[_bxg1]

> "Cancel culture" [is an important tool] to defend against these bad faith exploitive uses of public communication

I would say it's more like a social cytokine storm. If distrust in general is an immune-system, we're reaching a point of autoimmune disease.

But I do think deplatforming is an important tool. At the risk of stretching the metaphor, it's more like antibiotics. It reduces inflammation instead of increasing it, and while some non-destructive entities may get caught up in it, they're generally nonessential, it's generally a small portion, and they'll recover.

[picometer]

Thank you for this metaphor - it brings clarity and refocuses the discussion on the dynamics of the whole system.

Of course there are a few key differences between cells and modern humans: (a) we have empathy, and (b) we are are much more interconnected. This means that if a non-destructive entity is harmed, e.g. an unjustly deplatformed person, this produces a signal that propagates to others who were not deplatformed, through the story being shared and empathized with. So the antibiotic-like harm is much less containable.

If we want to use “deplatforming” as a tool, don’t think it’s even possible to effectively do. The high connectivity of human social relations means that there will always be another “platform” for their message to propagate. This is especially true with social technology (printing press, digital social media) although I suspect it was also true beforehand. Not even, say, executing someone is guaranteed to suppress their message. (Extreme example: Jesus/Christianity.)

[ajhurliman]

If we're using an autoimmune disease as the metaphor, may I suggest steroids as the analog to deplatforming instead of antibiotics?

[_bxg1]

But steroids only decrease the inflammation, they don't combat the original problem. If the inflammation is there because of a real pathogen, steroids are dangerous. Antibiotics decrease inflammation by tackling the original problem without a need to also increase inflammation.

(It is at this point I'd like to point out that I don't have a medical background and may be going out of my depth for the sake of analogy :P)

[santoshalper]

That's a very interesting analogy.

[_bxg1]

I've used this analogy in my head between bodily inflammation and social unrest for a long time. It's been very useful. And it explains some contradicting viewpoints that different people have on, say, riots.

If social unrest is inflammation then it's easy to see how it's neither good nor bad without context. It incurs a cost, but in many cases that cost is worth the change that it creates. But not always. A fever can help kill an infection, but it can also kill or otherwise damage the host if it goes too far.