Now that this community has mods, I think we should come to something approaching a consensus on whether there should be a rule against posting “nice” comics from transphobic and other kinds of bigoted artists. People like Stonetoss and Jago who have a lot of innocent-looking relatable comics, but also post the most mean, bigoted propaganda.
And I’d like to present a third option besides yes and no: one might post comics from bigoted artists after removing the artist credit, if the mods think that’s a good compromise.
I am a firm believer in “There is no better disinfectant than sunlight.”
I want to see the most vile aspects of people, I want it to be on full display so we know who they are, and we can counter them directly.
I think the algorithm has done a MASSIVE amount of damage by cordoning things off and creating little pockets of filth festering in darkness out of view until it overflows and spills out on us all.
I firmly disagree. “The way to stop Nazism is to let them talk more and let more people see a bunch of Nazi stuff” can be judged as nonsense by inspection.
That isn’t how this works.
It doesn’t start with the most vile filth. It starts with slightly edgy jokes, employs irony, and works slowly towards getting you to believe whatever racist slop they’re selling. “The alt right playbook” was a youtube series from like a decade ago that covers some of this. I don’t usually like youtube videos, but that one I make an exception for.
And yet the pipeline works because it’s an “inside” thing, the more people who see and recognize the dog whistles the less likely it is to spread with people remaining unaware that is is.
You’re mistaken in thinking “The Algorithm” is some objective equation. I can’t stress this enough -
It’s not.
It’s a lever, a programatic tool billionaires can adjust to control public opinion. What’s more there’s evidence of this. Internal leaks from Facebook/Meta reported that they were fully aware certain types of commercial beauty standard promotions embeded in social media in an unmoderated fashion on their sites were inadvertently causing young girls to display suicidal ideation.
They didn’t stop it (because of the ad profit). There’s a whole two part podcast on this (and other forms of confirmed algorithmic damage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIR0Kd27RhI ).
Likewise, YouTube prior to Trump’s election were very much aware that their algorithm was leading young men through a pipeline to far-right ideas and Nazi content (again, this podcast episode discusses the news and facts of this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IekScPTekz8 )
I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, the idea that Sunlight will disinfect our views, is no-longer (and I believe the sources cited in those two podcasts show this), is no longer a viable opinion. It’s really an abdication to a higher power, without anywhere NEAR enough awareness of what that “higher power” really is: A loaded version of free speech, where the richest promote and demote views that best suit their interests.
I’m not saying I have a solution, but it’s really fucking important that we all strongly recognize the gravity and extent of the problem. Because people are now growing up in, and entire social circles are being actively politically groomed by these algorithms in a way that’s never happened to this extent before.
The free market of ideas is a convenient LIE which benefits the wealthy and most people do not push back on at all (they see it as objective and impartial). We need far left radicalism but there are no billionaires interested in allowing that into their algorithmically walled gardens - where they control the “sunlight” of what your feed thinks is popular.
They aren’t accusing the left of indoctrinating the young because it was happening. They were accusing them, because they were doing it themselves already, algorithmically.
The “indoctrination” is just another Satanic Panic, the dumbest things you have ever heard being repeated enough by “trusted” sources it becomes fact to them.
It’s Meta and Xitter now, though, not James Dobson on AM radio.
This describes how society in general has handled all vices, since long before the Internet.
Sadly accurate, but it has been wilful ignorance, now it is enforced by what the machines think we want to see.
I think it is worse now, than before, it was a lot easier to pick up that “other” newspaper than it is to break out of your algorithm.