We should let the crazies advertise themselves as crazies. Bad ideas should be exposed so they can be argued down. Suppressing ideas instead of arguing just creates a Streisand Effect entrenching them. There is another comment here, where someone analyzes the Weimar Republic's actions as doing just this. The Judiciary and Law enforcement seemed biased towards one side, which increased support for the other. The legislative government seemed to support the other side, which increased support for their opponents.
The lesson of history is clear: You shouldn't let rule of law break down. Media and the judiciary should remain impartial and not push an agenda. Suppressing expression while letting the extremists commit violence in the streets just makes things far worse.
"It received support from the government-controlled Radio Rwanda, which initially allowed it to transmit using their equipment. ... Critics claim that the Rwandan government fostered the creation of RTLM as "Hate Radio", to circumvent the fact they had committed themselves to a ban against "harmful radio propaganda" in the UN's March 1993 joint communiqué in Dar es Salaam. ... During the Genocide, the RTLM acted as a source for propaganda by inciting hatred and violence against Tutsis, against Hutus who were for the peace accord, against Hutus who married Tutsis, and by advocating the annihilation of all Tutsis in Rwanda. ... An estimated 10% of all the violence within the Rwandan Genocide is resulted from the hateful radio transmissions sent out from RTLM."
Interesting. Something I might say: given that the reigning government was supporting this stuff, as well as an animated and violent mob from the general population; and given that the "deplatforming" under discussion is done via social pressure, corporate action, and/or conceivably government intervention: how would any kind of mechanism for "deplatforming" have done anything to stifle this RTLM? If anything, such a mechanism would have been directed at dissenting voices.
"One of the major reasons that RTLM was so successful in communication was because other forms of news sources such as televisions and newspapers were not able to be as popularized because of lack of resources." Apparently there was a dissenting radio station, but Wiki says "Radio Muhabura had a much smaller audience, probably because it broadcast in English instead of Kinyarwanda", which is unfortunate. So I guess there was no need for the government to deplatform any dissenting voices, because there weren't any significant ones. Therefore, one could argue that the Rwandan genocide is an illustration of what might happen if the ruling party+mob manage to deplatform everyone who disagrees with them. :-)
> You shouldn't let rule of law break down. Media and the judiciary should remain impartial and not push an agenda
What are you calling a breakdown of the rule of law here? Which law is supposed to decide who Facebook is required republish?
What are you calling the media here? In this case people are writing their own content, and the folks being deplatformed definitely and unapologetically had an agenda.
What would impartial possibly mean? We are talking about publication of opinions, not journalism or science.
As for being "exposed and argued down", there will always be folks who won't stop an atrocious argument. They didn't sign up for a productive synthesis of ideas, and nobody else signed up for their boorishness and abuse, so it's up to the listener to walk away - as these platforms are doing. That's not suppression of expression, it's standing up for the value of your own time and community. If there is a backlash, maybe it will be more constructive than the original trolling was.
