Utterly nonsensical. You don't need the internet to be radicalized, people have been willing to kill in the name of their convictions for as long as humans have existed. I predict even if somehow every white supremacist were booted off the internet, no lives at all would be saved, as they just don't need the internet to kill people, or to learn to hate.
This is purely giving up rights for the sake of security theatre.
You don't accept that the internet has enabled people with obscure and extreme views to better find each other, legitimize each other, spread their views and recruit others to their causes?
better find each other, legitimize each other, spread their views and recruit others to their causes?
It's allowed everyone to do that. That's why we have more acrimony today. Allow a level playing field, and the violent stupid losers will lose. Start taking away people's rights, and you've only given those toxic people a pretext. (Which is exactly what the Christchurch shooter was trying to do.)
Are the stupid flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers losing? No, they're doing much better than they ever were before, thanks to Internet platforms.
Yes, relatively speaking. Everyone is more organized and connected. Everyone has more media creation capability. Everyone is more deeply ensconced in like-minded groups and more deeply taken by groupthink. This is no different than most everyone in the industrialized world having access to refrigerators, washing machines, and antibiotics. (Note that we aren't as acrimonious about the misuse of that last one, even though it's arguably just as bad or worse as vaccine shenanigans in the long term. Could that be due to the perpetrators being of high socioeconomic level?)
What you want to do is to single out a segment of the population, give up on them, and withhold the benefits of progress from them. That's a big red flag right there. We shouldn't have a society where the majority gets to arbitrarily suppress the minority. A part of the point of the US constitution is that the minority is also protected from the majority.
If you are really for justice and equality, then don't ask for the power to create second class citizens.
Say by allowing a clearly incompetent and deranged lunatic the same airtime as his opponent? Or by giving a racist grifter airtime on a flagship political program?
> and the violent stupid losers will lose.
Alas, Trump won. Farage won. Bolsonaro won. Duterte won. The violent stupid losers keep winning despite their views getting wide public airings.
No, I don't. Neo-nazis have always existed, have always killed people, and have always been very few. Same for any other group you care to name. Violence overall is on a down trend.
Why should the web be treated any different to radio or TV?
A cable news channel doesn't get carte blanche to broadcast uncensored beheading or mass shooting videos at any hour of the day so why should a website not be obliged to take steps to curb the exact same thing?
This is purely giving up rights for the sake of security theatre.