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

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#631

Post by ng12 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #584

lldbg wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We can guarantee freedom of speech, but not freedom after speech." Idi Amin. This year I have barely spoken more than 30 minutes to someone in real life, per day. If my interactions over the internet were to be as they say curated, I would effectively be silenced. I was a frequent reader of r/dt a few years back, as the top poster was. There was nothing in particular there, no trend, that was any more terrible than…

Your bookshelf doesn’t analyze your reading habits and recommend other books specifically to drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism. Your bookshelf doesn’t allow you to instantly connect with thousands of likeminded people to incubate terrorist plots.

> drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism

This is what banning /r/the_donald and now /r/donaldtrump did. It doesn't stop the users from believing what they believe, it just further isolates them in an echo changer while simultaneously reinforcing the belief that the liberal media is "out to get them".

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#632

Post by blueblob » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

CyberRabbi wrote: post #499

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.

Were you scared of the women’s March murdering you after they “stormed” the capitol? https://twitter.com/EgSophie/status/1048634940169048064?s=20

In this false equivalence you're trying to make, did the people in the women's march come with zip ties to kidnap congressmen? Did they come to interfere with the electoral process? Did they steal? Were they violent?

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#633

Post by gnusty_gnurc » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

It's clear that liberals(and never-trump conservatives) don't know how to effectively deal with Trump supporters.

Censoring(or moderating if that's what you're going to argue it's called) will only make things worse, it will polarize things even further.

The way to address Trump supporters is to listen to them.

Suppress whatever biased lower-level consciousness that's going to hijack your thought process and demonize them.

Observe what is driving their anger and actually help them.

You cannot stomp out this many people who have very real concerns that need to be addressed. And the effective solution will not be the thing that confirms all your priors.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#634

Post by blisterpeanuts » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #473

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "T_D" is, but Parler doesn't "espouse" anything. It was founded as an alternative to the social media companies that are de-platforming right wing voices. That doesn't mean more than a tiny percentage on Parler are "supportive of people being killed". Actually I'd like to see some examples - have not yet seen anyone there advocate for violence. Parler actually does remove such postings so if you see…

T_D === /r/The_Donald. It's since migrated to thedonald dot win; however vile the content, one of the virtues of the censorship-resistant open web is that we're able to keep tabs on what they're discussing. They were extremely unsubtle regarding their plans for the 6th; if anything, we're lucky that it didn't result in even more violence. I agree, that it's unfair to (a-priori) castigate free-speech-absolutist platfo…

Ah, okay, thedonald.win. I have read some of their stuff and I didn't see anything "vile", nor did I see anyone calling for violence, but I haven't read the site in the last few weeks.

I will agree that "Voat" is a nasty place, but I'm not comfortable with shutting them down either, or cutting them off from pay processors and certificate authorities. This kind of game tends to come back and bite one in the ass. It's the old "First they came for xxx and I said nothing".

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#635

Post by bra-ket » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #631

jakelazaroff wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your bookshelf doesn’t analyze your reading habits and recommend other books specifically to drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism. Your bookshelf doesn’t allow you to instantly connect with thousands of likeminded people to incubate terrorist plots.

> drag you deeper into the rabbit hole of extremism This is what banning /r/the_donald and now /r/donaldtrump did. It doesn't stop the users from believing what they believe, it just further isolates them in an echo changer while simultaneously reinforcing the belief that the liberal media is "out to get them".

I'd argue it further isolates users in those liberal echo-chambers from hearing a different opinion.

Given the heavy left leaning media bias it leads to free speech being free as long as it doesn't disagree with the 'party line'.

I.e. the same dynamics as in communist Soviet Union where 'enemies of the people' were ostracized and persecuted by totalitarian regime.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#636

Post by JasonFruit » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #624

JasonFruit wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> domestic terrorists I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you don't have a lot of exposure to terrorism. A bunch of idiots breaking into the Capitol and… mostly wandering around taking selfies? Not really very effective terrorists. It was a stupid, pointless move, and illegal — but a long, long way short of terrorism, except possibly on the very fringes of some three-letter organization's idiosyncratic def…

I think you can stretch the definition of terrorism to meet them (the congress was evacuated in fear, it influenced political events) but the lesson of 2001- is that any dilution of the term of terrorism is no free lunch, and we ought to understand what will happen if we endorse our leaders treating something as terrorism vs another form of illegal act.

That's an excellent expression of my concern. Also, people who agree with some but not all of the ideas held by "right-wing terrorists" suddenly become terrorist sympathizers, and their friends "associate with known terrorists and terrorist sympathizers". Imagine the context you've heard those phrases in on the news, and what you thought was okay when it happened to those people.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#637

Post by gfodor » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

njudah wrote: post #534

razius wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A private company choosing who to allow on their platform? Seems like the freedom to me. I wonder when people stopped thinking. By the same argument, should they be allowed to block all black people?

As reprehensible as it is, legally they absolutely are. Remember how country clubs didn't / still don't allow woman, african americans or jews? Common carriers (stores, hotels, etc) are treated differently, and is very much debated. (ie can a bakery deny service based on sexual preference.)

Your first sentence implies I am speaking with a time traveler who doesn't realize they just fell out of their time machine 50 years in the future :) It is definitely not legal to bar people from your business based upon race.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#638

Post by vdnkh » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

JasonFruit wrote: post #586

vdnkh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>free Internet A private company choosing who to allow on their platform? Seems like the freedom to me. And in the absence of any government action against these domestic terrorists (they have been planning exactly this violence for weeks), it's great to see private companies step in and take action.

> domestic terrorists I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you don't have a lot of exposure to terrorism. A bunch of idiots breaking into the Capitol and… mostly wandering around taking selfies? Not really very effective terrorists. It was a stupid, pointless move, and illegal — but a long, long way short of terrorism, except possibly on the very fringes of some three-letter organization's idiosyncratic def…

> mostly wandering around taking selfie

And the ones not taking selfies were running around with zip ties and IEDs. Just because some of them were idiots, doesn't mean they all were.

Edit: how do you think these "idiots" got in? https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20m04s&v=cJOgGsC0G9U

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#639

Post by farisjarrah » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #571

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday HN had a link to an article on plaintext HTTP for the modern era. I'm not condoning illegal/dubious attempts to silence dissent, but loss of an SSL cert doesn't really suppress anyone's ability to communicate. Tell me I'm wrong.

1) Browsers no longer let you (easily/ 2-click) override some ssl errors, and the overwhelming trend has been to start treating a lack of https similar to an ssl error, as far as ui goes. 2) Is this practically any different than saying newsgroups, or even bbs(?), still exist, so those avenues for free speech are viable remedies for being otherwise suppressed.

To your first point: Firefox still lets you easily override a ssl error with 2 clicks. Go to the site, click "Advanced" and then click "Accept the risk and continue". Using the most up to date version of firefox on MacOS, Linux and Windows.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#640

Post by ezrast » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #194

gfodor wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'll admit I didn't follow it completely and didn't care enough to investigate. I'm sure it'll bubble up here if it does with more details just like when they got nuked from Reddit. Arguably sites like this one are a good way to gauge the true robustness of the Internet - given the situation this week they clearly now are in the realm of law enforcement, but up until these rather insane events to me their contin…

Quoted post unavailable.

Impressionable readers should be aware that the initial supposition ("the only violence was caused by a group of antifa...") is acutely counterfactual. Rioters have largely been unshy about documenting the experience on social media and many have been identified, including prominent alt-right community members such as Jake Angeli, the face-painted viking-looking guy known as the "QAnon Shaman", and Baked Alaska, who livestreamed the damn thing.

Source: https://www.vox.com/recode/22218963/capitol-photos-legal-cha..., and if you don't like Vox there's confirmation of this stuff all over Twitter; just search.