Thread by @peterwsinger

Recent Violence Foreshadowed in Social Media
@wsj wsj.com/articles/viole…

Note: As discussed in piece, we lead more of our lives online, so more of these violent intentions are revealed there.

So more can be done about it.

However... 1/x

@WSJ However, the data shows that, despite the "both sides" mantra, in killing our fellow Americans, violent right wing extremism is well ahead (data before the attacks: 71% of the deaths caused vs 3% by left wing, 26% jihadi; 17 to 1 ratio in attacks overall
defenseone.com/threats/2018/0…

Many of the same efforts to limit ISIS et al from these spaces could be applied to violent domestic extremism. But the very imbalance of the problem means that these efforts to police it would be framed as a conspiracy by partisans who care more about party than violence.

Witness the reactions, including by major GOP political/media figures after Alex Jones was deplatformed. Indeed, I'm sure the firms would have loved to have booted a left equivalent to Jones, to show balance...but there wasn't one of that scale and success in virality.

And then add in all the "working the referees" on fake news issues, such as the spread of false claims of "shadowbanning," a conspiracy to steal their (bot) followers, etc, made by those all the way up the president himself.

So the outcome for the tech firms is a horrible irony:
In trying to avoid looking biased, because they are constantly attacked for being biased, we have seen the kind of actual bias and hate that leads to violence allowed to flourish.