I think de-platforming is a misnomer. For a dialogue be able to take place there are certain prerequisites, for one there needs to be a common ground. In this case that’s reality and so there’s fundamental problem here. One side talks about hoaxes and fairy tales. If you talk about fairy tales or any believe not based in the real world, your opponent needs to be in on that. Otherwise you will never talk about the same thing.
In short: Parler was a forum like app where mostly alt-right conregated, to make plans about violent attacks, before and following the Capitol attack incited by Trump. Aferwards social media came down on these corners of the internet and took the acces of their platforms away.
So for any side to be taken seriously they need to be able ascertain some kind of information source that’s more or less reliable. That’s a start. After that you can find the subject you want to talk about and begin to build your argument. All the people who are not happy and think they have a problem of a certain kind, I don’t deny the honesty or existence of their pain. But if people are not able to point out the ground source of that pain, no dialogue will take place.
What happens now is not denying free speech or de-platforming but trying to stop the spread of a virus. A virus that is misinformation, lies and inciting violence. Parler, Twitter and all their social media ilk are a hotbed for all those who wish harm to as many people as possible, themselves included. Without curbing this disease we allow it to keep blindly inflicting harm to everyone. I don’t get why people would invoke ‘free speech’, ‘dialogue’ or any other form of rational conversation. What happened to lying being wrong? In my opinion social media have a responsibility to do their due diligence and to at least do the bare minimum of asking their users to not wantonly spread misinformation. In this day and age a lie about someone being a paedophile gets innocents killed. Too many see themselves as hero’s and act as vigilantes. This has nothing to do with ratio, but just basic human decency. It’s not that hard.
Some people point out that all those yellow vests and Trumpists show us that we need to take them seriously. But I think those people themselves don’t know what they need. It’s not an homogenous group, it’s a smattering of all kinds of people that are not happy for one reason or another, imagined or not. When we talk about those people and see them as one group I think that’s disingenuous. Of course people need to be heard, but here it’s just the angry buzzing of a beehive. And all those bees do or want something else. Yes, they are part of a whole, that is, the beehive or society. But to point out the problems that the whole group has in common is not possible.
This as opposed to for example BLM protesters, they have, as a group one problem that holds them together. Systemic racism, this is an existing problem in reality not matter how you look at it. Not some kind of sex ring politicians are supposed to run. Compare this to protesters storming of the Capitol.
Another metaphor for those more heterogenic groups might be a child whining about nothing in particular. They don’t know why they are crying but they are. And their pain is none the lesser. But you can’t take them seriously all the time. You try to appease and be there for them but you don’t start a dialogue about nothing when there’s nothing to talk about, no problem to fix, just existing made it so. Maybe we all just need a shrink, or just a little bit more kind attention from those around us.