The Iron Law of Moderate Political Forums

Introduction

I’m not the first to observe that some extremist political forums had a moderate start. This could be regular for-its-own-sake political forums, or what I call “counter-forums”, online forums made to counter another political forum. But I don’t think I’ve heard of a term to describe it, so I coined “The Iron Law of Moderate Political Forums” as a sort of nod to the Iron Law of Oligarchy as described in Why Nations Fail.

For instance, r/TheRightCantMeme had moderate Social Liberals and Social Democrats as regulars before going full far-leftist. Similarly, r/GenUSA started to have its right-leaning members dominate. They caused a commotion when u/khharagosh, a r/neoliberal user, replied to a comment about abortion, and I assume it’ll go the way of most of these forums.

In a way, it is the reverse phenomenon of Sanewashing and Social Gentrification as described by u/inverseflorida and status451.

While most of these examples use subreddits, I decided to use the generic name “forum” because I think this isn’t just a Reddit problem. It’s related to how humans with extreme views react to the other extreme side of a political debate online (Some non-subreddits like RationalWiki seemed to have fallen into this phenomenon as well).

The For-Its-Own-Sake Example

Let’s start this with a timeline, Someone made a subreddit on Reddit, and it’s about a certain political topic. Usually, these subreddits already have a bias, however small due to the main topic it is discussing. For example, r/IronFrontUSA already has a left bias due to it responding to the rise of the far-right in America. If it’s a general political subreddit, it could also be because of the main attitudes of the general site. On Reddit, that is left-wing populism. But, it may change, a reminder that before Bernie and the Democratic Socialists, r/politics had a lot of Ron Paul and Goldbug Libertarians.

At first, it most likely had a moderate-ish start, with moderates being the majority, with a minority of users being extremists. But over time, due to the spread of the knowledge of the subreddit to more extreme subs, the “Radicals” become the subreddit’s demography via Network Effects. Even pushing long-time Moderates out too, scaring them out. Thus finally making the subreddit from a moderate place to an extreme political subreddit.

From casual observation, More moderate types generally have a tendency to move on from forums going sour, whilst the extreme types tend to coalesce as they are attracted by increasing concentration of views they agree with.

The Counter-Forum Example

It’s a similar story, but with some additions. Let’s say there’s a right-wing subreddit dedicated to mocking “leftists” (which also tends to include Liberals and people not from the Socialist tradition). There’s also likely a left-wing counter subreddit dedicated to mocking “righties”. It also doesn’t have to counter one forum, it could also be an umbrella counter-forum that was made in response to several right-wing forums.

Like with the For-Its-Own-Sake Example, the extremists (in this case the extreme left i.e. Tankies) take over and push out the moderates (in this case Social Liberals and Moderate Social Democrats/Socialists). Yet, it could also make the original extreme subreddit it was countering even more extreme.

So in the case of this right-wing subreddit. You start seeing Religious Theocrats, Fascists, and other flavours of the extreme right popping up there and being the “regular” users. Thankfully, Reddit tends to be more hostile to right-wing extremists than left-wing extremists, so this point is at least moot there. It is still a concern on other sites.

Why does it happen?

Part of the radicalization of forums might be a related law called the “The Law of Group Polarization”. Especially as more like minded people take over a more general group via the iron law to set a direction for group polarization to happen.

“deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments.” [^1]

(Thanks to u/Stormtrooper01 for the citation)

How do we break it?

So, how do we break this “Iron Law”, I can only think of one solution that works. Strict moderating and Audit of forum users to gatekeep the extremists. This is what r/neoliberal does, while its regulars love to complain about its “fash” mods. They are doing a favour by making sure the discussion stays moderate and that extremist users behave and/or stay out.

As of now, r/neoliberal’s model is the only true solution to this iron law problem that I know of, despite the mods being trigger-happy at times. Perhaps one day we’ll have a more libertarian model that isn’t too beholden to the whims of the mods.

Addendum

After Posting this, I felt compelled adding a comment made by u/WumpaMunch that I felt would be appropriate for this Essay.

Is it possible that more moderate types have a greater tendency to move on from forums going sour, whilst the extreme types tend to coalesce as they are attracted by increasing concentration of views they agree with? Perhaps, to supplement the mods, we need to cultivate a “social immunity” to concentrations of extremists. We should all individually call out trends towards extremism and dogma (politely and respectfully where possible). This works very well against fascism in the physical world, and could work in the virtual.

TL;DR

The Iron Law of Moderate Political Forums stipulates that any moderate political smelling forums will ultimately have people from the extreme side of the same wing taking over, thus making it an extremist forum. In the case of forums made to counter another political forum, It may also make the original forum(s) it was countering more radical in response. It is essentially inevitable without proper and strict moderation and gatekeeping of the extremists.

Original post and discussion on r/neoliberal.

[^1]: Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization” (John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper No. 91, 1999).