ADL Report Calls for Deplatforming Websites at Infrastructure Level
Jose Nino
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According to a report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the middle of February, online platforms and other internet services must deplatform individuals and entities they considered to be “far-right extremist.” The goal is to effectively limit these hard right entities’ reach. The ADL’s Center for Technology and Society Belfer fellow Megan Squire authored the report.
In drawing up the report, Squire studied four deplatformed websites, which included the forum website The Donald, website The Daily Stormer, forum 8chan, and nationalist activist Nick Fuentes.
Squire analyzed the individuals and sites’ popularity prior to and after they were deplatformed. She said the objective here is all about limiting the dissemination of hateful ideology, not slashing traffic. Per Squire, deplatforming is an effective means of attaining that goal.
“Deplatforming websites—removing infrastructure services they need to operate such as website hosting—can reduce the spread and reach of extremism and hate online,” she stated.
Deplatforming also has a financial impact on content creators in other ways. For example, Fuentes was deplatformed from YouTube and compelled to shoulder the cost of hosting his content on his website. On YouTube, he freely hosted his content while simultaneously being able to monetize it. As of now, “he has to run all of that infrastructure himself. He has to find the developers, he has to maintain the website, he has to pay for all that bandwidth,” Squire outlined.
Interestingly, the content creators Squire reported on have survived even after being deplatformed. Others have disappeared altogether. She noted that although deplatforming “works,” the websites’ and platforms’ creators usually “bounce back because there is someone out there that will replatform them.”
It’s become abundantly clear that the ruling class and its appendages in the NGO industrial complex want to thoroughly destroy right-wing content creators’ ability to make a living. These people aren’t playing around. They know they can’t destroy free speech via conventional legislative means so they turn to corporations to do their dirty work.
The Right must recognize this and respond accordingly by clamping down on corporations who partake in such actions.
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