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Comment by logicalmonster | Hacker News Reader

Putting aside obvious questions such as "what is hate?", "who defines hate?", "what if something is falsely labelled as hate?", and "is preventing free speech ever ethical?", this study looks like a textbook example of the McNamara Fallacy in action.

It's easy to ban a bunch of people and come up with an estimate of a large amount of hate reduced. "These hate-mongers posted X times per day to an audience of Y people, therefore we stopped Z hatred-incidents per month. Big progress in stopping hate.". That's the stupid man's interpretation of the available data.

It's a lot harder to measure things like the feeling that people who already feel disenfranchised about life feel when they can't even vent about stuff on the Internet and what that leads to. The people with the ban-hammers are doing nothing but creating further and further resentment and confirming whatever biases and conspiracy theories that many people already feel.

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>It's easy to ban a bunch of people and come up with an estimate of a large amount of hate reduced. "These hate-mongers posted X times per day to an audience of Y people, therefore we stopped Z hatred-incidents per month. Big progress in stopping hate.". That's the stupid man's interpretation of the available data.

Starting with H1, it's quite clear these are not their definitions, but they're your misinterpretations of their definitions. Is there a reason you're misrepresenting the conclusions of the study, and doing so as uncharitably as possible? Is it possible it's "the stupid man's interpretation" because it's not at all their interpretation of their results?

> It's a lot harder to measure things like the feeling that people who already feel disenfranchised about life feel when they can't even vent about stuff on the Internet and what that leads to. The people with the ban-hammers are doing nothing but creating further and further resentment and confirming whatever biases and conspiracy theories that many people already feel.

It seems weird to note that it's hard to measure while simultaneously expressing complete confidence in the data-less conclusion you seem to want to be true.

Not to mention the collateral damage to society by concentrating the most active users in these communities into off-site echo chambers.

What specific harm is this?

If people on Twitter say incorrect facts about a group of people, or even start egging people towards violence, there's a lot of pushback against that there.

But if that random person is removed from Twitter and starts seeking out like-minded people, they're going to form some underground community with no pushback against the worst ideas.

This model has never borne out in reality. Having people spread nazi propaganda on twitter does not actually reduce the number of nazis.

1) IMHO, using a phrase like "Nazi propaganda" knowingly poisons the well in these discussions because basically anything just a bit out of the current political zeitgeist can be and has been labeled as Nazi propaganda in CURRENT_YEAR.

2) Since you seem to hate Nazis so much, why are you adopting the digital equivalent of their tactics? The Nazis famously burned lots of very Jewish books, right? Society used to say that this was one of the examples of why they weren't so great, and I grew up hating the idea of burning books because of this. I can't understand how using their playbook suddenly became doubleplusgood.

Feel free to interpret this as "people who have actual swastika flags in their rooms and think that the way to create the best society is to mass murder jewish people."

That's a real population of extremists. Having them hang out on HN does not make their numbers dwindle.

And no, I do not think that banning Nazis from forums is "the same playbook" used by the Nazi Party.

I can't take any claims about "the Nazis" seriously in CURRENT_YEAR because the label is thrown out so casually. I've seen some of the most commonplace and benign beliefs unironically labeled as Nazi to try and get a minor bit of political advantage.

Use a different group then if somehow "has an actual swastika flag in their room" is too non-specific for you. "ISIS Members," if you want.

I'm having a hard time understanding what your point is.

I'm always open to at least talking to anybody, whether or not they're ISIS members, Nazis, Communists, or (may Allah forgive me for even uttering this word) Canadian.

Talking is the road to peace. When words stop, there's only one thing that can possibly come next.

And yet, the actual data does not demonstrate that having ISIS members on Twitter reduces their numbers.

You are free to go to their spaces and talk to them if you want. But there is no moral need or practical good to permit their hatred in all spaces.

I hate to keep repeating this in this thread because I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it feels like you're engaging in a textbook example of the McNamara fallacy. It seems like the only thing you're able to measure is "number of bad guys", so that's the only metric for success/failure you have.

What if the more important metric for a good society was something else?

What if removing "the bad guys" from society makes them feel like they're not part of society and have nothing else left to lose so it actually pushes them to violence?

I'm not saying I have all of the answers here, but I do strongly think that your general approach here is ignoring the human side and focusing on the wrong metric for progress.

>The people with the ban-hammers are doing nothing but creating further and further resentment and confirming whatever biases and conspiracy theories that many people already feel.

You had just got done critiquing the article in a clear and cogent way, then you go off and assert something for which you have no evidence.

The existence of these online groups, they get people, they turn good people into bad people. We have friends and family we have seen it happen to. So perhaps they are not ONLY causing resentment among those already converted, but perhaps also preventing further conversion.

> You had just got done critiquing the article in a clear and cogent way, then you go off and assert something for which you have no evidence.

You don't necessarily need, nor does one necessarily exist, a scientific study or formal citation for something fairly subjective/opinionated that you can give a justifiable explanation for.

If somebody is blaming some group, say the French, for controlling everything from the media, taxis, the money supply, politics, pharmaceuticals, real-estate, Hollywood, the Fast Food Industry, and Silicon Valley and suddenly get removed from all of polite society, it doesn't take a peer-reviewed scientific study to suspect that they're likely going to be having even darker thoughts about the French and feeling that this confirms their theories that the Frenchies are out to get them.

> The existence of these online groups, they get people, they turn good people into bad people. We have friends and family we have seen it happen to. So perhaps they are not ONLY causing resentment among those already converted, but perhaps also preventing further conversion.

1) You just got done critiquing me for trying to assert something with no evidence, but then did quite a bit of that here. Should I demand a citation and scientific study for every opinion here?

2) You use the phrase "bad people", and maybe many of them are, but there's a wide range of views out there that are labelled hate that might not be so.

Your theory hinges on the idea that by remaining on the platform, they will not dive into these darker thoughts. Which is quite absurd, don't you think? This idea that one banning is going to be the catalyst, rather than they already feel a certain way and are regularly encouraged by the platform to feel that sort of way.

> but there's a wide range of views out there that are labelled hate that might not be so

There's also a wide range of views out there that are correctly labelled hate.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me

https://xkcd.com/1216/

> the feeling that people who already feel disenfranchised about life feel when they can't even vent about stuff on the Internet

Well, then why don't they vent about this stuff in person? Surely that's an even better marketplace of ideas.

> the feeling that people who already feel disenfranchised about life feel when they can't even vent about stuff on the Internet

nobody is preventing people from healthy venting... that's some kind of ridiculous strawman.

> people who already feel disenfranchised about life feel when they can't even vent about stuff on the Internet and what that leads to.

Wow there. I think the who point of hate is you're taking it out on people? Hatred leads to violence and interestingly, much like violence you shouldn't use it as way to vent your frustrations. Much like how drunken husbands shouldn't go home and take out their frustrations by beating their family.

> creating further and further resentment and confirming whatever biases and conspiracy theories that many people already feel

I say that's a good thing, let the hate fester and consume the hateful without infecting others. It's like a disease that spreads from host to host. If you choose to be hateful the enjoy your misery or be violent and enjoy the consequences.

Name me one issue that requires you to hate people in order to resolve it.

I think “anger” can be a helpful motivating emotional response to an offense. I imagine it is a precursor to hate, but I’m not really sure.

Anger has been beneficial. Workers had anger to get us the 40 hour work week. Women had anger to get them the right to vote. Black people had anger to get the right to vote.

I agree there is a problem with the hateful festering and spreading. I think the solution is societal safety nets: universal basic income, universal healthcare, free college or trade school.

Anger is fine. Hatred is desiring harm towards others. If your parents are angry at you for example, it doesn't mean they hate you.

Hate in this context also means hatred against others based on factors about themselves they cannot change and based on things they didn't cause, because they are a member of some group

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