Elon Musk makes $43 Billion offer for private buyout of Twitter

efil4stnias said

so you want to see it coming when it graduates from speech to action.

Id argue that if the folks who held those beliefs had no platform to coalesce and get frothy and coordinate, there would be no action to worry about.

These fringe folk have existed for centuries. Only now have a public place to congregate and share, while pulling in more meek-minded individuals, amassing a following that would have never happened if it werent for the platform itself.

Again, if the hate speech is removed, it never happened. 1000s of eyes never see it and no opportunity to amplify/engender others that may be easily manipulated.

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I mean, that's all true, but their presence on social media does bring those things into public view and can alert law enforcement before they take action. In the past those things were still discussed and the meek were still recruited. But, it was all done in private where nobody knew it was happening. In some ways, I think it's better for it to be in public so we know about it, can do something about it, and can refute it in public. It's part of why although I get why people leave Twitter, I think rational people should stay there to call out the bullshirt.

Hate crimes have always existed. They certainly existed before social media and I'm not sure that social media has done anything to increase them as much as it has made people more aware of them. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think there were likely many more racially motivated crimes and beatings in the 30s, 40, 50s, 60s, and 70s than there are now. We likely just didn't have the ability to keep track of them during those years because much of it was being done by authority figures.