Prototype wrote:Squinty wrote:These banana splits are just looking to become the next Little Tommy.
Arrest them if they persist with getting up everyone's gooseberry fool. Starve them of funds and a platform.
You do realise censorship does nothing but fuel extreme politics right?
If censorship wasn't an effective means on political suppression then it wouldn't be used by every politically oppressive state throughout history. Regardless, de-platforming is not the same as state censorship. Society has a responsibility to self-police and correction of behaviour is a normal and ubiquitous behaviour of society. State censorship is bad because it is top-down, violently enforced and designed to control the population, rather than protect it. De-platforming is a voluntary and society-led act of protection.
Extreme politics is "fueled" by normalisation through exposure and propaganda, and through group and attitude polarisation, where people who share similar views become more extreme and set in those views through sharing them - which is a huge consideration in the filter-bubble of the online world.
When you de-platform extremist views you deny them opportunity to spread to those unfamiliar with them, you prevent their normalisation in popular thought through continued exposure, and you limit the circles through which those views become polarised to further extremes.
Open debate requires opposing sides to both engage in debate in good faith, which far-right extremism does not. Open debate should also accurately reflect the balance of opinion and support for ideas in society at large. Letting far-right extremists into that debate massively over-inflates the perception of their support, which is problematic as it contributes towards the aforementioned normalisation of those views.
When we are talking about whether these people should be arrested that's separate to de-platforming, as the actions for which they should be arrested are not the spouting of their views, but disrupting public order, harassment and intimidation. These are actions separate to political opinion, and the police preventing them is not censorship.
tl;dr
strawberry float facists