7 ms·

The Conspiratorial Hate We See Online Is Increasingly Appearing in Real Life

53 points by IBM 8y ago

nostromo 8y ago
The author tries to take a correlation ("crazy people say crazy things online") and argue it's causation ("crazy things online make people go crazy in real life"). We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. The problem is that violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing. So even if this is "a thing" -- it's not a widespread trend. Personally I don't think the medium matters. If Columbine or Ruby Ridge or Waco or Oklahoma City or 9/11 happened today, I'm sure all of these people would have some sort of social media trail for us to look at and say, "a ha, this is why this person was radicalized!" followed by, "Twitter and Facebook and Google need to do a better job censoring their platforms."
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  The mistake you make is correlating the rise of the internet with the reduction in crime. That correlation could be better explained with the lead-crime hypothesis rather than assuming that the internet is somehow causing less crime. What we have seen is the number of hate crimes increase quite drastically over the past few years as well as the continued rise of school shootings in America.
  - dnautics 8y ago
    The parent poster is not correlating internet going up with crime going down, poster is correlating internet going up with hysteria over crime going up.
  - nostromo 8y ago
    > the continued rise of school shootings in America Contrary to popular belief, school shootings have been flat since the early 90s: https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ Full report here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf
    - iamaelephant 8y ago
      That's more horrifying, not less. For 20 years children have been getting shot at school in your country and you've collectively done nothing meaningful to stop it.
- analognoise 8y ago
  I'm ok with Facebook and Google censoring their platforms if it prevents people from being radicalized. If you want to host your own hate page, you can. I think there are a lot of negative externalities of the massive communication infrastructure that people are involved in now that aren't fully understood yet. Violent crime is down - the number of idiot antivaxers is up, for example. I think we all need to just admit the idea of connecting everyone to everyone else is actually a terrible idea - tech was wrong, the positive techno fantasy was as absurd as communism, and we need to now deal with the beast we've created.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  The the drop in violent crime correlates strongly with the drop in leaded gasoline.
  - berbec 8y ago
    And Roe v. Wade. [1] 1: http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 8y ago
  > violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing You are making a causation argument two sentences after calling out a causation argument.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    You've confused correlation with causation. The quote is an observation of a correlation, not a causation argument.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  >We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. It can look superficially the same doesn’t it? The difference between “Judas Priest causes suicides” and here is that that the mechanism is much more understood, and there are multiple instances separated by time, place, and culture, to better examine the hypothesis. We can look at Bosnia[0], Rwanda[1], and Rohingya[2], just to name three things that have occurred in my lifetime. It’s a more extreme version of what we’ve seen with filter bibles and the sorting of media. It’s been well studied. There’s even a word for this phenomenon. It’s dehumanization. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite-facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...
- masonic 8y ago
  Ruby Ridge In what way do you consider the Weavers to have "been radicalized"?
empath75 8y ago
Online is real life and there’s not a significant difference between someone making death threats online or over the phone or through the mail and I wish law enforcement would take it more seriously and start jailing people and not just laughing it off. It’ll only take throwing a few obnoxious kids into big boy prison for making terroristic threats before the ‘pranksters’ stop doing it and we’re left with the real crazies.
- Anderkent 8y ago
  > Online is real life and there’s not a significant difference between someone making death threats online or over the phone or through the mail There is a very significant difference - someone who knows your address or phone number likely knows where you live. (perhaps less so with mobile phones compared to historically with stationary phones). And they're more likely to be in the geographical area and capable of acting on the threat. Whereas 99% of the time someone sends a 'threat' online they do not know you, and are responding to a video / post that you made. Not that it becomes excusable, but it does make the threat much less serious.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  It's important to remind people that hateful speech is not protected by the First Amendment in America.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    The first amendment absolutely protects hateful speech. It doesn't protect threats.
colordrops 8y ago
BuzzFeed is part of the toxic behavior we see online.
- Anderkent 8y ago
  Example? BuzzFeed News has in my experience been one of the better, if not the best, news portals.
- shagie 8y ago
  How so? Are you referring to the "BuzzFeed's business model in 10 easy steps - number 7 will surprise you" and "23 pictures of cute kittens"? On the other hand... their journalism (BuzzFeed<i>News</i>) is up there in quality. Such as https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/chris-hamby-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/chris-hamby-buzzfeed-news and https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/us/politics/george-polk-journalism-awards-winners.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/us/politics/george-polk-j... ("In all, journalists representing more than a dozen news organizations were recognized for reporting. Three nontraditional publications — Vice News, The Intercept and BuzzFeed News — won awards for the first time, Mr. Darnton said.")
- 8_hours_ago 8y ago
  I agree that BuzzFeed isn't the poster child of wholesome online content, but they don't advocate hate speech or blatant conspiracy theories, to the best of my knowledge.
fzeroracer 8y ago
A lot of this is because with the rise of the internet we've seen that it's become easier to push people into these conspiratorial narratives. Before it was largely limited to relatively local radio shows but now you have large media sources spreading not-so-subtle news about how the Jews are ruining America or the deep state controlling your lives. We see these charlatans spreading vile bigotry and hatred, often directly resulting in the harm of innocent people. People spreading narratives that school shootings don't actually exist. The overall audience these people can reach has grown dramatically and the problem is that it's similar to cult behavior. You can't actually beat them with facts or through arguments. At a certain point we're going to need to face this problem head on and treat it as a proper cult.
- Maro 8y ago
  Antisemitism has widespread roots in Europe going back 100s of years, unfortunately. It didn't need the Internet to spread :(
lez 8y ago
Given the definition of crazy = someone who lost connection to the reality. If you don't agree with somebody on the reality, how do you tell who is the crazy one? Is it possible that the majority is crazy?
olivermarks 8y ago
Charlie Warzel writing on Buzzfeed reacting to recent events he has read about online complete with a ridiculous click bait headline epitomizes everything that's wrong with the confusion between 'news', 'opinion' and even 'satire' in our blurred world of 'feeds' and information overload. Free speech and investigative reporting and writing is essential in a functioning democracy. This is the former but just an inflammatory opinion piece. ('Why toxic online behavior is spilling into the streets').
tychomaz 8y ago
From buzzfeed “news”. The pot calling the kettle black.

53 points by IBM 8y ago

The author tries to take a correlation ("crazy people say crazy things online") and argue it's causation ("crazy things online make people go crazy in real life"). We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. The problem is that violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing. So even if this is "a thing" -- it's not a widespread trend. Personally I don't think the medium matters. If Columbine or Ruby Ridge or Waco or Oklahoma City or 9/11 happened today, I'm sure all of these people would have some sort of social media trail for us to look at and say, "a ha, this is why this person was radicalized!" followed by, "Twitter and Facebook and Google need to do a better job censoring their platforms."

fzeroracer 8y ago
The mistake you make is correlating the rise of the internet with the reduction in crime. That correlation could be better explained with the lead-crime hypothesis rather than assuming that the internet is somehow causing less crime. What we have seen is the number of hate crimes increase quite drastically over the past few years as well as the continued rise of school shootings in America.
- dnautics 8y ago
  The parent poster is not correlating internet going up with crime going down, poster is correlating internet going up with hysteria over crime going up.
- nostromo 8y ago
  > the continued rise of school shootings in America Contrary to popular belief, school shootings have been flat since the early 90s: https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ https://imgur.com/2uB0QdJ Full report here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018036.pdf
  - iamaelephant 8y ago
    That's more horrifying, not less. For 20 years children have been getting shot at school in your country and you've collectively done nothing meaningful to stop it.
analognoise 8y ago
I'm ok with Facebook and Google censoring their platforms if it prevents people from being radicalized. If you want to host your own hate page, you can. I think there are a lot of negative externalities of the massive communication infrastructure that people are involved in now that aren't fully understood yet. Violent crime is down - the number of idiot antivaxers is up, for example. I think we all need to just admit the idea of connecting everyone to everyone else is actually a terrible idea - tech was wrong, the positive techno fantasy was as absurd as communism, and we need to now deal with the beast we've created.
stephengillie 8y ago
The the drop in violent crime correlates strongly with the drop in leaded gasoline.
- berbec 8y ago
  And Roe v. Wade. [1] 1: http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
guelo 8y ago
> violent crime has dropped as internet use has gone up. And violent crime has also dropped since social media first became a thing You are making a causation argument two sentences after calling out a causation argument.
- weberc2 8y ago
  You've confused correlation with causation. The quote is an observation of a correlation, not a causation argument.
jonathankoren 8y ago
>We've seen this argument a million times before with the boogeyman du jour. For example: heavy metal and video games caused Columbine. It can look superficially the same doesn’t it? The difference between “Judas Priest causes suicides” and here is that that the mechanism is much more understood, and there are multiple instances separated by time, place, and culture, to better examine the hypothesis. We can look at Bosnia[0], Rwanda[1], and Rohingya[2], just to name three things that have occurred in my lifetime. It’s a more extreme version of what we’ve seen with filter bibles and the sorting of media. It’s been well studied. There’s even a word for this phenomenon. It’s dehumanization. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137284150_5 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite-facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...
masonic 8y ago
Ruby Ridge In what way do you consider the Weavers to have "been radicalized"?

empath75 8y ago

Online is real life and there’s not a significant difference between someone making death threats online or over the phone or through the mail and I wish law enforcement would take it more seriously and start jailing people and not just laughing it off. It’ll only take throwing a few obnoxious kids into big boy prison for making terroristic threats before the ‘pranksters’ stop doing it and we’re left with the real crazies.

Anderkent 8y ago
> Online is real life and there’s not a significant difference between someone making death threats online or over the phone or through the mail There is a very significant difference - someone who knows your address or phone number likely knows where you live. (perhaps less so with mobile phones compared to historically with stationary phones). And they're more likely to be in the geographical area and capable of acting on the threat. Whereas 99% of the time someone sends a 'threat' online they do not know you, and are responding to a video / post that you made. Not that it becomes excusable, but it does make the threat much less serious.
stephengillie 8y ago
It's important to remind people that hateful speech is not protected by the First Amendment in America.
- weberc2 8y ago
  The first amendment absolutely protects hateful speech. It doesn't protect threats.

colordrops 8y ago

BuzzFeed is part of the toxic behavior we see online.

Anderkent 8y ago
Example? BuzzFeed News has in my experience been one of the better, if not the best, news portals.
shagie 8y ago
How so? Are you referring to the "BuzzFeed's business model in 10 easy steps - number 7 will surprise you" and "23 pictures of cute kittens"? On the other hand... their journalism (BuzzFeed<i>News</i>) is up there in quality. Such as https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/chris-hamby-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/chris-hamby-buzzfeed-news and https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/us/politics/george-polk-journalism-awards-winners.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/us/politics/george-polk-j... ("In all, journalists representing more than a dozen news organizations were recognized for reporting. Three nontraditional publications — Vice News, The Intercept and BuzzFeed News — won awards for the first time, Mr. Darnton said.")
8_hours_ago 8y ago
I agree that BuzzFeed isn't the poster child of wholesome online content, but they don't advocate hate speech or blatant conspiracy theories, to the best of my knowledge.

fzeroracer 8y ago

A lot of this is because with the rise of the internet we've seen that it's become easier to push people into these conspiratorial narratives. Before it was largely limited to relatively local radio shows but now you have large media sources spreading not-so-subtle news about how the Jews are ruining America or the deep state controlling your lives. We see these charlatans spreading vile bigotry and hatred, often directly resulting in the harm of innocent people. People spreading narratives that school shootings don't actually exist. The overall audience these people can reach has grown dramatically and the problem is that it's similar to cult behavior. You can't actually beat them with facts or through arguments. At a certain point we're going to need to face this problem head on and treat it as a proper cult.

Maro 8y ago
Antisemitism has widespread roots in Europe going back 100s of years, unfortunately. It didn't need the Internet to spread :(

lez 8y ago

Given the definition of crazy = someone who lost connection to the reality. If you don't agree with somebody on the reality, how do you tell who is the crazy one? Is it possible that the majority is crazy?

olivermarks 8y ago

Charlie Warzel writing on Buzzfeed reacting to recent events he has read about online complete with a ridiculous click bait headline epitomizes everything that's wrong with the confusion between 'news', 'opinion' and even 'satire' in our blurred world of 'feeds' and information overload. Free speech and investigative reporting and writing is essential in a functioning democracy. This is the former but just an inflammatory opinion piece. ('Why toxic online behavior is spilling into the streets').

tychomaz 8y ago

From buzzfeed “news”. The pot calling the kettle black.