Cleanup in progress


Hey! All the noise and protests and criticism of social media seems to be having an effect. YouTube has banned Stefan Molyneux, Richard Spencer, and David Duke (jesus, what took them so long?). Reddit has killed The_Donald, ChapoTrapHouse, and 2000 smaller subreddits. Again, why did they tolerate the intolerable until now?

Goodbye, good riddance, you won’t be missed.

Comments

  1. wzrd1 says

    The reason is simple enough, viewers/readers see advertisements and advertisers aren’t going to pay for viewership/readership that’s extremely low.
    As corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders, moral stances are essentially out of the question. The only time a moral stance can have an effect is if the moral stance enhances viewership/readership, hence sales.

  2. whheydt says

    Re: wzrd1 @ #1…
    Now if only that would work on Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A.

  3. faustus5 says

    Why Chapotraphouse, though? Geez, I wouldn’t thought they’d be well liked around here.

  4. says

    Among the notable bannings on Reddit was r/GenderCritical, which was second only to MumsNet as being a horrible virulent hive of TERFs.

  5. blf says

    How hate speech campaigners found Facebook’s weak spot:

    The social network’s crisis has been a long time in the making and shows no sign of going away

    It took less than two hours for Facebook to react and it did so for good reason.

    At 5pm on Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all adverts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US.

    Given the “polarised atmosphere in the US”, the company said, and the significant work left to be done “in the areas of divisiveness and hate speech … continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society”.

    At 6.47pm, Facebook scrambled.

    […]

    Asad Moghal, a senior digital and content manager at Byfield Consultancy, said Unilever’s action was always going to force Zuckerberg to respond. “When such an international giant decides that inaction is no longer an option to tackle racist and discriminatory language, then the social media businesses need to listen up.

    “By taking financial action, a company the size of Unilever can effect change and force the hand of Twitter and Facebook; the business has decided it needs to protect its brand reputation and can [no] longer be associated with platforms that deliver hate speech and divisive content. But what will really effect change is if this move creates a domino effect and other big-name corporations remove investment from the platforms.”

    The swathe of announcements marked the first concessions from Facebook towards the aims of a coalition, Stop Hate for Profit, that was formed in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in May.

    But the group’s leaders say the tweaks do not go far enough, and are reiterating their calls for a month-long global advertiser boycott starting on Wednesday.

    The real danger for Facebook is if other brands decide they can do without the platform too.

    [… many details…]

    [… Moghal said], “these tech platforms have generated income and interest from this divisive content; they won’t change their practices until they begin to see a significant cut to their revenue.”

    With the boycott officially starting on Wednesday, the campaigners are not easing off the pressure. In fact, success has only driven higher ambitions.

    “The next frontier is global pressure,” Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, told Reuters on Monday. While some, including North Face and Patagonia, have expanded their boycotts globally, others are currently content to only withhold spending in the US. If even that is enough to get Zuckerberg in front of a camera in less than two hours, the campaigners hope the power of worldwide action could motivate lasting change.

  6. hollandheese says

    Re: faustus5 @ #3

    They banned Chapotraphouse and other left-wing subs so they could do the bullcrap “both-sides” with the bans. Reddit over-all is a very right-wing platform. The abuse in the standard subs like Politics or Gaming far outstripped anything in the left-wing subs that were banned today.

  7. nomadiq says

    Now if only Facebook and Twitter would take down another white nationalist, namely, Donald J. Trump.

  8. wzrd1 says

    Re: whheydt #2, you’re preaching to the choir on that!
    Put down the wet trout…

    @nmadiq #8, I suspect Twitter might try, although it’d be interesting when Trump’s slave Senate started to try to legislate property rights in a way that encroaches excessively against Twitter’s natural rights to speech and activities on their property.
    As my alter, alter ego explained to Trump on Twitter, you may be a guest inside of my home, but you will never be allowed to shit on my coffee table. The same is true on Twitter, what they wish to allow or disallow is for them to say, as Twitter is their company property, closing with, “STOP SHITTING ON THE COFFEE TABLE!”.
    Hey, with Trump, you really do have to explain that to him. And I’m unique unsuited for diplomacy. ;)

  9. says

    Gee, a few weeks of rioting have accomplished more than decades of Democratic governors and mayors, and years of Democratic presidencies and Congressional majorities. It’s almost as though peaceful protests are a waste of time and the promises of centrist politicians at all levels are worthless.

  10. says

    @10 Well, let’s see what happens. Shit-stirring is all well and good but that doesn’t work forever – or even very long. The effect has likely gone into diminishing returns already.

  11. kaleberg says

    In the old days, everyone knew that the supermarket tabloids were full of BS. No, JFK is not alive and having an affair with Queen Elizabeth. Advertisers knew this too, so only advertisers looking for that demographic, people who might believe JFK is still alive and having an affair with Queen Elizabeth, would advertise there. If you wanted to sell a nice clean product, e.g. soap, to moderately sensible or better people, you would advertise elsewhere. Even if you sold soap to the JFK/QE believers, you didn’t advertise in the tabloids.

    The internet opened a space for a lot of new media players. Facebook and Google imagined they could be all media to all people. They could offer advertising to the JFK/QE believers, and they could advertise to everyone else. This worked for a while. Believing that not-assassinated JFK is having a hot affair with the queen of England is unlikely to get people killed or harassed or fired, but a lot of the garbage in the online tabloid or worse equivalent is getting people killed or harassed or fired, and groups have started pushing back on this.

    You can argue about the sheer bogus-ness of corporate images. All too many of them are nests of vipers, and not the good kind. Despite this, they can be taught that lying down with dogs is likely to get one infested with ticks.

  12. pilgham says

    OK, great, but I discovered most of my favorite you-tubers as they ripped a Stefan Molyneux vid into little pieces. Can’t we let him stay? As a chew-toy?

  13. says

    Can’t wait to hear these guys griping about “censorship”.
    “it’s so unfair! All I wanted to do is cause a race war to get rid of all the brown people and create an Anglo-Saxon paradise”
    That’s my best David Duke impression BTW.

    Seriously though, I’ll bet Duke at least and Spencer probably end up on Fox News defending their right to hate speech.

  14. unclefrogy says

    @10
    there have been violent demonstrations before many in fact I wont list them here. they did nothing much.
    It is not the violence that is the significant aspect of the current demonstrations, it is their racial and age makeup. What is plain to see is these are voters out in the street voters from all levels and demographics in all the states and regions.
    When the demonstrations were just people in the ghetto they could be taized gassed and shot at and nothing much would happen.
    If they were simply violent they would be just killed. They are neither at the core violent nor limited but angry and none violent and made up of all races and ages. Much of the violence is police violence.
    uncle frogy

  15. ORigel says

    @8 nomadiq
    Years ago, a Twitter employee shut down Trump’s Twitter account just before quiting (her action was reversed almost immediately fuq Twitter)

  16. Loree says

    @10The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs)
    Is it possible that those ” decades of Democratic governors and mayors, and years of Democratic presidencies and Congressional majorities” and the “peaceful protests” are what set the stage and brought our society to the point where some very minor rioting and a whole LOT of peaceful protesting around the country (and the world) managed to start the ball rolling on much needed change?

    What I’m saying is that the current environment is a direct result of those things you are denigrating and without them the rioting would have accomplished nothing at all. Also I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the few instances of rioting, but the massive waves of peaceful protest combined with repeated video of police violence against those peaceful protestors that turned the trick.

  17. blf says

    Third of advertisers may boycott Facebook in hate speech revolt:

    […]
    Almost a third of advertisers are considering joining a month-long boycott of Facebook as the social network struggles to convince advertisers that it is doing enough to fight hate speech on its platform.

    The unprecedented corporate snub has been revealed in survey by the World Association of Advertisers, whose big-spending members control nearly $100bn (£81bn) in spending.

    The survey showed that a third of the top 58 advertisers will, or are likely to, suspend advertising, while a further 40% are also considering doing so.

    On Monday, Ford and Adidas announced their intention to halt all advertising on the platform, joining corporations including Honda, Verizon, Diageo and Unilever.

    Others, including Starbucks and Coca-Cola, have paused all advertising on social media but stopped short of officially announcing support for the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, which is coordinating the Facebook boycott.

    The boycott is also spreading outside the US. […]

    VW said it was also joining the boycott, along with Honda Europe and Ford Europe. The French state-owned utility EDF [(electricity) …] has also vetoed Facebook advertising.

    Stephan Loerke, chief executive of the World Federation of Advertisers, told the Financial Times the advertising industry was starting to request big changes from social media platforms. “In all candour,” he said, “ it feels like a turning point.”

    In an internal post on Monday reported by Axios, Microsoft revealed it had suspended all US spending on Facebook platforms in May, and had since expanded the move globally.

    Like Starbucks, Microsoft has not publicly endorsed the wider campaign […]

    Last week, the Guardian revealed how Facebook’s own policies against the organised conspiracy movement QAnon were not being enforced.

    […]

    Despite some of the world’s biggest advertisers signing on to support the boycott, Facebook’s overall revenue is unlikely to have taken a significant hit. The company generates most of its income from the so-called “long tail” — smaller advertisers who make up in number what they lack in individual spending.

  18. birgerjohansson says

    I am 99.9 % behind strict guidelines being enforced.
    The remaining 0.1 % is, sometimes social media are inconsistent and downright unfair in how this is applied.
    -The example that comes to mind is Youtube, when David Wood brought up that Muhammed had sex with his child-bride Aisha when the was 9 years old (as stated by islamic hadith itself) he got in trouble.
    When he told of Christians living in Pakistan suffering from rape and abductions (see Amnesty international and other civil rights groups for the conditions of religious minorities) he got that post removed, and his appeal got slapped down.
    I do NOT share the views of David Wood- he is a baptist with some views fetched from Fox News- but when he criticizes things done in the name of islam he makes sure to get the details right.
    And he always makes the distinction between religion and individuals belonging to that religion.
    Yet muslim fundamentalists successfully remove his postings from youtube by accusing him of hate speech.
    This works because the staff at youtube are too lazy to set the content into context, and see the difference between legit criticism and racists who hate all muslims.
    Social media need to take into account that some complaints are made by bad-faith actors.

  19. Frederic Bourgault-Christie says

    @birger: David Wood is an unrepentant sociopath and bullshit artist. Aisha’s age and status is actually contested (though I have seen no argument that does not make Mohammed a moral monster) he sure as hell won’t mention how cool Judaism has historically been with underage marriage, and that’s his best argument. The dude is actually an Islamophobe. Google for a fraction of a second and you’ll find that he goes far beyond just mentioning Aisha.

  20. Stuart Smith says

    @3 apparently because they regularly call for violent revolution and killing rich people. I don’t disagree with them necessarily, but I can understand how that would be a breach of TOS.