-right problem, it has a radicalization problem. The moment you are able to create bubbles and select who to include in them, you can't even rely on the report functionality anymore.
_Any_ service that offers comments can be used for nefarious purposes. I distinctly remember pedophiles commenting timestamps in Youtube comments to indicate the "good" parts in the videos featuring young children. Hell, Club Penguin was used for terrorist planning in the film Four Lions. I know for a fact that Discord has a _massive_ pedophile problem.
What it really comes down to is this: How do you moderate content when the amount of content is so large? You have some attempts to do this via AI, but one common problem with almost every automated system is that they over-train for things like key-words. Machine learning is well known to be too data focused rather than abstraction focused. Until we have generalized AI, I am not sure there is a solution.
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There is very clearly a separation between far-right and right in the same way there is a separation between far-left and left.
The problem is that this isn't clear to me any more. While I agree with you that there are ideological differences, the key political difference is that the far-left doesn't have a lot of political power, and the far-right does -- all the way up to the top. When the center-right votes for far-right leadership, it's difficult to draw distinctions between the center-right and far-right.
The right commonly presents all left-wing leadership as far-left. No candidate is sufficiently centrist too avoid the "socialist leftist" label, and be associated with the few actual radical leftists at the national scale. Again, that seems to happen with both center-right and far-right. If center-right isn't going to engage with regular-left except by pretending that they're all far-left, it blurs the distinction between regular-right and far-right.
So while there may be an ideological distinction to draw, when it comes to public engagement, the right wing has encouraged everybody to think of all of them as far-right. I would very much like to return to the days when center-left and center-right could argue with each other over ideological differences, but the dominance of far-right leaderhship makes such discussions feel moot. When it comes to effect, politics dominates ideology, and the effect on of somebody who votes for extremist leadership is the same whether they profess moderate or extremist views on the Internet.
The problem is that this isn't clear to me any more. While I agree with you that there are ideological differences, the key political difference is that the far-left doesn't have a lot of political power, and the far-right does -- all the way up to the top. When the center-right votes for far-right leadership, it's difficult to draw distinctions between the center-right and far-right.
The right commonly presents all left-wing leadership as far-left. No candidate is sufficiently centrist too avoid the "socialist leftist" label, and be associated with the few actual radical leftists at the national scale. Again, that seems to happen with both center-right and far-right. If center-right isn't going to engage with regular-left except by pretending that they're all far-left, it blurs the distinction between regular-right and far-right.
So while there may be an ideological distinction to draw, when it comes to public engagement, the right wing has encouraged everybody to think of all of them as far-right. I would very much like to return to the days when center-left and center-right could argue with each other over ideological differences, but the dominance of far-right leaderhship makes such discussions feel moot. When it comes to effect, politics dominates ideology, and the effect on of somebody who votes for extremist leadership is the same whether they profess moderate or extremist views on the Internet.
Anyone who would find joy/excitement, and cheer for "militia" (really terrorists) - kidnapping the governor of a blue state, even if you don't voice your 'support' of said terrorists, you still are right-wing extremists.
I know many who support this movement on FB openly, and also support the 17 year old who shot protestors in WI. These are deplorable people who deserve to be de-platformed.
Trump, himself called for the 'proud boys' to stand down and stand by... only emboldening them.
As a leftist, the dems are 'right' in my opinion. In most countries in the world Bernie sanders would be a centrist.
I know many who support this movement on FB openly, and also support the 17 year old who shot protestors in WI. These are deplorable people who deserve to be de-platformed.
Trump, himself called for the 'proud boys' to stand down and stand by... only emboldening them.
As a leftist, the dems are 'right' in my opinion. In most countries in the world Bernie sanders would be a centrist.
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