Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump” • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#311

Post by MrZongle2 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #259

andrewem wrote: post #232

You know what scares the shit out of me, to use your phrasing? The people on that site murdering me or overthrowing the government, so that they seize power and elections end or become irrelevant. “The free Internet” has value, but it’s not the only thing that has value. When it conflicts with other values, then there has to be a nuanced resolution.

Have you ever spent time on the leftist "tankie" / "Chapo trap house" kind of subreddits? Or the Gen Zedong groups that glorify the purge of landlords during the communist revolution in China? If we are really going to go after such people wanting to violently overthrow the government we can't be ignoring the left when they do it.

Exactly. There are dangerous extremists on both ends of the spectrum, but God forbid you want to assess the entire landscape in some forums. You're just mocked for being some kind of centrist, as if not being a slobbering partisan is a character flaw.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#312

Post by ekidd » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #115

Bayart wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Which, it probably goes without saying, should scare the shit out of anyone who cares about the principles of the free Internet. Service-providers giving the boot to « problematic » users is as far as I know as old as the Internet.

Yes and it's always been contentious, and as the Internet integrates itself more and more into our lives, the questions about which layers of the network stack ought to follow which principles are worth continually focusing on.

I've been on the Internet since 1994, and it has always been the case that if you made a sufficiently odious pest of yourself over a long enough period of time, that someone would contact your university, employer or ISP, and you would lose your account, or at least your access to Usenet.

You were always perfectly free to go find a new account elsewhere if anyone would have you. But there was always a point where if you passed far enough beyond socially acceptable behavior, your Internet provider might choose to stop doing business with you.

This was especially true in the case of harassment, attacks on network infrastructure, and criminal behavior.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#313

Post by simias » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

thotsBgone wrote: post #93

Bayart wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Which, it probably goes without saying, should scare the shit out of anyone who cares about the principles of the free Internet. Service-providers giving the boot to « problematic » users is as far as I know as old as the Internet.

Example?

Everything to do with warez for one, even sites that didn't directly host IP-infringing content, would very often get the boot because it's a huge hassle for hosts to deal with the amount of trouble these websites generate.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#314

Post by polka_haunts_us » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

caturopath wrote: post #165

ddingus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not even think it is morbid. 70 million people voted for Trump. Understanding them better is not a bad thing. Does not mean agreeing with them. And yes, same.

I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that thedonald.win represents the 70 million Trump voters. It represents the attitudes of a few million of the weirdos, distorted further by roleplayers/trolls and international infiltrators. Your average Trump voter is just a normal Republican. They voted for Trump because there was an R next to his name and defended him because he was on their team. The Democratic voters…

I thought the race for Washington State's Insurance Commissioner was pretty instructive on this point. No one serious from the Republican party ran because no one really objects to the existence of the current guy, so the guy who ran with the R next to his name was, not making a lot of sense in the voter's guide. (He was going to hire 168 people to do his job, 1 hour at a time, among other things that didn't make a lot of sense). He still got 35% of the vote.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#315

Post by bythckr » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

This is not an original idea/thought that I have, but feel repeating it is vital:

This whole censorship crusade that the Facebook, twitter & now reddit is on is a dangerous precedence we are setting for our society. Whatever they call it, this is censorship.

Already due to AI suggesting similar contents on services like Facebook & Youtube and the design of sub-reddits on reddit, we have living inside echo chambers. Atleast users have an option of searching for different contents on the platform. It's a bit easier to come out of the echo chamber. Now, by pushing people off the platform, echo chamber platforms are coming up like parler & rumble. The divide is widening.

I am not sure what other options are there, but censorship is the worst option.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#316

Post by netsharc » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #114

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/896/censorship > In general, sedition is defined as trying to overthrow the government with intent and means to bring it about; the Supreme Court, however, has been divided over what constitutes intent and means. > These acts made it a federal crime to speak, write, or print criticisms of the government that were false, scandalous, or malicious. It is frightening to me tha…

> As someone who cannot visit every single polling place in the country (I visited zero and voted by mail) I cannot with absolute certainty proclaim that there there was no widespread, coordinated and shockingly well-concealed election fraud. As a person of logic and reason, I strongly belief this did not take place, and I would need multiple, reputable sources of information and likely trusted peer acceptance before I would change my mind to believe it did.

I have the same views. There are actually some "They stole my election!" people on HN, so maybe they'll read this and reconsider their "reality", but Biden won by several thousands in the 3 disputed states, to pull off voter fraud to swing that many votes require a lot of work, and probably a lot of people, and the problem with having many people is that it's hard to keep something like that secret. And if they were going to steal the presidency, why did some GOP candidates in those states still win seats, why not flip enough things Dem so that the "tyrants" have a comfortable majority?

I think Trump's "They stole it!" proclamations are a scheme to keep his base heated so they can donate to his retirement fund, although yesterdays "We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue!" (only for him to take the limo back to the White House) probably goes beyond that, that was an incredible "Release the hounds!" moment.

It's infuriating that a significant percentage of the country doesn't listen to reason, haven't even looked at how flimsy the court arguments that Team Total Landscaping have made, but are just screaming everywhere "I know the truth, and the truth is, they stole it!". Then again, many probably would get lost in the first paragraph if they tried to read any court filing. (Not being insulting, but hey, someone must've thought years ago "why spend money to educate children if they're just going to vote you out.".)

This is turning to a rant, but it seems the seditionists in congress who are also still claiming voter fraud without evidence (like Cruz or Hawley) just want to keep the Trump base very very pissed off, and very very motivated.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#317

Post by zionic » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #215

typon wrote: post #12

Irrelevant. Most of the original users of /r/theDonald migrated theDonald.win, which became one of the top websites in the US in terms of traffic. They're behind Cloudflare and constantly DDoSd these days it seems like it. Moreover, they've gotten threats from their ISP that they have to delete certain posts or be shut down. (which seems scary to me) Also, please don't judge me, I just have a morbid curiosity to see…

The last place I worked paid hard-earned money during a recession to migrate their properties off of CloudFlare because they were providing CDN services to the Proud Boys and the CEO had made some equivocal statement that they didn't think it was their responsibility to police content. It's an interesting topic and possibly a genuine slippery slope about what sort of responsibility service providers have over their c…

Sounds like terrible leadership. I'm sure gmail is used to send child porn every day, should you cancel gsuite?

Companies like cloudfare are supposed to be dumb infrastructure, not your political cudgel.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#318

Post by umvi » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

3232kjfhdajskf wrote: post #282

This seriously isn't enough. We need to ask for more before it's too late for this country. - Ban all /r/conservative - Ban /r/libertarian - Require pinned posts from /r/politics at all time to keep people properly informed (/r/all) - Create an internal auditing team to start immediately banning users who may have voted for Trump or comment against progressive causes - Work with other social media companies to create…

So in other words, ban half the US's population from using reddit? I suppose twitter and facebook too? Sounds like a a recipe for a civil war.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#319

Post by kr99x » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

I've been having this argument more and more lately. People keep coming around to "surely, we must prevent *THIS* content?" and every time the answer is no. Somehow, we seem to be forgetting how free speech benefits us all, but only when it is categorically FREE and there are not exceptions "just this one time"

Why just the other day, I had friends blow up on me for daring to suggest that a particular type of bigoted speech should remain legal.

The free exchange of ideas is a prerequisite for a just world. You cannot build one without it. If you place limits on the free exchange of ideas, "just for this one really bad kind of thing", then you have forfeited your own future ability to resist WHEN - not if, but WHEN - a good and true idea is wrongfully labelled harmful and banned by the same mechanisms.

Every single authoritarian regime in history has made speaking ill of the leadership a crime. Every last one.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#320

Post by jahnu » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #259

andrewem wrote: post #232

You know what scares the shit out of me, to use your phrasing? The people on that site murdering me or overthrowing the government, so that they seize power and elections end or become irrelevant. “The free Internet” has value, but it’s not the only thing that has value. When it conflicts with other values, then there has to be a nuanced resolution.

Have you ever spent time on the leftist "tankie" / "Chapo trap house" kind of subreddits? Or the Gen Zedong groups that glorify the purge of landlords during the communist revolution in China? If we are really going to go after such people wanting to violently overthrow the government we can't be ignoring the left when they do it.

How many people are in positions of power that represent these leftist groups? I don't think it's in any way comparable to the fact that the far right literally have the US president on their side along with a sizable portion of the GOP.

Tankie leftists that support violence have the political weight as furry enthusiasts afaik.