This is for people who think deplatforming doesn’t work

Man I gotchu this once for the sake of a solid discourse. Here are some research papers showcasing that de-platforming does in fact work as a net negative for the content creator.

Klinenberg, Danny, Does Deplatforming Work? Unintended Consequences of banning far-right content creators from social media (January 27, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4019767 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4019767

Abstract from the paper:

" Social media has become an outlet for extremists to fundraise and organize on, potentially leading to deadly externalities. While governments deliberate on how to regulate this challenge, some social media companies have removed creators of offensive content deplatforming. I estimate the effects of deplatforming on revenue and viewership, using variation in the timing of removals across two video-streaming companies- YouTube, and its far-right competitor, Bitchute. I construct a novel dataset including Bitcoin wallets linking YouTube and Bitchute accounts for 79 far-right content creators, including propagandists for violent domestic extremist movements. Being deplatformed on Youtube results in a 30% increase in weekly Bitcoin revenue and a 50% increase in viewership on Bitchute. This increase in Bitchute activity accounts for about 65% of the estimated foregone revenue and 5.9% of viewership lost from YouTube, implying a negative net effect of deplatforming."

Rauchfleisch, Adrian and Kaiser, Jonas and Kaiser, Jonas, Deplatforming the Far-right: An Analysis of YouTube and BitChute (June 15, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3867818 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3867818

Abtract from the paper:

" The content moderation practice of deplatforming, i.e. the removal of undesired actors, has become common on social media platforms such as YouTube. Little research has gone into understanding the scope and impact of deplatforming. In our study, we are particularly interested in the deplatforming of far-right channels to understand the impact deplatforming has on them. To do so, we analyze two datasets: We check whether 11,198 YouTube channels have been removed in 22 months between 2018 and 2019 and for what reason. We then focus on the far-right and check whether the deplatformed far-right channels have found a new home on the alternative video platform BitChute. Our analysis shows that deplatforming is effective in minimizing the reach of disinformation and extreme speech, as alternative platforms that will allow this kind of content cannot mitigate the negative effect of being deplatformed on YouTube"

See the rest here:

This is for people who think deplatforming doesn't work