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Imagine how much extra racist Yik Yak would have been during the summer of 2020 and today during the Gaza war

My only reaction is: so?

Silencing people isn't going to make them stop thinking things and preventing discussion won't make them Good(TM) people.

The entire internet doesn't need to be sanitized.

I agree with your concluding statement, but I don't think that the goal of moderating discussions is to get people to stop thinking particular things or to make them "good people."

The goal is to encourage actual communication.

I don't think you can pile everyone into a handful of platforms and get good communication. There's too many opposing viewpoints, too much crossover, and too much intermingling.

Forums didn't have the same issue because they were often single/few topic websites and you could just aggressively remove everything off topic.

Yes, I agree with that completely. Above a certain threshold, it all just becomes noise.

I really can't imagine how it could have been any worse than it was in its hayday. Having 4chan but I'm sure it's someone I probably know and not a distant internet stranger made it so much worse.

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