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0 pointsj16sdiz6mo ago0 comments

Removing Trump from Twitter didn't stop people from voting him.

Removing 60 Minutes from CBS doesn't stop people like you from on elsewhere.

Instead, it fuel them to post elsewhere.

Deplatforming didn't work, and deplatforming doesn't work now.

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2 comments · 1 top-level

pjc506mo ago· 1 in thread

What I'm saying is that this is a survivor effect: there are plenty of cases where deplatforming does work, it's just not 100% effective and so we have this situation like antibiotic resistance where pathologies have evolved around the defenses. It's kind of incredible that viruses have managed to evolve around vaccines to install a pro-virus person at the top of the US department of health to ensure better spread of viruses, but I guess life finds a way.

Also: this is entirely anglocentric. I don't think you'd find anyone claiming that the Chinese government censorship system backfired or is completely ineffective. It's an even stronger system than billionaires over there.

11235813216mo ago

That wasn’t what you were saying but they’re good observations. This behavior of Americans was observed by Tocqueville’s observations about newspapers and the role that discussing them played in our political outcomes in allowing certain types of populist candidates to bubble up. There are analogues in English politics. The article had a continental example but it was just an analogy. That said, it’s reasonable for Americans to want to understand and adjust their strategies for quirks in their culture and political process; they can’t simply transplant Chinese government and culture here to please you, can they?

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