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Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

nytimes.com

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Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#271

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

876978095789789 wrote: post #261
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has never had to deal with global echo chambers where individuals who are mostly harmless on their own can come together and feed on their common rancor.

> Humanity has never had to deal with global echo chambers where individuals who are mostly harmless on their own can come together and feed on their common rancor. Do you not realize that "echo chamber" describes this place, and any place with groupthink enforcement mechanisms (voting, karma, flagging, and excessive moderation) much more accurately than 4chan? For example, HN groupthink has endorsed low-carb and ket…

I must have missed the last time HNers convinced themselves to start a race war by murdering a bunch of people.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#272

Post by skissane »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #252
vulcan01 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is written in bad faith - generally on HN we try to take what people say at face value. They said they research far-right extremism professionally. The good-faith interpretation is that they do this as part of their job, as that is what "professionally" means.

I'm skeptical that any such job exists.

> I'm skeptical that any such job exists.

The University of Oslo has a "Center for Research on Extremism" (CRE-X). https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/

While their name suggests they might be just as interested in the far-left as the far-right, if you look at their actual publications, they are almost entirely focused on the far-right, and even those rare occasions they do pay any attention to the far-left, it is generally cases of far-right/far-left overlap. So yes, they are an example of people researching far-right extremism for a living.

In fact, there are lots of other university and independent research centres looking into the topic–I cited CRE-X as an example only because they were at the top of my Google search results. It is something government research funders in many countries want to invest in, and there are also various wealthy philanthropists and charity/activist/lobby groups willing to put money towards it. Nothing unbelievable about someone claiming to do it professionally, because people do.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#273

Post by [deleted] »

pragmar wrote: post #269
perryizgr8 wrote: post #264

Wow that was content free. What is the actual info that was leaked?

The notable bit was the killed in action numbers from the conflict: 17k Russian troops, and 70k on the Ukrainian side. Estimates from US and European leaders have been all over the map, some in this neighborhood, but others saying more Russians were KIA than were Ukrainians.

[deleted]

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#274

Post by somedude895 »

RobotToaster wrote: post #148
ctvo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dark humor about race or ideology can eventually shape the beliefs of impressionable young people, and innocuous memes can be co-opted into symbols of hatred, researchers say. Immediately following this paragraph is a quote from a researcher: > “If you’re a young man with no prospects hanging out on 4chan, you’re definitely on some Discords and probably some pretty dark Discords,” said Dale Beran, a lecturer at Mor…

>If you’re a young man with no prospects "The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose." — James Baldwin.

"A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth"

African Proverb

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#275

Post by somedude895 »

ctvo wrote: post #106
v0idzer0 wrote: post #98

NYT gets so much mileage out of “researchers say” and “experts say” yet they never cite anyone

> Dark humor about race or ideology can eventually shape the beliefs of impressionable young people, and innocuous memes can be co-opted into symbols of hatred, researchers say. Immediately following this paragraph is a quote from a researcher: > “If you’re a young man with no prospects hanging out on 4chan, you’re definitely on some Discords and probably some pretty dark Discords,” said Dale Beran, a lecturer at Mor…

> innocuous memes can be co-opted into symbols of hatred, researchers say.

It's beside the point, but does anybody actually see social studies and the like as "science" anymore when people in them get bullied and silenced and have their careers destroyed if they think or say the wrong thing? When things that go against left-wing beliefs don't get published? When an overwhelming majority of them are on the same political spectrum? After the grievance studies affair? I see it more as a propaganda machinery and after all if you tortute the data long enough, it will confess. I basically just ignore their research whenever I see this sort of stuff.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#276

Post by skissane »

imgabe wrote: post #254
sbuttgereit wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dale Beran - Lecturer/ Animation Coordinator , Screenwriting and Animation" Researcher, perhaps, but seems to not be what his credentials or college role is about. https://www.morgan.edu/screenwriting-and-animation/faculty-a...

"Lecturer" is a non-tenure-track position that means you get paid a few thousand dollars to teach a class. This person doesn't even have a PhD.

> "Lecturer" is a non-tenure-track position that means you get paid a few thousand dollars to teach a class.

In the US (which this person is).

In most of the rest of the English-speaking world, the majority of full-time academics are "lecturers" (or even "senior lecturers"), expected to do both teaching and research, and a PhD is usually required (but exceptions have occasionally been made). An "adjunct/visiting/associate/guest lecturer" is a different thing, that's generally a part-time or even honorary position, and there are no expectations about research output.

Part of this is because Americans inflated the title of professor to the point of making almost every full-time/permanent academic one, whereas in the UK and Commonwealth professor was reserved for the most senior rung of academics, with associate professor for those part-way there. (For most fields–medicine has a lot more professors, but clinical professor is generally a giveaway they spend the majority of their time treating patients, and teaching and research is a side-gig.)

Although–I wonder if everyone in the US uses the terminology in the same way. It is not unheard of for some university out there to just do something weird which others don't. Not saying that's true in this person's case, but not impossible.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#277

Post by skissane »

WatchDog wrote: post #245
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGBT is not inherently left wing. I’m not sure why you would think it is.

I’m well aware of the limitations with the left-right political abstraction. Every individual issue has varying levels of support among traditional political groupings, but I think it’s fair to say that issue of advancing the interests of LGBT people, is overwhelmingly an issue associated with a left wing political disposition.

> but I think it’s fair to say that issue of advancing the interests of LGBT people, is overwhelmingly an issue associated with a left wing political disposition.

Some truth in that, in Western countries right now, but less so historically or globally. Stalin re-criminalised homosexuality in 1934, and in Russia even today you can find far-left people whose views on LGBT issues are largely indistinguishable from those of the far-right. I’m sure some are going to argue those people “aren’t really left”-but unapologetic Stalinists really are far-left not far-right, and the anti-LGBT stuff is just their following in Stalin’s own footsteps. There are heaps of Western right-wingers who are far more LGBT-friendly than the average Russian Stalinist

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#278

Post by thinkingemote »

baryphonic wrote: post #247

Notwithstanding the New York Times calling 4chan far-right and blatantly editorializing (seriously, if this is a news piece, why is there commentary about Discord's moderation policy?), I am most interested in whether the leaks are true. Has the White House been grossly over-representing Ukraine's chances? Will Ukraine be unable to protect their airspace after late May?

Leaks are different from hacks in that they are released secretly Vs stolen. Usually a leak has a purpose.

Often it's political, and political messaging particularly about war is propaganda.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#279

Post by anigbrowl »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #140
anigbrowl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/pol/ most certainly is that way. I've been on 4chan for more than 15 years and I research far right extremism professionally. /pol/ isn't the most right wing or extreme place on the internet, but claiming it's not like 'traditional racial supremacy [..] neo-nazis' is nonsense, that's 20-25% of /pol/ threads.

> I research far right extremism professionally Please elaborate. This is a common claim among "disinformation experts," when what they really mean is they occasionally browse /pol/ while telling themselves it's an academic exercise and they're obviously better than everyone posting on that "cesspool." If reading /pol/ for hours a day is enough to say you "research far right extremism professionally," then I'd posit…

I was a chan user long before I took up this work full time. I didn't say I was a 'disinformation expert', I mostly study mass shooters, would-be terrorists, and violent street groups.

Re: Meme group on Discord is focus of uproar over leaked Pentagon documents

#280

Post by [deleted] »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #266

In an article about leaked documents, they sure don't talk alot about the documents that were leaked... Is it some kind of psych-op, LLM going on in the comments? No one's interested or curious about the documents and are spamming the page with 4chan shit?

[deleted]
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