Social media censorship and cancel culture increase extremism: Study

Washington Examiner ^ | 3/28/2022 | Nihal Krishan

[EBH]

Major social media platforms' strict content moderation and censorship policies are making people more isolated and polarized, causing more dangerous extremism in society, a new study shows.

“When you deny people the ability to express opinions and engage in cancel culture, the data shows you send them to nefarious platforms where much worse behavior occurs,” Ottman told the WashingtonExaminer.

“People who get canceled or deplatformed just move to somewhere with an echo chamber that reinforces their beliefs, and [that] leads to shootings at synagogues and mosques and what happened in Charlottesville,” he added.

He added that rampant censorship and the blocking of people on social media have caused more people to become “lone wolves,” which has directly resulted in a rise in radicalization.

The study also showed that censorship does not reduce hate speech or violence-inducing misinformation but merely moves it to other corners of the internet.

“When platforms like Facebook or Twitter limit hateful conversations and censor controversial content, this only moves it elsewhere. Big Tech says censorship is working, but really, it’s just hiding the problem,” said Davis.

Large tech platforms such as Spotify, Airbnb, and GoFundMe have also ratcheted up bans and censorship due to public criticism.

Facebook and other social media platforms have routinely justified stricter content moderation and censorship by pointing to internal surveys that show that users do not like certain controversial content, including divisive political speech.

Davis and Ottman said that although they sympathize with the difficult position social media platforms are put in to moderate large amounts of content to keep a diverse community of users satisfied, they expect more transparency from the companies.

“We’re not trying to take down the Big Tech platforms — we just want them to back up their content moderation policies with research and data,” said Ottman.

[EBH]

Ottman concluded that “we feel that our research justifies more of a First Amendment-based content moderation policy with more free speech that in the long run, over years, would lead to less radicalization and violence."

[Luke21]

“People who get canceled or deplatformed just move to somewhere with an echo chamber that reinforces their beliefs, and [that] leads to shootings at synagogues and mosques and what happened in Charlottesville,” he added.

Barf.

[Bayard]

That is the point. Left wants Civil War, always has.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[dljordan]

“Ottman concluded that “we feel that our research justifies more of a First Amendment-based content moderation policy with more free speech that in the long run, over years, would lead to less radicalization and violence.”

Too late.

[EBH]

the problem is they think we are the one’s radicalized.

Not the people they put in the echo chamber they created.

[piasa]

It should be called antisocial media, since they keep putting up fences, to censor the very people whose taxes find their way into subsidizing these companies. All of these big companies have a hand in the federal cookie jar.

[piasa]

Wht is it that a baker has to bake and decorate a cake for a gay customer’s fake marriage against his will, but social media companies are allowed to refuse service to people they hate?

[TnTnTn]

It increases polarization…that’s for sure…