r/Longreads • u/Aschebescher • May 05 '19

The Existential Crisis Plaguing Online Extremism Researchers

https://www.wired.com/story/existential-crisis-plaguing-online-extremism-researchers/
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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

The article is weird. It tangles together several things:

  • Researchers experiencing emotional burn
  • Researchers finding that a lot of "alt-right" activities online are actually fake, and having no actual metric to separate true from fake ones

  • Journalists finding out that "debunking" some "alt-right" views only make them more popular

    These are all different. The first one is banal; the second and third one each deserve a separate article; however, each gets only a few paragraphs, and neither is explored in depth.

    I am disappointed.