If you have not heard about alt-right, it’s a far-right movement that began, according to George Hawley, in 2008. It is a loosely organized anti-systemic movement, and its main fundaments are white supremacism, racism, and misogyny. Some people even compare alt-right to neo-Nazism. How did it happen, that such an extreme movement became so successful in 21st century? It’s because it has won the meme war on the Internet.
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From the beginning of that movement alt-righters where aggressive towards their political enemies. Because they were mainly present on sites like 4chan or reddit where users are given much more anonymity than more popular social media such as Facebook, they didn’t hold back and used offensive language or even death threats against people with opposite views. Because of the lack of responsibility, they became increasingly radical and weren’t afraid of fighting people from the other side of political spectrum. The left, on the other hand, would rather close themselves in their “safe-spaces”, when everyone should feel, well, safe. Because of that they didn’t allow anyone who was even slightly opposing their views. That’s why when they were confronted by the alt-righters, most of them wouldn’t even talk to them, but instead of that ignore or ban them. But because of that for someone not familiar with their ideology it seemed like they just retreated, which could lead to validation of their opponents’ ideas. Because the left rejected confrontation with the alt-right, they lost the ability to defend their beliefs against them.
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| Man with a flag of Kekistan, which is an alt-right symbol |
Right now, it seems that the alt-right is in the decline. It happened because of multiple reasons, such as backlash of the Unite the Right rally, in which one of the alt-righters drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others, more effective actions against hate speech from major social media companies and the fact that the alt-right is a very loosely organized movement which, in my opinion, is unable to build any form of government. That being said, I believe that it would be naïve to assume that there will be no similar political movement in the future. And next time it may be necessary to be able to face them in a debate, not just wait for them to fall.
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Questions:
- Why do you think the alt-right was so much more appealing for young men on the internet compared to the left or the centrists?
- Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
- Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
Comments
My guess is, that alt-right have spoken to inner emotions like fear or anger more successfully than the left or centrists have done. It is
Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
That's a hard question. I think that freedom of speech has its value when false information can be address publicly and we can evaluate something as true or not. Right now, the amount of information is so high that we cannot test each one by one. Therefore I think that blatantly false content should be banned. As in any case, we need a balance between censorship and freedom of speech. I think the limit we should not cross is incitement to violence.
Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
I REALLY HOPE THAT WON'T BE THE CASE. We should rely on authorities and resist the temptation to have an opinion about everything.
I think freedom of speech isn’t about freedom of hurting other people. There’s a saying in Poland, that “your freedom ends when another person’s begins”. And I think it’s logical. As long as your freedom of speech isn’t abusive to anyone, it’s your right. But when you’re abusive, when you try to hurt someone and present such anti-human-rights point of view, it’s a crime. At least that’s what I would call it and I hope it won’t be allowed in social media or public media, because we need to keep in mind, that freedom isn’t about attacking others.
I think it already is a dangerous movement. Anti-vaccs and all that flat-earthers etc., are a serious threat to other people. If there was a way to isolate them from people that do believe in science, it’d be the best possible option in my honest opinion. I know it might sound cruel, but think about it – do we let criminals live out in the society? No, we put them in prison, to either isolate or to make them change their ways. I’ve read thousands of posts and comments by doctors and nurses that had to fight for the lives of newly born children, who caught some rare disease from not-vaccinated kid. Some vaccines cannot be injected into the bodies of new-borns, but the new-borns still can have contact with a child that’s older (for ex. in a health centre’s waiting room) and is only carrying some virus that is not dangerous to them, but to the new-born they can be even lethal. And as we face the COVID19 pandemic, anti-vaccination movements are even a bigger threat than it already was. Because when we finally will get vaccines, the virus will be able to mutate faster and get immune to them by infecting anti-vaccs. It’s horrible to even think about it.
2. That's a really complicated topic. I think that in the end the freedom of speech will prevail. I am not really the fan of the trend to express your thoughts in today's world. People who usually chant and talk too much are dumb and people who keep their thoughts to themselves and draw conclusions are the smart ones.
So when it comes to people who support racism, nazism, homophobia - of course the world would have been the better place without them. But in order to keep one group shut, the same should apply to sodomites, feminists and other not too friendly far-left communities. Now that would've been just.
But we live in the world where the freedom of speech is the main virtue. And in our world everyone will be able to speak up, wether he's a far-right nazi or a helicopter-pansexual-transgender with 3 adopted kids .
3. I think that our world at some point will have to implement the "Save the Earth" program which will imply radical changes of how do we exploit technology and nature. Probably some countries will continue to drag the Earth climate to the point of non-return. I don't think that Western countries will be the stubborn ones. Probably the problem will be in less developed countries like Russia, India, maybe China and other World's grand polluters. I wonder if war under this cause is possible...? Anyway after 2020 seems like everything's possible now.
Racist/homophobic/mysogynist language should be banned, but as far as I'm concerned, problem is controlling what is and what isn't banable content. In many cases, baning racist language leads even to inverted racism. I can't really see any good solution to that problems, because both sides of that conflict (racists and banning racist content) can abuse in that matter.
Anti-vac movement is already dangerous trend. Problem is that anti-vac simpletons will not only get sick, but they will contribute to mutating virus, ergo it becomes more dangerous to those who are vaccinated. Other trends like flat-earth, that are simply stupid but harmless, at least for health. I think that flat-earth/anti-5g/others trends are dangerous to the society. Groups like that pull to them usually people with lower education or low life situation. It's not as dangerous as anti-vac but still, it can impact kids.
2. No. I think everybody should be able to tell everybody what they think about what. We can limit somebody's views on a private platform of course, but we cannot make global law for that. If we were to, who will be to decide what is good and what is bad? It's not binary and it is good to discuss. We might fight with aggression, but not with opinions.
3. Yes, I see a danger in that. Actually, this morning I was thinking about it. There are new statistics that show that as a result of anti-vaccination movements, measles is becoming more and more common again. But you cannot fight them, because they will become more sure, that everything is a conspiracy and "they are trying to lock our mouths!". I am not sure what could be the solution for these movements, but I see that an environment is already ready: we have all these weird Facebook groups in which people can write everything. More and more people are using the internet, but many of them don't use it properly to check the evidence.
This may be related to the progress of civilization and the spreading popularity of violence in various content, mainly in games. We feel unpunished on the Internet and we have the courage to express extreme views that rub against the unjust or offensive. The fact that the men used to chose alt-right is probably due to their inherent rebellion against the system.
2.Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
I think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media. In my interpretation, freedom of speech exists as long as our words don't particularly hurt others. It's clear that the above content can hurt people from certain social groups. Let us respect each other and not be offended.
3.Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
I think the anti-vaccine movement is already a very aggressive and dangerous movement. You can't see it physically like crowds of people on the streets, but the effects of their actions are clearly visible on the Internet. This movement is gaining more and more followers, especially in times of a pandemic. Our brain works so that it likes to have a clear explanation of each phenomenon. We know little about covid, but anti-vaccines provide their clear and consistent arguments that convince a crowd of people. Coupled with desperate maneuvers by European governments in the wake of the pandemic, anti-vaccines only grow stronger.
I think racist, homophobic and misogynist content is already to some degree banned on social media, at least when people report it. Personally I think that banning all type of certain content is not the best solution, It would be far better to educate people.
I hope that anti-vaccination, anti-science or anti-technology movements won’t achieve very large scale in the future. I think that most of society is well educated and do not believe in theories that children in primary school can disprove. This all conspiracy movements probably will be limited to small groups, otherwise it means that this whole system is a failure.
In my opinion, this is due to ease of assosiating right-wing, traditional values with masculinity, bravery and strenght. Left-wing organizations, might cause someone to feel that their traditional concept of strength is endangered by the new ideas introduced by feminist movements. Being centrist however, involves developing your own opinion on some topic, which may seem unattractive and hard to those who prefer repeating someone else's opinions.
Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
Yes, in a situation where someone posts some controversial content, targeting some group or minority, driven by hate towards those people. On the other hand, I feel that banning everything is not optimal since in such condtions, it can be impossible to adress issues regarding these groups of people.
Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
I hope that such movements will stop to grow in strength and the ideas introduced by them will die out as soon as possible. I think that such way of thinking is dangerous. For example children of anti-vac parents can become very ill as soon they come in contact with those vaccinated.
Well, first, we don't know if it is true at all. Maybe it's more likely to see them on some internet board shouting and so on, but are there more right than left ones? Who knows, you should somehow measure it, perhaps, only by questioning all the people about their choice. But yeah, a loud minority can look like the majority. That is the truth for left movements too.
2.Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
It's an attack. Yeah, you shouldn't hate someone because of sex or skin colour, but if you want - okay, it's your life, your choice. And mine will be to avoid you. But banning is a dangerous way and you can't be sure that it won't end in a dictatorship.
3.Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
There are already. If science brings us better live conditions, anti-science will oppositely move us. Moreover, I just don't realize what is going on in minds of people who believe in "Flat Earth" and use the Internet every day.
The problems of young men are often neglected, similarly to how alt-right as a phenomenon was being ignored until it became prominent. Men with serious issues seek help on the internet and we know that many social media are dominated by alt-right. To summarize, it appears that the alt-right community was the first one to address everyday problems faced by men. It will take time for other voices of reason to be heard by the same target audience.
2. Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
It really depends. Offence is taken, not given. What I mean is that it’s hard to predict how everyone will feel about any statement. For sure there should be measures in social media preventing people from getting offended. However, too much speech policing will make any serious discourse impossible. Facts should not be concealed by “that’s racist” or “that’s sexist” accusations.
3. Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
Anti-vaccination movement resembles a religious movement to some extent. People who think differently are heretics, leaders of the movement are blindly followed by the members. Looking how long various religions have lasted, anti-vaccination movement is here to stay, unfortunately.
First of all it's because right-wing point of view is easier to absorb. It's easier to make invisible enemies such as polish, mythical LGBT ideology, refugees or cultural-marxist ideology (whatever that three phrases mean). It's easier to explain evilness of the world with those "enemies". Secondly, most of young men (or man at all) are brought up in patriarchy culture, where the men has power, has more privileges and usually people, all men and woman, don't even realize that they have those priviledges. When some "other" people want the same rights, they might feel threatened, they might feel that they're actually loosing rights, when all they loose is priviledge. You can compare it to the hot case right now in USA, where young people are talking about cancelling college debt. Older people that payed off they debt are saying that they have to pay it so you have to as well. Or to simplify (you probably heared something like that from your family or just simply older people) that "we lived in worse times, so you have to go through the same or similar".
2. Do you think that racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. content should be banned from social media, or is it attack on freedom of speech?
It is proven that a certain paradox of tolerance exists. It means that you can't tolerate intolerance beacuse in the end you end up with only intolerance and consent to violence. That's the problem with centrists, based on their believes everyone can express their opinons no matter how extreme or damageing they are. I belive that some oppinions shouldn't be said in public. Being racist, misogynist or homophobic is not an oppinion because human right are not under debate.
3. Do you think that anti-vaccination movement (or anti-science movement in general) will become the next dangerous populist movement of the West?
We as a society in Poland have a problem with the quality of education. Poles don't belive their doctors. Even doctors don't necessarly belive in theories that are scientificly proven. That's why anti-science movements are becoming mainstream. It's easier to belive in conspiracy theories when you are badly educated and don't understand certain mechanisms of the world. Also we have a problem with problem with fake news. Young people are not being thaught how to distinguish real news from the fake ones. However older people are not as familiar as the younger generations with the internet as a whole so it's easier to manipulate them with biased or simply fake news.