There's such a wide gap between just being an anonymous smarmy racist punk online and actually you know, going out in public and standing up for your racism.

That NC rally where things went so well kinda showed a lot of the armchair nazis that it wasn't going to be safe or comfortable to cosplay Himmler in public, and it's not any fun anymore if you know you're being a coward.

But they're not even as much of a presence online anymore.

that's what I'm saying, once the real hardcore dimwits took it to the streets, the sorta-racist-but-not-enough-to-do-anything-real majority decided it wasn't fun anymore, or too risky to be associated with

You're right. It was gradual, but Charlottesville really took the wind out of their sails. I remember it was going to be their grand march into the mainstream.

You should always consider it possible that what you're seeing isn't a change in the culture; it's a change in the algorithm. Google may be getting better at knowing what you don't want to see.

But does Twitter work that way? Four years ago I'd be on political thread on twitter and see all the Pepe's, but now I see none on the very same types of threads. It's not just the alt-right, I see fewer Tweets defending Trump.

Does Twitter work that way? Let's just say that it's Possible that twitter works that way. But Twitter is probably less algrthim driven, and it's True that I'm personally responsible for the fact that Twitter doesn't show me a lot of Trump supporters. I block them. I don't follow them. And Trump supporters do the opposite.

You can sort Tweets by popular or new. So I'll go into a thread from one of Trump's tweets and just look at them sorted by time submitted. His base just isn't there in force like they used to.

First they came for the alt-right, and I said nothing, because fuck those assclowns.

Nah. They're pretty disorganized and weak right now, and it's largely because they've been deplatformed, doxxed, and punched in the face.

Well, it's not going to have the reverse of the desired effect, because the desired effect is for Google to cover its ass.

These idiots don't understand anything, at the most fundamental level. Google is a private company, so when they don't publish your video, that's not "communism", and the first amendment doesn't mean the government can force them to publish your video. Seriously, they don't know shit.

This isn't about politics. As in talk radio and cable news, right wing YouTube is about a market for content. If you're a white male, you can easily crank out a steady stream of intellectually dishonest non-rigorous cherry-picked drivel and kickstart your career as a right-wing celebrity. If you're not a white male, well so much the better. You can be a novelty act. We won't take you seriously, but you can make a career out of proving that we're not racist.

Without the YouTube audience, politics alone isn't going to keep this cottage industry alive. Of course, white supremacism isn't going away, but this kind of ugly cynical song and dance will stop. It won't end racism, but ending racist YouTube is a good thing all by itself.

It's not about changing present Nazis, it's about keeping them from spreading their poison. You keep it in the fringes, make it harder to reach. There was a time before Charlottesville where the Alt-right ideologies seemed to be spreading quickly and gaining mainstream acceptance. Then again it was them who ruined their rise, not tech companies. The tech companies are about five years too late.

Richard Spencer looked like a wannabe tough guy and loudmouth revealed as a little wuss.

Tech companies are always five years to late because that's when it stops being profitable.

I'm guessing Neo Nazis have their own shitty websites to go to.

I agree Richard Spencer looks like a lil bitch.

But I don't know if this will result in lessening the rise of Neo Nazism. They will just claim they are victims. From what I've seen on documentaries, they have a whole recruitment based on cleaning up their appearance (wearing shirts and ties and trying to mainstream) and convincing young, poor white men that they are being kept down because of vast conspiracies. Which I'm sure they will turn this into, telling young whites that they are being discriminated against, yada yada yada lie lie lie.

For the record, no.

I do not believe that the propaganda value of AltRightiesal portraying themselves as victims of YouTube censorship approaches the propaganda value of having a platform on YouTube, but the point of this isn't stopping the rise of the alt-right, it's social media being more responsible. Eventually we're all going to get used to the idea that we can't post whatever we want on someone else 's website. There's a lot that has to be determined about the site's liability for what's published. I don't think it can be the same as a traditional publisher without destroying the internet, but a company has to have he right to edit out any content. Editing has always been arbitrary, has always been controversial and has always been necessary. Assuming that you can't just publish ANYTHING, it has to be Google, not the government, that makes the call.

JHM, I agree with that as there's no point in having a martyr message if you don't have a platform. I also heard the rise of the alt-right was aided by Youtube's algorithm with what was referred to as the anti-SJW to Alt-right pipeline, which would take people from watching anti-SJW materials to stuff further and further to the right. Same reason why Joe Rogan had been called the gateway to the alt-right.