The retreat to Voat was highly detrimental to the fascists because it massively hindered recruitment, the most effective form of which was to have moderator control of large subreddits not explicitly about politics, but saturated with far-right memes / "ironic" jokes, to slowly normalise and inculcate those ideas in people who are originally just there out of interest in some hobby. In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers. It's a much greater leap than from one subreddit to another.
> learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution
If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
> Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument
Two points: (a) the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal. In the case of far-right content, it almost entirely consists of arguments against straw men, citing pseudoscience, deceitful abuse of statistics, and grandiose appeals to emotion. You can consume countless hours of content without actually encountering a genuine debate.
(b) Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
> In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers.
That's exactly the problem. It creates a space where there is nothing but fascist propaganda so that anyone who ends up there gets trapped in an extremist bubble where nobody who could bring the back to reality ever goes to rescue them.
Meanwhile if you want to give them a recruitment tool, start censoring anything even slightly right of center so that moderates start looking for a platform that doesn't.
Which plays right into their stupid conspiracy theory narrative because now they have real instances of censorship they can point to in claiming the "truth" they're telling you is being suppressed.
> If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
Violence isn't speech. Violence is illegal.
If somebody wants to argue that you shouldn't marry outside of your "race" because of some ridiculous Jewish conspiracy, make the argument why they're wrong. If they commit an act of violence, put them in jail.
> the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal
It's a discussion forum. The rebuttal is you posting a rebuttal. There are more of you than there are of the fascists, right? Because otherwise we've already got a bit of a problem, democracy-wise.
> Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.
You're not expected to convince the zealot. You're expected to convince the audience why the zealot is a zealot. Appeals to "Jewish science" and the like are how they lose the audience, because the only people who are going to buy that are the other zealots.
Having the debate does very much overall, because it's how we got to the point where most people aren't fascists. The fascists are the ones whose ideas aren't strong enough to stand without censoring the opposition. When your position can stand up to scrutiny you don't need to censor the opposition.
The retreat to Voat was highly detrimental to the fascists because it massively hindered recruitment, the most effective form of which was to have moderator control of large subreddits not explicitly about politics, but saturated with far-right memes / "ironic" jokes, to slowly normalise and inculcate those ideas in people who are originally just there out of interest in some hobby. In contrast, very few people go to Voat who aren't already true believers. It's a much greater leap than from one subreddit to another.
> learning to accept that other people disagree with you and have contrary opinions is a much more robust solution
If there are people who believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race through miscegenation, and they advocate for violent resistance in response, then "learning to accept" that is not in any way a solution.
> Inoculating the population to fascist rhetoric by publicly winning the debate against it with reasoned argument
Two points: (a) the overwhelming majority of political content consists of arguments presented without rebuttal. In the case of far-right content, it almost entirely consists of arguments against straw men, citing pseudoscience, deceitful abuse of statistics, and grandiose appeals to emotion. You can consume countless hours of content without actually encountering a genuine debate.
(b) Have you ever watched a debate between a fascist and a non-fascist? Even in response to comprehensive dismantling of their ideas, fascists remain completely insensible to facts (they can always fall back on "fake Jewish science") or reason. Some small fraction of viewers may be convinced by the debates, but the mere fact of something having been cogently debunked does very little overall.