Self-policing social media

Just a quick PSA this week. We've been seeing Twitter taking a stand on accounts that broadcast hate, and/or that belong to neo-Nazis and other forms of racists (I don't like to use "white nationalist" because it obscures what these guys are actually preaching), and that's a long overdue step.

However, my PSA is a reminder that these things are self-policing, to a certain extent. I don't know about you, but when I first started using social media and playing online games, I'd see people being racist or homophobic, and I'd roll my eyes, wring my hands and wonder why the worst people congregate on the internet.

In one case, some brat on World of Warcraft thought the expression "sand niggers" was so hilarious that he (I'm assuming it was a he) copied and pasted it repeatedly on a group chat. I played on, without interacting with this person, and then mentioned it to my flatmate, who also played, in a what-can-you-do sort of way. And he just said, "Report it."

I haven't had much call to think about that exchange until recently (since 20 January 2017, to be precise), but it's stuck with me, and I've found myself taking that advice much more often. I'm also proud to say that almost all of the accounts I've reported have been found by Twitter to be in violation.

My reporting them probably didn't tip the balance either way, but it does feel like taking a stand, in a very low-stakes kind of way, for the type of online environment I'd like to see. It's not about stifling free speech, because I don't report people who are being jerks, and it's not about protecting myself from opposing viewpoints, because Nazis and white supremacists are not viewpoints that belong in the mainstream (mainly because why the fuck should you debate the merits of an ideology that wants to annihilate you?).

It's also a response to the nihilism of certain folks, usually young white guys, who like to make comments like this but then write them off as jokes. We can give the likes of PewDiePie the benefit of the doubt (but only the first time), but if they're just spouting racist and anti-Semitic comments to get laughs, we need to let them know it's not funny.

This is different from the Nazi-punching argument that erupted on the internet back in January when Richard Spencer getting punched turned into a meme. You might persuade yourself not to do anything by telling yourself that some racist is just going to report Black Lives Matter or something, but so what? If someone reports me for saying that I think the police shouldn't extrajudicially murder black people, Twitter's going to reject that report immediately, because that statement is not an incitement to race war or to go out and hurt anyone.

(BTW, I'm not only singling out white supremacists here. The reason my examples have all been related to Nazis is that in my day-to-day life I've never come across Islamist fundamentalist hate speech. I know it's out there, because I've heard ISIS/Daesh's Twitter game is on point, but for whatever reason I don't see it)

So take responsibility for the kind of online environment you want to see, just as surely as you should for real life. If someone started putting up swastikas in your town, you'd probably get the police to do something about it before Nazis overran the place. Nobody would expect you to take the law into your own hands, but whether on the street or on Twitter, it's up to people of good faith and honest ideals to work together to deny hate a place to flourish and attract more followers. And this isn't an abstract ideal, either: Heather Heyer was run over while protesting against neo-Nazis, while Jo Cox was shot and stabbed by someone who'd been indoctrinated by xenophobic hate.

So get reporting.