Worth your time: New report by @beccalew & @datasociety that examines the links between members of the intellectual dark web praised in the NY Times, and more extreme white supremacist views. 1/ datasociety.net/output/alterna…
The most substantive point is that social media business models are pushing people on to more and more extreme content. Others have made this point - below - but report also shows how some people have become skilled at taking advantage of this problem. 2/
This graph has been the one getting most attention, showing the overlapping worlds of the respectable intellectual dark web and the people who have no inhibitions in push explicitly racist ideas. 3/ 
Example: Dave Rubin, hub of the intellectual dark web, hosts Stefan Molyneaux, who uses long-debunked theories of black's mental inferiority. The exposure helps to vault Molyneaux to become one of the internet's leading authorities on IQ 4/
Search for Stefan Molyneaux on google, and you get a mix of Intellectual Dark Web (Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson) types to Alex Jones, Cernovich, Tommy Robinson 5/
Members of the intellectual dark web, fearless engagers of hard questions, have attacked the report without rebutting the basic claims. Facts don't care about your feelings, but data-based analysis can give you all the sads. 6/
Obviously, part of the schtick of the intellectual dark web is they will talk to anyone. But when you are incapable of offering a reasoned response against conspiracy theorists who are challenging settled science with bullshit you are effectively legitimating their views. 7/
Reminded of @AliceDreger's on why she chose not to take part in the intellectual dark web fashion parade, despite the temptation of an NY Times profile. "Opinion is not scholarship, it is not journalism, and we are dying for lack of honest, fact-based, slow inquiry." 8/
Its become harder to sustain the fiction that there is a clear dividing line between the respectable face of the new right - like Shapiro - and the however the fuck you characterize ppl like Molyneaux. As far as the algorithms are concerned, they are on the same team. 9/
I often think about the fact that someone who killed six people at a Mosque was a big Ben Shapiro fan. Wouldn't that make you second-guess some of what you said? Shapiro brushed it off. He will start his new show on Fox this month. 10/
montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/i-…
montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/i-…
