• andros_rex@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Look at 4chan, which was always awful but has only gotten moreso over the years.

    4chan is a great lesson there. In the early days, actual Nazis would have been mocked and bullied off of the boards. But the “jokes” were allowed. Like, I think a lot of us thought Jew jokes were funny because of South Park. It didn’t seem real. But pretending to be racists makes it trivial for the racists to blend in.

    It allowed the actual Nazis to slowly take over. Qanon is a 4chan creation that has gotten out of control, so much of our politics is what Alex Jones is getting from losers on /pol/.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It is really hard to have that kind of nuance.

        Like, god damn I love edgy humor. Maybe it was ‘tism, but the idea that you would mock someone for being gay or black or Jewish was funny because it was so stupid.

        But it makes it super fucking easy for the real deal to show up. For the jokes to become genuine. The fact that it was always completely and outright misogynistic should have been a tell.

        Moderation is one thing, but they’ll create their own spaces and then use those to plot to take over others. Lots of shibboleths and codes for plausible deniability.

        Educated mockery seems to be the only effective strategy, but requires a lot of work.

        • RaptorBenn@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Yeah, not wrong. But I do think there are ways we could effectively manage these people through social action only, but like you said, it would require work, but you gotta work if you don’t want nazi’s getting too brave.

          I do know one instant solution, don’t allow any anonomous posting. Real names only, and yeah that has it’s dangers but it would reintrodice the natural consequences that people would face IRL. I know there’s a million other potentials with that, but if you want a true forum, I think that’s what it would take.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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            24 hours ago

            Anonymity is nice though. There’s ways to use it responsibly. I think about how Kierkegaard hammered out his philosophy through what was effectively a series of alts, how the “anonymous” movement was able to circumvent the personal and dangerous attacks from Scientology, to my own Demosthenes and Locke-esque experiments.

            I guess what I really want is an economy dedicated to the education system. I want us all to be inoculated against the bullshit, so we can all be adults and laugh at Cartman.