Has social media made the far right more acceptable ?

[Ebeneezer Goode]

If you shout down legitimate views on mass immigration, the EU, Islam etc. as "fascist" then of course you're going to neuter the centre and drive these people further towards the political fringes. You can have an open and sensible discussion and keep these views malleable but mainstream, or you can stifle debate and surrender the issue to the nutters, but either way you can't just make them go away.

 

[Aber gas]

It depends on the definition of legimate. I don't consider sweeping generalisations and negative stereotypes of Islam or immigrants legimate so I struggle to debate openly with people who hold these prejudices. I think it's important to confront racism and prejudice by both direct action and by creating environments that make racists uncomfortable and question their own views. I think that social media has rolled back some of the good work that has been done on this and has started to normalise bigoted opinions especially regarding Islam and immigration. Again I don't think I've explained myself very well.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

I'm not particularly articulate so I think my main point has got lost through my clumsy words. I have found that that prejudice and fascist views have had a resurgence in places which have previously created environments where they are not socially acceptable eg football clubs, workplaces, pubs...I believe this is because of the online presence of groups such as Britain first et al. It's become a normalising influence which believe people are carrying into their interactions in real life.

I don't think there's a massive difference between the most shared Britain First memes and the standard output of the Sun, Express and Daily Mail. The latter are obviously more of an influence on how people think than the former.

If racism/fascism is becoming more acceptable, it's more because of the attitudes fostered by the mainstream popular press than grassroots organisation from far-right activists.

 

[Aber gas]

I don't think there's a massive difference between the most shared Britain First memes and the standard output of the Sun, Express and Daily Mail. The latter are obviously more of an influence on how people think than the former.

If racism/fascism is becoming more acceptable, it's more because of the attitudes fostered by the mainstream popular press than grassroots organisation from far-right activists.

But isn't social media now driving the traditional media? Stories are found in social media and are then taken on by the press who then in turn back them up with views found on social media. I don't know, perhaps you're right and I need to get my head out of Twitter and stop interacting with the cess pit.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

It depends on the definition of legimate. I don't consider sweeping generalisations and negative stereotypes of Islam or immigrants legimate so I struggle to debate openly with people who hold these prejudices. I think it's important to confront racism and prejudice by both direct action and by creating environments that make racists uncomfortable and question their own views. I think that social media has rolled back some of the good work that has been done on this and has started to normalise bigoted opinions especially regarding Islam and immigration. Again I don't think I've explained myself very well.

You don't need to be racist to have views on mass immigration or Islam that people will happily dismiss as bigoted though. It's important to challenge stupidity in all forms, but you do it by proving that thinking wrong with reasoned argument and (ideally) fact and figures, not with silencing tactics. The latter is tantamount to waving a white flag not just in principle but in practise too. You will not convince anyone that they're wrong simply by calling them names until they shut up. If you don't win the battle of ideas then those views will only fester and re-emerge even stronger when people have less investment in the status quo, like the upcoming and inevitable economic catastrophe...

 

[Aber gas]

You don't need to be racist to have views on mass immigration or Islam that people will happily dismiss as bigoted though. It's important to challenge stupidity in all forms, but you do it by proving that thinking wrong with reasoned argument and (ideally) fact and figures, not with silencing tactics. The latter is tantamount to waving a white flag not just in principle but in practise too. You will not convince anyone that they're wrong simply by calling them names until they shut up. If you don't win the battle of ideas then those views will only fester and re-emerge even stronger when people have less investment in the status quo, like the upcoming and inevitable economic catastrophe...

Facts and figures and reasoned argument are almost redundant when you are trying to debate with people and organisations that have a blanket, negative and generalised view on issues such as immigration and Islam. If you start from the position that all Islam is nefarious, extreme and to be resisted then I might as well debate with a block of wood because that position is inherently racist. There is no reasoned argument that will change that view so the only position I personally can adopt is one of opposition. There is a place for reasoned argument perhaps by people brighter and more coherent and with a fuck load more patience than I.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Facts and figures and reasoned argument are almost redundant when you are trying to debate with people and organisations that have a blanket, negative and generalised view on issues such as immigration and Islam. If you start from the position that all Islam is nefarious, extreme and to be resisted then I might as well debate with a block of wood because that position is inherently racist.

It most certainly isn't. Islam is just an ideology, not a race or ethnicity. Either way I disagree with that rationale. Blanket statements and generalizations are the easiest stances to refute. It's rare that anyone will change their position in font of your eyes, but you can easily make them concede ground, especially on absolutist positions like that.

 

[Aber gas]

It most certainly isn't. Islam is just an ideology, not a race or ethnicity. Either way I disagree with that rationale. Blanket statements and generalizations are the easiest stances to refute. It's rare that anyone will change their position in font of your eyes, but you can easily make them concede ground, especially on absolutist positions like that.

Fair enough, swap racist for bigoted and ignorant with racist connotations . We completely disagree on this( as with most things) I've been amongst bigots and racists, I was one and I understand how they think, when they march through Muslim areas, threaten to burn down mosques, abuse women and children because of their colour or creed, celebrate hitlers birthday and shout sieg Heil on remembrance Sunday. When they post vile memes and target people on the Internet they are not looking for reasoned debate. The only reasonable position is opposition.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

To paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, the world isn't split into good people and Nazis. You can oppose Islam on a purely liberal basis without getting anywhere near the far-right, it is an overtly racist, sexist and homophobic ideology after all. What's curious is that more liberals don't...

 

[HertsWolf]

If you shout down legitimate views on mass immigration, the EU, Islam etc. as "fascist" then of course you're going to neuter the centre and drive these people further towards the political fringes. You can have an open and sensible discussion and keep these views malleable but mainstream, or you can stifle debate and surrender the issue to the nutters, but either way you can't just make them go away.

This is an odd statement because you see in the centre what many others would consider to be to the right. You are almost claiming "the centre" for views that are on "the right" (scare quotes deliberate).

 

[HertsWolf]

But isn't social media now driving the traditional media? Stories are found in social media and are then taken on by the press who then in turn back them up with views found on social media. I don't know, perhaps you're right and I need to get my head out of Twitter and stop interacting with the cess pit.

Yes, it's quite strange: a national newspaper or an international broadcast network shows what is being said on Twitter.
It's like "Well that's all we have on this matter from our network of trained journalists in the field. Now here's what some dumb bellend sitting in his mum's basement in Welwyn Garden City says in 140 characters."

Twitter seems to be largely an instant quote machine for people who know fuck all about any subject. Like Katie Hopkins. Does anyone remember in the 1970s and 1980s, the Nine O'Clock News finishing on a story on a rabies outbreak in Peru and summarising with what four random people in, say, Nantwich thought about it?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

This is an odd statement because you see in the centre what many others would consider to be to the right. You are almost claiming "the centre" for views that are on "the right" (scare quotes deliberate).

I think the political centre in the UK is fairly right wing economically, but socially? I wouldn't say so, certainly not on the sorts of issues we've been talking about here at least.

 

[HertsWolf]

I think the political centre in the UK is fairly right wing economically, but socially? I wouldn't say so, certainly not on the sorts of issues we've been talking about here at least.

So what's the political centre?

 

[Aber gas]

To paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, the world isn't split into good people and Nazis. You can oppose Islam on a purely liberal basis without getting anywhere near the far-right, it is an overtly racist, sexist and homophobic ideology after all. What's curious is that more liberals don't...

Are you talking about the entire Islamic world? Or just bits of it? Muslims aren't just one giant bogeyman. It's the equivalent of opposing Christianity because you don't like southern baptists.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Are you talking about the entire Islamic world? Or just bits of it? Muslims aren't just one giant bogeyman. It's the equivalent of opposing Christianity because you don't like southern baptists.

I'm not talking about people at all, only ideology and scripture.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

So what's the political centre?

Well when I use the term with regard to the UK I mean the political mainstream. The space that Labour and the Conservatives occupy, for the most part.

 

[Aber gas]

I'm not talking about people at all, only ideology and scripture.

That's a very abstract thing to oppose in any meaningful way.

 

[HertsWolf]

<looks at thread title>
<looks at current discussion>

<sheikh's head>

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

That's a very abstract thing to oppose in any meaningful way.

It's easy. You use your words.

 

[The East Terrace]

EDL did a rally in Stevenage last year, even Stevenage FC could beat the turnout of EDL and counter protesters. There were more Police than anything else. The NF and ANL (Anti Nazi League) were at each other for years. It was just an excuse for a punch up. My older brothers mates were on both sides of the fence and basically now they are all in their late 40's just sit around and laugh at all now.

 

[Red]

EG is absolutely right that you don't have to be racist or bigoted if you oppose Islam. The phrase I'm not racist, but I can't stand Pakis bears that out. But seriously though he makes a fair point. There are people who seem incapable of understanding that anything else other than immigration could possibly account for the strain on public services, they're not all inherently racist or bigoted people, they just lack the capacity to understand that there are numerous factors involved.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

hur hur

More importantly there are people who approach these issues rationally and even-handedly, unabated by a zealous dedication to a particular set of social theories, or a commitment to a tribalist struggle against the right just because. It's doesn't take a Ukipper to take the view that a surplus of low and unskilled workers will drive down wages, or that the small GDP gain (that the poor don't see anyway) will be wiped out by the necessary infrastructure investments needed to cope, or that taxpayer money would be better spent at home and not abroad, or that tough EU regulations help big companies edge out smaller ones, or that we lose sovereignty under the EU, or that importing a sexist, homophobic, racist, imperialist, reformation-less desert religion might not be the best idea, or that multiculturalism is innately divisive, or that even from a basic anthropological point of view mass immigration has a very poor track record etc. etc.

You can reasonably disagree with all of those points of course, but I think to attribute them necessarily to ignorance is a form of wilful ignorance in itself.

 

[Red]

Of course it's ignorant to attribute a strain on things only on immigration. An example is people who whine about immigrants taking all council accommodation yet wilfully or not are ignorant of how successive governments have failed to undertake a serious social housing building project.

 

[Aber gas]

God bless you red. I couldn't be arsed.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Of course it's ignorant to attribute a strain on things only on immigration. An example is people who whine about immigrants taking all council accommodation yet wilfully or not are ignorant of how successive governments have failed to undertake a serious social housing building project.

Yes, just as it's ignorant to point to a small GDP gain and argue that it makes us all better off, which some on the the other side of the argument do, but so what? The point is not that all pro-immigration control positions are enlightened, it's that they're not all ill-informed either. Whether you can point to a random ignorant argument is neither here nor there. It amounts to nothing more than a straw man.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Social media creates echo chambers. If you're a far right nutter you surround yourself with fellow minded people on your social media and it'll seem like the whole world agrees with you.

Exactly the same, if you're far left, or indeed any particular political leaning, not just far one way or the other.

My moderate lefty friends on my social media were utterly dumbfounded over the general election, because their impression from their corners of the internet was that almost the entire country wanted to lynch the Tories. Turns out their echo chamber of nasty Tory this and George Osbourne that didn't constitute the entire population.

Just in the same way as Britain First's facebook efforts might get shared thousands of times, but only mostly around the same X thousand people who all move in similar social networking circles. It doesn't mean they actually grow in number or that the popularity of their particular views increase.

I happen to have a lot of Football supporters and football minded people on my social media, including a high number of Bournemouth supporters. It doesn't mean the entire country love football or support Bournemouth.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Just got a post in my timeline on facebook from a delightful group called "Infidels of Britain".

It wasn't there because any of my friends shared it. Or any of my friends had liked it. It was there because a facebook friend of a facebook friend had commented under the racist meme calling it out as such.

Which means that every time you try to counter fascist/racist propaganda on facebook, you're potentially sharing the racist meme not only to all your friends, but all your friends' friends as well. If everyone has 200-odd friends, that means your comment might expose 40,000 new people to the meme.

Cheers, facebook, for disseminating racist propaganda so efficiently.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

It works the same way for any kind of propaganda, surely.

 

[Alty]

"The soft far-right".

Well that's a new one...

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

"The soft far-right".

Well that's a new one...

It's not if you think for a bit about it.

Sent from my SM-A300FU using Tapatalk