Censoring extremists only makes them more extreme
The internet can be a cesspool for unsavory opinions. And in moments of social unrest, often social media companies err on the side of kicking off fringe users.
But does censoring extremists actually make bad ideas go away? Well, no.
In my new book, “The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All — But There Is a Solution,” my co-author Greg Lukianoff and I argue that censorship doesn’t actually stamp out bad ideas.
If anything, it usually makes extremists even more extreme.
Booting someone from a social media platform doesn’t banish them from the internet. More often than not, it actually sends them into its more obscure crevices.
Forcing people from a mainstream platform to a niche platform is a surefire way to insulate them in an echo chamber, where they only hear the opinions of people who agree with them.
Researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism have data to prove that censorship is closely correlated with even more extremism.
They found that, when Twitter (as it was known then) purged swaths of accounts over the past several years, alternative social media platforms like Gab, which is popular with alt-right and far-right users, swelled in membership.
Although Twitter’s general manager proclaimed in 2012 that the platform was the “free speech wing of the free speech party,” by 2016 the platform began rolling out mass bans of fringe accounts.
Immediately, a pattern emerged. The first purge of alt-right accounts in November 2016 coincided with a spike in users flocking to Gab, accord
ing to NCRI and the ADL.
And this happened again and again in the years to come when Twitter wiped the accounts of white nationalists, Proud Boys and InfoWars affiliates. All the while, use of the word “ban” skyrocketed on Gab.
The researchers found that “months when a Twitter mass ban took place corresponded to more than double the percent of new members on Gab than a typical month.”
The worst possible way to fight extremism is sending extremists into underground cesspools riddled with positive feedback loops and confirmation bias. People who don’t hear competing viewpoints tend only to descend deeper into a polarization spiral.
In retrospect, social media censorship seems to have done little to actually reduce the amount of hatred in the world — and, if anything, just condensed it.
Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who coined the “Law of Group Polarization,” put it best: “People who are opposed to a minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion [with one another], to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm.”
Although social media companies are understandably motivated to squelch out despicable views on their platforms, history has taught us doing so only makes matters worse.
It’s time to accept once and for all that censorship is not a solution to extremism, it’s fuel for it.
As we head into a contentious election season in the United States and plunge into war in the Middle East, surely unsavory — and outright offensive — viewpoints will be aired online.
The question at hand: If some of our fellow citizens hold condemnable views, is it better to censor them and send them underground where they will fester — or to confront the reality of what people really think, hear their views and refute them in the public square?
I, for one, would rather live in a society that favors debate over censorship — even if it means defending the free speech rights of those with the most repugnant viewpoints.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, sunlight is the best disinfectant.