The media focusing on these fringe groups lends legitimacy to them and puts a spotlight on them, which in turn draws people on their side but unaware of them, to them.
By attacking it when your attacks can’t actually harm the group per se, all you’re really doing is giving it visibility. No one’s saying it’s creating racists/ bigots, but it is giving them a more powerful platform, since they’re no longer just a bunch of bigoted individuals, but are now Gamergate™, whose dumb ideas the media will publish articles about.
No one writes articles about stupid crap that people say on /b/ as individuals, but Gamergate, Q-Anon, Pizzagate, MAPs, etc all have had many tens if not hundreds of articles written about them, and they’re all just 4-chan campaigns.
I mean the flip side of this is that by doing nothing you’re letting them write the narrative. I feel like whatever this mess is, it’s starting to grow, so a more legitimate source calling it what it is can be helpful
The media focusing on these fringe groups lends legitimacy to them and puts a spotlight on them, which in turn draws people on their side but unaware of them, to them.
By attacking it when your attacks can’t actually harm the group per se, all you’re really doing is giving it visibility. No one’s saying it’s creating racists/ bigots, but it is giving them a more powerful platform, since they’re no longer just a bunch of bigoted individuals, but are now Gamergate™, whose dumb ideas the media will publish articles about.
No one writes articles about stupid crap that people say on /b/ as individuals, but Gamergate, Q-Anon, Pizzagate, MAPs, etc all have had many tens if not hundreds of articles written about them, and they’re all just 4-chan campaigns.
I mean the flip side of this is that by doing nothing you’re letting them write the narrative. I feel like whatever this mess is, it’s starting to grow, so a more legitimate source calling it what it is can be helpful