What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

Justice and Rule · Mar 5, 2023

Mesero said:
Maybe I am missing something, but the writers of that book were mostly American and a few from SEA as far as I can tell.

You are, because saying "American" misses that there were many minority voices on the book, which was my point.

Staffan · Mar 5, 2023

Alzrius said:
No, once again, that's a misunderstanding on your part.

If you're engaging in name-calling, rather than pointing out the flaws in their argument, then you're not actually refuting anything they've said. All you're doing is saying that they're a bad person, with the implication that what they're saying should be disregarded on that basis alone. So you're essentially letting their points go unchallenged and calling it a win, which is fairly irresponsible on your part.

If someone is spouting well-known bigoted nonsense, it is a waste of my time to provide well-researched rebuttals to their points. Just pointing out that it's bigoted nonsense of the kind used by (insert bad group here) is enough.

Alzrius · Mar 5, 2023

Staffan said:
If someone is spouting well-known bigoted nonsense, it is a waste of my time to provide well-researched rebuttals to their points. Just pointing out that it's bigoted nonsense of the kind used by (insert bad group here) is enough.

It might be well-known to you, but there are always people who haven't heard something before (usually because they're young), and who would benefit from a well-researched explanation as to why those points lack merit. If you don't want to take on that responsibility, that's entirely your prerogative, but runs the risk that those same young people won't be satisfied with simply being told to discount what they're hearing.

Engagement takes more work, but the payoff tends to be more worthwhile for everyone, as a general rule.

Staffan · Mar 5, 2023

Alzrius said:
It might be well-known to you, but there are always people who haven't heard something before (usually because they're young), and who would benefit from a well-researched explanation as to why those points lack merit. If you don't want to take on that responsibility, that's entirely your prerogative, but runs the risk that those same young people won't be satisfied with simply being told to discount what they're hearing.

Engagement takes more work, but the payoff tends to be more worthwhile for everyone, as a general rule.

That assumes that the person is doing it in good faith. That is not usually the case. Spouting BS is easy, refuting it is hard.

Irlo · Mar 5, 2023

Alzrius said:
It might be well-known to you, but there are always people who haven't heard something before (usually because they're young), and who would benefit from a well-researched explanation as to why those points lack merit. If you don't want to take on that responsibility, that's entirely your prerogative, but runs the risk that those same young people won't be satisfied with simply being told to discount what they're hearing.

Engagement takes more work, but the payoff tends to be more worthwhile for everyone, as a general rule.

I encourage you to ask the targets of the bigoted nonsense if debating their value as human beings is worthwhile.

Justice and Rule · Mar 5, 2023

Alzrius said:
It might be well-known to you, but there are always people who haven't
Engagement takes more work, but the payoff tends to be more worthwhile for everyone, as a general rule.

This is absolutely not true, especially when we are talking about stuff like political extremism, racism, etc. As someone who watches is this stuff, "engagement" almost never works because it assumes honest engagement and often people with bad arguments don't actually engage with debate as much as use it as a platform to talk around the other side. Like, you can't "engage" with Alex Jones because he'll make the entire thing a farce, and all you are doing in the end is platforming their beliefs. Along with that, it's much harder to debunk in an engagement because it means you aren't able to make your own argument, but have to dissect theirs.

It might be uncomfortable, but often times deplatforming is a way, way more effective thing, in the same way moderators can ban trolls from a board. Alex Jones is, again, a good example of this, as someone who had massive reach and had it wrecked by getting deplatformed.

Alzrius · Mar 5, 2023

Staffan said:
That assumes that the person is doing it in good faith. That is not usually the case. Spouting BS is easy, refuting it is hard.

I'm not sure about "usually," but refuting BS tends to more worthwhile (as many hard endeavors are) as even if you don't convince the other person, it tends to win you more credibility in the eyes of anyone watching the exchange.

Alzrius · Mar 5, 2023

Irlo said:
I encourage you to ask the targets of the bigoted nonsense if debating their value as human beings is worthwhile.

I have, and the answer I get is that it is, because winning those debates is how you make less people spewing bigoted nonsense:

J.Quondam · Mar 5, 2023

Alzrius said:
It might be well-known to you, but there are always people who haven't heard something before (usually because they're young), and who would benefit from a well-researched explanation as to why those points lack merit. If you don't want to take on that responsibility, that's entirely your prerogative, but runs the risk that those same young people won't be satisfied with simply being told to discount what they're hearing.

Engagement takes more work, but the payoff tends to be more worthwhile for everyone, as a general rule.

In normal discourse, that's true for the most part. But on the teh interwebz, it is a well-known trolling technique to take advantage of that good-faith urge to correct things. The troll's purpose, of course, is wasting others' time and cluttering up conversations.

It's much more efficient to just say "I don't waste my time arguing with idiots; here's a link to good information" or something. Puts the bad-faith troll in their place, and provides a more reliable source for serious readers.