Someone shot some people, so lets censor social media!

I've started to see something a bit concerning from certain democratic candidates, such as Senator Kamala Harris, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

We ourselves are on Steem, an uncensored platform. We also aren't a mainstream social network. If for some reason someone who was on Steem posting blog entries or whatever decided to commit violence, we'd be thrust into the spotlight, and these idiots would be talking about how we're a platform that caters to the vile filth that has been banned elsewhere. Doesn't matter if it's true or not.

For some reason, censorship of social media, and pushing for it, has become mainstream.

Of course, if they get banned on Facebook or wherever, they'll just move to another social network. And then whatever social network they use will get labeled as a trove for the dregs of society, simply because they don't censor and ban their users.

There are a lot of radical and even not-so-radical beliefs that some people may share with people that might end up perpetrating violence.

While white supremacists aren't exactly easy to defend, social networks like Twitter actually have a horrible time separating out white supremacists from standard conservative rhetoric using AI. It might sound like something someone would say to shit on conservatives, but it's a thing. American conservatives are very anti-immigrant lately. There have been times where the words of conservative lawmakers have been flagged.

Asking social media to figure out who is questionable and saying questionable things and censor their members is a really big ask. Instead, it should likely be the job of the FBI to find the worst radicals and who is actually dangerous among them, without censoring anything. Social media will likely censor their members to a certain degree, but asking them to read through their millions of members and find the radicals and what needs to be censored is a huge undertaking.

Putting this task on the backs of social media, telling them that they are responsible for determining what is and is not acceptable, and putting the blame on them, because they happened to be the venue where someone spewed forth their garbage rhetoric, well, that's just irresponsible, and will lead to some people being banned from places that are growing in power.

Right now, Facebook and other media are mainly just a place where you go to read content created by people you follow, talk about a few different things, nothing really necessary. But Facebook and other sites are continually growing and becoming more integral in business. It is possible that one day I and others may be forced to go back to Facebook because we have to use them to interact with a local business, or possibly even use it for payment to some business. If that happens, then everyone who has been banned will be disenfranchised. Facebook is already used for stuff like selling local goods, or organizing. Anyone banned won't be able to use it for that anymore.

Of course, I am distinctly anti-censorship. I'm a bit less radical than a lot on here. I would have never realized that I would be far from the most radical years ago, but it's all in the company you keep. I realize that many people probably don't necessarily want the most radical racist people on their social media.

Of course, reality is that to find those people that say things that you might not want spreading their hate, you have to decide what the rules are. Then you have to hire massive numbers of people to determine what goes against those rules. Then you have to train them. Then you have to deal with the fact that they occasionally will censor things that may or may not be against the rules, or even if they are, will cause public outcry. You also have to create some form of structure to oversee the administration of the rules. You also have to determine when you'll contact the authorities over something.

Then, when you ban someone for something, they just find somewhere else to go, and talk to people that share their beliefs. And that place may be further off the radar of the police and FBI.

And then the media will portray that place as if it's just a bastion of the unwashed, whether or not it really is.

These social media companies have no historically done censorship very intelligently. Often they ban or censor without clear reason, and no recourse. If someone is censored, they may not know why. If they are banned, not only might they not know why, but often they may not have any recourse. They're banned and they're gone. They can't do anything about it. If it's a place like YouTube, that can be a significant portion of their income. There's even a possibility that this sort of behavior is actually illegal, since people really should be informed of why they have been banned, and be able to appeal the decision intelligently.

But yeah, lets just put all the burden on them, and trust them to do things right, until they don't, and then we bitch at them again.

These candidates just jumped into a well of sewage and may have lost my faith. Not that I really had much faith in Kamala Harris after she used race to attack Joe Biden, and that excellent point was made about how many she put in jail for marijuana.