This is such a braindead take. Humanity is networked. You can cut a link, but you can't disconnect someone from yourself unless you yeet them out of existence

Drive them into bigot echo chambers and someone has to deal with them thinking everyone is secretly as bigoted as them

Respond in kind - if they're rational, defeat them with reason. If they're a dumbfuck, quote then and mock how stupid their words are. If they're a troll, counter troll them

And when they feel bad for saying bad things, offer an olive branch. Highlight the path back to being a respectable person

You don't need to be equipped to do it all - I'm personally good at counter trolling and reaching out to those already verbally beaten down

We all have to live with these people - we all have a have a responsibility to do our part. Give them the social rejection they deserve when they say unacceptable things - people who don't learn from logic learn emotionally, so make them feel bad. It's ok to attack those attacking others unfairly - just always leave a path back to acceptance

Kill them or rehabilitate them - those are the only options that fix the problem

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's less about cutting them off as a person and more about banning them from a page, group, or platform. Like banning them from a Mastodon instance or Lemmy server.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

That's my point - you're cutting them off from negative feedback in a very low risk setting. They still vote. They come to Thanksgiving. They work and shop around you. And most people don't quit social media after getting a ban - they find somewhere more hospitable. They go soothe each other by turning bigotry into a sense of belonging. Then, having normalized saying horrible things, it comes out elsewhere

The better outcome is that a healthy community circles around them and calls them an asshole, and hopefully a few people explain why they're being an asshole

Yes, feelings can be hurt, but this is a best case scenario even on that front - when someone says something terrible to you and the community leaps to your defense, it hurts a lot less. I'd go so far as to call it empowering

Some people need safe spaces, because they've been traumatized. Safe spaces should exist for people to heal - but they should be limited and small corners.

Humans need to mix. They naturally adjust to social norms - I think the last decade has shown us that bigots who hold their tongue are much better than ones convinced it's socially acceptable to say horrible things

Moderation has a place, but it should be dedicated only to keeping the community healthy - a healthy community is a community that can police itself. Spammers have no place in a healthy community, because they exploit the medium of communication. Doxing is generally the same. Continuous personal attackers eventually prove they deserve exile from the community. A community under attack from outsiders might need a more decisive hand to return to health

But a healthy community should have dissidents. Modern communities are just little shards of society as a whole - if you're not spreading social norms you're just an echo chamber. You have to spread that health outwards, because we're all connected at the end of the day - the people we ban don't go away, we deny them the pressure to rehabilitate when we decide to keep them out of our online platforms. They're still there in the real world