Comment by mschuster91
5 years ago
> White supremacists have lost jobs for being caught out attending rallies; it doesn't seem to stop the rallies.
Yesterday, there was a documentary movie on German's private TV station Pro7 about Nazis. An actual Nazi confirmed live on camera: yes, deplatforming Nazis (and that includes them losing jobs, family, friends) works and is a huge source of pain for the movement because many people don't hold up to that pressure and leave.
Just imagine how big the rallies would be if there was no social pressure on not being Nazi would no longer be there... at the moment many attendees either don't give a f..k about how they are perceived, or they relish on that being accepted in their social circles.
This strongly suggests social cooling is a positive effect.
Every authoritarian and totalitarian regime that ever existed agrees with you.
Correlation does not imply causation. Every authoritarian and totalitarian regime also agrees citizens should pay their taxes. As do most liberal democracies.
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As long as it is used against Nazis, definitely. I mean, we can all agree that Nazis are bad.
The problem is when governments go against legitimate opposition and abuse social pressure.
First they deplatformed the Nazis, and I did not speak out -- for I was not a Nazi.
>The problem is when governments go against legitimate opposition and abuse social pressure.
Legitimate according to who? Isn't any opposition to a government illegitimate opposition? Or exclusively legitimate, depending on how you feel about the concept of government itself.
I've been self-censoring for more than a decade now. I really like how the information is presented in this SocialCooling site.
As you have pointed out, the effects are good if they lower the voices you disagree with, and raise the ones that represent your views. My advice to everyone reading HN is to pick the winning side, and conform to it. Fortunately for us, picking the winners isn't hard.
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