How will Trump handle life without Twitter and Facebook? Ask Alex Jones.
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones met a similar fate when he and his media network Infowars were deplatformed across social media in 2018. And when was the last time you heard the name Milo Yiannopoulos? After the infamous right-wing instigator was banned from Twitter and his other social media homes in 2016, his influence and notoriety plummeted. Deplatfoming also decreases their influence a 2016 study of ISIS deplatforming found, for example, that ISIS “influencers” lost followers and clout as they were forced to bounce around from platform to platform. Radical extremists across the political spectrum use social media to spread their messaging, so deplatforming those extremists makes it harder for them to recruit. We know deplatforming works to combat online extremism because researchers have studied what happens when extremist communities get routed from their “homes” on the internet.
SITES LIKE REDDIT PORN FREE
But thanks to Trump and many of his supporters, it has inevitably become a permanent part of the discourse involving free speech and social media moderation, and the responsibilities that platforms can and should have to control what people do on their sites. It’s not a violation of the First Amendment. Some critics, including Trump himself, have even floated the misleading idea that social media companies might be brought to heel if lawmakers were to alter a fundamental internet law called Section 230 - a move that would instead curtail everyone’s internet free speech.Īll of these complicated, chaotic arguments have clouded a relatively simple fact: Deplatforming is effective at rousting extremists from mainstream internet spaces. Many have expressed wariness about the power social media companies have to simply oust whoever they deem dangerous, while critics have pointed out the hypocrisy of social media platforms spending years bending over backward to justify not banning Trump despite his posts violating their content guidelines, only to make an about-face during his final weeks in office.
SITES LIKE REDDIT PORN FOR FREE
Still, the implications for free speech have worried conservatives and liberals alike. “More likely: companies came to their own conclusions or were emboldened by the actions of others.” “I do not believe this was coordinated,” he said. On January 13, in a long thread about the site’s decision to ban Trump, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey rejected that idea. Many conservatives have cried “ censorship,” believing they’ve been targeted by a collaborative, collective agreement among leaders in the tech industry in defiance of their free speech rights. But Trump’s high-profile deplatforming has spawned new confusion, controversy, and debate. Permanently revoking users’ access to social media platforms and other websites - a practice known as deplatforming - isn’t a new concept conservatives have been railing against it and other forms of social media censure for years. Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Services banned the right-wing Twitter alternative Parler, effectively shutting down the site indefinitely (though it’s attempting to return) and relegating many right-wingers to the hinterlands of the internet. Twitter suspended more than 70,000 accounts primarily dedicated to spreading the false right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon. The same was true for many of Trump’s more extremist followers. Trump’s social media accounts were suspended across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, and TikTok. Within days of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, outgoing President Donald Trump’s internet presence was in upheaval.
0 kommentar(er)
