Hate Groups and Access to Social Media

Social media is a popular tool for hate groups and helps keep them intact as a social entity. People have become smarter with social media and how to spread hate like lightning. As a person who had to defend himself and family against coordinated hate behaviors I have a few things to say about it.

First hate can spread verbally, social media and text. The medium is less important  than the actual message. We have become much more sophisticated at using Artificial  Intelligence  to scan for key words and flag for review. When this occurs in a blatant manner authorities should take notice.

Aggressive people use social media to rally their supporters to do their dirty work through an extension of misaligned values. That constitutes an online crime by most standard of virtue. I say most because  laws are not always applied fairly across different  groups and people (If they were we wouldn't be experiencing social upheaval). 

The Capitol Riots taught us that just because someone "looks" American doesn't mean they hold central American values. It should also teach us that just because  someone seems a little different doesn't  mean they are not apple pie American. 

To many in the hate community American  is a certain look, color, race, brand of clothing, and image versus a deeper symbolic connection of the past to present (Notice surface versus deeper values. It's an important distinction to remember for later).

My initial dissertation taught me looks can be deceiving with people often see what they want to through their subjective lens.  Its exclusive thinking that knows no grey or alternative (You can observe this exclusive thinking in other areas of life.). There is a process to this thinking that leads to the same conclusion  through incorrect logical analysis that spirals past competing info.

When groups use the Internet to spread hate it moves beyond freedom of speech and into violating core values codified in the Bill of Rights of others. Just like we dont give someone who committed murder their weapon back we shouldn't  give full access to social media to perpetrators until they have shown they are reformed and healthy (Why mental health and hate legislation  need to work together to tag and intervene. I got some ideas on that but I'm not a politician and my focus is different  and for a greater purpose.)

As we ponder the options on how we deal with hate in this country one thing we can think about is restricting social media of convicted hate group leaders and perpetrators. We dont want them supercharging their base through additional misleading  information  and  coordinated activities among friends, group members and supporters when they feel they have a yellow light of opportunity.

I do need to utter a word of caution. Freedom of opinion is important for developing a free and innovative society. There are differences in sentence structure, verb usages, tone, word choice, tempo, etc... between someone who disagrees and someone who wants to cause harm. Add conscious and subconscious para language to a certain context and motive and you have a pattern recognition that leads to concern.)

The new America and Americans will likely  be more enlightened  than the ones of the past as science (pace of science and innovation  defusion) versus superstition illuminates the minds of our leaders and social influencers. We either get over the hate hump through teamwork or trip and fall on ourselves as other countries learn how to unleash the human potentials to the widest possible margins of their people (Its a shame because if we walked the talk of our national purpose it would have already been a problem of the past.)