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Comment by eric_b | Hacker News Reader

In 2020 a major theme was "de-escalation" when it comes to policing. Instead of ratcheting up the intensity the police should try and calm things down. I think most people on HN can agree with that idea. Let cooler heads prevail.

So why then are people applauding Big Tech and the politicians when they do the opposite? De-platforming the president, cutting off Parler, these actions will inflame already high tensions. Impeaching trump again with 9 days to go before he's gone? It's a major escalation. The media and the politicians seem to want armed rebellion. It's so totally fucked up. And half the country doesn't see the other half as anything but "racist".

The media has ruined America. Game over.

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Half the people believe America is overrun by the nazis or the fascist. And they the heroes fighting them, and when people from other countries look at them weirdly, when people who understand and felt what an oppressive regime does to a man, say what are you talking about, they double down.

It would be a fun experiment to see how many times those two words occur on average daily on HN.

What do you call the guys with “Camp Auschwitz” and “6MWE” on their shirts? Concerned citizens?

>What do you call the guys with “Camp Auschwitz” and “6MWE” on their shirts? Concerned citizens?

The same as I call the people on twitter who write "kill all white men".

And when you see somebody with a Che Guevara t shirt or Mao t shirt on the street, do you start seeing marxists conspiracy everywhere?

I think it's entirely possible that de-platforming will actually have the effect of de-escalating. It's like putting a child in timeout: it gives the child a moment to cool off before resuming normal activity. Clearly people's passions are inflamed at the moment and they were feeding off each other's anger. Some time off may allow cooler heads to prevail, even if it's just the time it takes parler to set up an alternative infrastructure.

Of course, I may be completely wrong about this, but it's not clear to me that this is a worse option than doing nothing.

> The media has ruined America. Game over.

MSM, including Facebook and Twitter, empowered this monster and profited from it. This joke of a candidate was propped up and put front and centre instead of being ignored. They fed the Troll and moments before he turns to stone, they take credit for cutting him off.

The final straw for me was in 2016 when he was nominated. I deleted all social media and actively avoided US news--even then I'd hear conversations about it everywhere--even outside of the US.

Good luck America, you'll need it.

Well, they had two options: 1) Do what they did, and inflame some of the pro-Trump types with thinking that he and they are being persecuted and oppressed. Or 2) let Trump keep the megaphone (MAGAphone?) and hope that in the next 10 days he didn't say anything that would inflame some of the pro-Trump types into thinking that they had to violently try to reverse the result of the "stolen" election.

Note that there is no option that doesn't leave a segment of the pro-Trump crowd inflamed, angry, and perhaps looking for trouble.

Let cooler heads prevail is good advice. Except in this situation, cooler heads already were not prevailing.

Did you miss the part where the Confederate flag was among the flags Capitol Hill rioters were waving?

It’s unfortunate but maybe the tech balkanization has an inverse Conway’s law effect.

Also now that half the country’s internet population will be free from big tech control, imagine all the truth that can now be discussed out in the open without restriction on alternative platforms.

And the escalation is actually welcome news to Trump. It supports his narrative of being the enemy of the "deep state" and the "swamp".

Sidestepping the moral question of whether the bans are deserved or not, they are a huge strategic mistake that will strengthen the very same people they try to silence.

Just wait until we're talking in a few years about "Why extremist candidate X won" like the many "Why Trump won" threads we saw 4 years ago.

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