this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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I don't disagree completely. With YouTube, I've seen people go from normal people that you can have interesting conversations with, to doubting Covid existing, to having opinions about Hunter Biden and thinking Russia was right to invade Ukraine. Scary to see people go down hill like that, and not stupid people either. Anyone can fall victim to this.
But Reddit? It lets you find bubbles of racists and incels, sure, but it's not doing the algorithm dance like YouTube does. It's going to be a thin argument for a court case.
The hate was there way before the social media giants, they just group it all together in echo chambers. Before that we had IRC and normies had TV and tabloid newspapers. The hate will still be there when the last gen Z-er turns off TikTok for the last time. Not sure there's any solution for it. Reduce inequality so people don't feel constantly like they've got a fucked up life and it's somebody else's fault? Maybe don't let kids who aren't even old enough to drink have guns? Mental health awareness? But none of these are as enticing as "foreigners stole your jobs!"
Having hateful thoughts in your head and having hateful rhetoric spoonfed to you are 2 different things. There's a reason why there is a surge in hate crimes and far-right rhetoric all over the world. It's not a coincidence that it happened at the same time big tech gained full control of pretty much everyone's information sources. IRC is not even remotely commonplace, TV print and radio don't allow genocidal losers to spread their ideas since they can't just make an account and post garbage.
As for reddit, how were they able to ban "watchpeopledie" and heavily censor the piracy subreddit? They 100% are responsible for not policing hate subs and allowing them to be easily accessible, they are also using an algorithm (that's not as "polished" as YouTube's but still exists and will most likely get worse as they cement full control over their platform's users).
The solution is to induce financial penalty on these companies that makes it more expensive than the ad revenue they receive from such shitty algorithms. Which is exactly how the piracy subreddit was gutted so much, reddit risks financial harm from legal battles for hosting that content. It is not much different to do the same for hateful rhetoric advocating for murder.
There will always be somebody spoonfeeding it, because there will always be people who want to hear it. From Oswald Mosely, through The Daily Mail, Fox News, hate preachers of all denominations... Often for the same pure simple profit that the social media giants are after rather than ideological hatred.
I'd love to see social media destroyed because it contributes literally nothing to society and makes it worse, but I don't believe for a second that a US court would hand down a fine that would be more than the cost of actually policing their own platform. I'm not sure any political party would try to make them, because it's quite apparent that social media platforms have enough sway to throw elections one way or the other. Especially in the US where it hangs on a knife edge anyway. I also don't think reddit is remotely mainstream enough swing global opinions to the right. That's the domain of Facebook and Twitter.
Again, not as far reaching, effective, or insidious. Fox news also had to pay dominion voting systems for lying and spreading election fraud propaganda.
Highly doubtful
This is a civil suit
So? It's one of many pieces, not the only piece. It's also the largest site of its kind.
Funding proper education for every citizen would be a good start.