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

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#681

Post by gfodor » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

JasonFruit wrote: post #636

gfodor wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, given this and the actual reality of the situation, I take the stance that we ought to respond to claims of terrorism around this (by our leaders, not individuals) with ridicule and derision, despite any merit, given how dangerous it would be to allow this to be treated by the authorities as a moral justification for a domestic War on Terror.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#682

Post by lldbg » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 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.

Among the first few pages in many of my books are recommendations for other similar books from the same publisher, and not infrequently the author himself cites related works.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#683

Post by snowflake_ptr » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 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…

There's no evidence for election fraud due to a combination of officials and media intentionally not searching for it, and events that make it difficult or impossible to determine that fraud actually ocurred.

As an example of the latter: Georgia election officials intentionally deceived journalists and (Republican) observers into leaving a vote-counting event by lying to them and telling them that they were done for the night, then pulling out hidden containers of ballots and counting them[1][2], which resulted in 98% of ballots being for Biden. This was backed up by sworn testimonies from two observers[3], news reports from multiple stations[4](see [2] for links to other news organizations that reported this - none were Fox News), and video footage[1].

The above is not only being ignored by the majority of media outlets (intentional ignorance), but there's no way to prove that voter fraud didn't occur when the voting process was completely unmonitored. I don't believe that the situation was actually illegal[5] - but there's no way that a sane person can look at the above circumstances and conclude that the election officials weren't trying to hide something, and a reasonable person would look at that batch of 98% of ballots being for Biden (which stand out among the counting for that entire evening) and conclude that that was almost certainly fraud.

Moreover, there's either no legal action, or no legal resolution (due to e.g. courts dismissing cases on technicalities, and not even considering an evidentary hearing) for these issues.

Hence, no good evidence for voter fraud only because of intentional ignorance and deceit to prevent such evidence from being obtained.

PostScript: This deceit was committed by the country government. That fits the criteria of "coordinated" at a technical level (i.e. multiple individuals working in concert). [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1335057722560... [2] https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/07/no-the-georgia-vote-cou... [3] https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20420331-mitchell-h... [4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pipe-bursts-atlanta-arena-ca... [5] https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-21/chapter-2...

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#684

Post by pie_flavor » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #572

coldtea wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So like several months of looting and burning in various cities like Portland?

It is wrong to say that there was "burning" for "several months", unless you're referring to the forest fires. A few buildings were burned down in isolated incidents during several months of protests across multiple cities. Looting is not well-documented but my friends in Portland didn't seem very concerned. The vast majority of participants in the protests following the Floyd murder did not take part in any violence…

There have been five hundred separate BLM/Antifa-related riots, and the most recent one was the night before the Capitol protest. They have, in fact, lasted several months.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#685

Post by blisterpeanuts » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #515

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Or because their opinions leads them to construct bombs or shoot people." Who exactly is "they"? Anyone who disagrees with you? Anyone who votes for a Republican candidate? Trump supporters? Some subset of Trump supporters who say the election was fraudulent? What about Trump supporters who say the election MAY have been fraudulent -- do they also get silenced? This is a slippery slope. You either have freedom of…

The people who literally stormed the capital earlier this week, some of whom brought equipment like zipties with the intention of kidnapping/hostage taking. Those specific people who we all literally just saw doing the thing on basically every TV Channel while some of them literally livestreamed themselves doing it. This is in no way ambiguous at all.

There were some extremists and nuts there, agreed. Out of 40K people (some say much higher) there were some 100 or so who actually "stormed" the Capitol building, which is to say they walked past the barricades that the cops helpfully moved out of the way for unexplained reasons, and stood on the steps shouting & taking pictures etc., and a very small subset of these people actually broke a window and entered the building. This is all based on video footage from many witnesses. In the end, some 50-60 people were arrested and one unarmed woman was shot dead by a cop inside the building and there are clear videos of this appalling incident. I don't condone or defend any of these morons for trespassing and my understanding is that 99% of the crowd were yelling at them not to trespass, not to break the window, and there are eyewitnesses now saying a handful, maybe 6-10 of them, were actually antifa agitators trying to stir up violence.

Anyway, regardless, yes I agree that some people were violent assholes and they deserve to be prosecuted. However, this still doesn't justify cutting off websites that serve millions of people. Or even websites that serve 1 person. You either have fair and equal treatment for all law abiding people, or you have none at all.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#686

Post by forserious » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #672

brayhite wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope you don't mean this to be comparable. Beating police with batons? Stealing their riot shields? Spraying them with mace? Stealing property from the capitol? You and I both know that if all the folks did yesterday was go into the Capitol and march and chant in the halls, they'd be framed as deranged lunatics who might've gone a bit too far - not domestic terrorists. Show me the video evidence from the…

That's part of the point. The left was basically allowed to freely enter the Senate building, in an attempt to sway the ongoing confirmation vote of a scotus justice, and met little to no police resistance, and it was celebrated by the media. Replace "confirmation" with "certification", and "scotus justice" with "president," and what's the difference, politically?

I said this above. You are arguing in bad faith.

"basically" is doing a lot of work in your argument.

No one is compelled by this. It is clear that they are two completely separate events. One was dangerous. The other was not.

Again, I'll say it directly to avoid confusion. You are arguing in bad faith.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#687

Post by bra-ket » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #657

bra-ket wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps we should leave up ISIS recruitment videos, so users in liberal echo chambers can hear that differing opinion as well. /s This is not a new or exciting phenomenon. Censorship and “cancel culture” have rich histories on all sides of the American political spectrum.

[flagged]

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#688

Post by jtxxwl » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

slothtrop wrote: post #673

jtxxwl wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Trump's record so bad that local election officials would be justified in cheating in the election to prevent another term, hypothetically?

No one is justified in cheating. Incidentally, no one has. Though voter suppression appears to have been attempted in certain areas.

Trump cheated in 2016, did he not? The republicans have been cheating for many decades (legally in some cases, illegally in others), necessitating the voting rights act, have they not? Is voter suppression not cheating?

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#689

Post by Damorian » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #603

CyberRabbi wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is like hearing someone at a bank saying they were scared a masked robber was going to murder them, and responding “were you scared of the customer who came in before them murdering you too?” The terrorists who stormed the capital on Wednesday have a history of violence and connections to various far right extremist and terrorist groups. They came carrying weapons, zip ties and bombs. Don’t pretend there’s no di…

And the last 6 months of race riots? I'll take a few smashed windows and pictures taken in congress over tens of millions in burned and stolen property, assaults and murders in basically every city in the country. "Only my side's political violence is acceptable." That's what I get from facebook.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#690

Post by gfodor » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #652

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.

I think part of the problem is that on many issues elections are already irrelevant. If I'm an American and I want the US to withdraw from Afghanistan, who do I vote for?

The relevancy of elections comes not just from how they affect things in the present moment and the choices they bring, but in the ability to assume there is always an open path towards progress for issues you care about, no matter now narrow.