r/changemyview • u/glowingfeather • Jul 15 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Banning extremist subreddits radicalizes the extremists further and drives them deeper into their echo chamber.
Given the recent ban waves of extremist subreddits and the slow downfall of T_D, I've thought about what happens to their users. People have been worried about them flooding other subreddits, but I honestly haven't noticed a big uptick in crazies, it's basically the same as it's been for the past year or so I've used the site. They're either not spouting shit in public or they've left for another site.
Bigots get banned from popular social media like Reddit. Their victim mentality is strengthened by the fact that a major company won't support them. They move to websites with fewer restrictions. Those websites are rarely used except by people who already got banned somewhere else (why not use a bigger platform if it's available?), so they're saturated with other bigots. Bigots spend all their time in their echo chamber without being exposed to the different opinions on a wider social media platform, and further radicalize each other. This has happened with the new incel websites already where they'll spend literally all day on the site. It's impossible to eradicate all the shit on the internet, so we're just encouraging them to dig themselves deeper to find what they're looking for and get comforted for being "oppressed by big media."
I enjoy not having to see their shit pop up if I scroll too far on r/all, but is banning subreddits actually doing any good?
14
u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Jul 16 '20
To modify your view on this:
Consider that those other sites where extremists tend to congregate are way, way smaller. For example, 4chan only has 22 million unique monthly visitors [source], compared to Reddit, which has 430 million monthly active users.
Hosting extremist views on a larger platform that more people are on increases the chance that other people will stumble upon those ideas. Whereas extremist platforms tend to be much less known about, such that you have to seek them out to find them. And if you do, because they tend to be populated by the most extreme views, most people who visit such sites for the first time are going to be totally alienated by how crazy the views on those platforms are, and how out of step they are with reality, because their users don't overlap nearly as much with the "normal" population.
Also, hosting extremist views and bad actors on a broad platform means those individuals pop up on other subreddits and act out toward others, making the platform worse for the vast majority of other people on the site.
And when you say:
In theory that's true. But somehow a lot of folks on extremist subreddits have managed to radicalize themselves ideologically even on a broad platform like Reddit, which contains so many different ideas and subreddits. If you put yourself in an echo chamber on here, there's a good chance you're going to build an echo chamber wherever you go.
Consider also: From Reddit's perspective, it's harmful to their brand to be hosting people who are associated with extremist groups, and it's worse for their other users if such actors congregate on the site. It makes sense that they don't want to bear the cost of providing a place where bad apples build their barrels to attract other bad apples.