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Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

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Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone cares anymore about the left rioting

The left wasn't being actively encouraged and incited by the sitting President.

Can you please provide evidence for the President inciting violence?

I would also say that there are leftist politicians who are encouraging and inciting criminal acts. See this recent tweet from AOC (https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080), where she excuses activists acting illegally because the "polite language policy game" (her words) didn't work for them. This is no less an act of incitement than Trump, since Trump never called for violence or encouraged acts of violence.

I also think there is a great deal of hypocrisy from the left on this point given the events of this last year. There have been numerous riots, arrests, deaths, and illegal occupation of public places recorded. All the politicians, activists, organizations involved in those criminal acts have been given a pass and have faced very little accountability and virtually no censorship from big tech.

Even before George Floyd, we have incidents from left-leaning activists where they literally invade federal buildings. Here's an example documented by the Associated Press (https://youtu.be/B_kxyacaAF4). What was the response from the far left elements? Rashida Tlaib and AOC actually joined some of their events and encouraged them (https://theintercept.com/2018/11/13/alexandria-ocasio-cortez...). And yet, these two continue to be allowed their platforms.

Let's be honest, the tech platforms are using this ridiculously inept protest at the Capitol as an enabling excuse to further censorship and erode free speech, aligning with the interests of their left-biased employee bases. The precedent it sets is dark, as it will be employed to discriminate against viewpoints that disagree with the progressive agenda.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#692
post #674

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.

The media is moderate, not left leaning. But anything left of Donald trump is considered socialist by his supporters.

The media is more left leaning than 1) the median of the population and 2) the media was 20 years ago.

I think 1) is what's driving the "media is left" feeling. It is left compared to the median of society. To many people (not just on the far right), that feels like the media pushing leftist views/narratives/agendas.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is one of the methods used by Russian government to silence the opposition. Though the platforms are usually privately owned, they all 'independently' decide that some content can't be allowed on them. Same will happen with the US. Sad.

This is not true. Russian government does not dictate FB and YouTube (which it does not own), and they would have to force ISPs to block these sites if they wanted to ban the content. I doubt ISPs would ban them themselves.

VK is much, much more popular than FB is Russia. It's a Russian company and absolutely forced to censor content on behalf of the govt.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#694
post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

But crucially, it also makes it much more difficult for unwitting people to start discovering it. The point is to slow the spread, not to reach the people who are already there.

The idea that the only way to protect unwitting people from falling into some undesirable line of thinking is to limit what they see to the desirable line of thinking seems doomed to fail. Either discourse works and you expect people can be made to come to their own sensible conclusions or discourse doesn't work and every change from the norm must be subversive. I.e. tucking it away doesn't guarantee it ends up less visible to people it just guarantees it will be less visible to the system tucking it away. People are still going to share ideas that don't agree with the majority opinion but now those hearing have zero tools or experience for dealing with such claims.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#695
post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Given the heavy left leaning media bias

Note that Fox News remains the most-watched cable news network - though online, it ranks after CNN and NYT (and possibly others, depending on the metric).

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no difference. Both groups are rioters. There is also plain hypocrisy in both camps, when one camp riots, the other camp pretends not to understand that there is festering anger from injustice. But every time, whenever one camps riots, they feel justified and righteous, and the opposing camp, feels enlightened as to and justified in retaliation. WOKE is bad. EXTREME privilege is bad. Finding common ground an…

Were both houses of Congress and the VP certifying the vote of the next PoTUS at the Pizza Hut? No? Then there's a big difference.

the irony is that your parent post comment just described you

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#697
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gave you that impression? Moreover, what do you mean by "the freedom of speech principle"? It can mean anything ranging from "you can literally say anything you want and the government should protect you while doing so (eg. punishing companies that refuse to transmit your speech)", to "most speech, excluding a laundry list of exceptions like hate speech, copyright infringement, defamation, heresy, certain ideolo…

What is hate speech?

Everyone, please stop engaging this person who is arguing in bad faith, and only seeks to waste your time.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a read though this and other related threads. It’s been surprising to me.

I'm an active reader of threads on YC, and maybe I'm just lucky but I have yet to see anyone spouting MAGA based conspiracy theories. I did get downvoted one time for saying Trump invented the term Antifa (Which is absolutely true. I did a google search by date to verify.) but that's as close as I've seen.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#699
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subreddit got banned for promoting the nonsense Steele dossier, and other ridiculous Trump conspiracies like the pee tape?

Those are at worst unsubstantiated, and contain truth like how Russia interfered in the election and Trump's campaign accepted their help. Totally different than something like "the election was rigged", which was tested and failed in court, but still gets shouted from the rooftops, leading to dangerous outcomes like what we saw in DC.

Wait, are you seriously claiming Trump won because of Russia? Or do you agree that the ridiculous Russia narrative pushed by Dems was total BS?

Here is a nice article on the whole situation:

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill...

>Totally different than something like "the election was rigged", which was tested and failed in court, but still gets shouted from the rooftops, leading to dangerous outcomes like what we saw in DC.

Yes, that was untrue, ridiculous, and in the end became dangerous. I'm pointing out the usual hypocrisy on both the left and the right when it comes to their own pet causes.

Re: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

#700
post #83
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I've long worried lurking there was going to cause more harm than it's worth (for example, by letting me inadvertently slip into extremism) but the ability to predict what happened this week so easily and warn people about it who considered going was well worth that risk. Also I read there they are losing their SSL cert or something, so that might be how centralized, non-legal authority manages to shut them dow…

>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.

It's as old as any "service" has existed, nevermind internet.

If you go into a store or cafe and start shouting at the top of your lungs, the owner is free to refuse service, kick you out and/or even ban you from ever entering their store again.

What's the difference between that store owner and an ISP?

You're free to go to any other store that will have you, and is ok with your shouting. If it turns out there are no stores ok with it, whose problem is that? Should store owners be prohibited from refusing service to anyone, no matter what their behaviour?

You can start your own store, so long as you can pay rent, have suppliers that will sell you goods, etc - but again, no one is obligated to do any of that.

(I get there's protected classes that prevent discrimination based on things like age, gender, ethnicity, etc, but that's a separate issue, and tangential to their behaviour which is what we're discussing here.)

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