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Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

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Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#91

Post by faeriechangling »

b0sk wrote: post #46
sinecure wrote: post #27

Reddit's procedure for communities that go against any mainstream progressive narrative is to quarantine them and then ban them under the accusation of "brigading". They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. The…

There's no rational discussion to be had between homeopathy doctor and an oncologist, for example. It's just a waste of bandwidth and source of misinformation which is killing innocents.

The people doing and calling for the banning are hardly trained medical doctors by and large, and I've certainly seen COVID contarians cite heterodox doctors who actually had relevant expertise. They love to cite Robert Malone who while a very controversial figure is certainly more qualified than your average boycotter or moderator or admin to opine on vaccination.

I wouldn't exactly call the claims I see in these communities as being irrefutably robust, or immune to criticism. Still there's enough of the "vaccine hesitant" out there they're going to collectively come up with more robust arguments than appeals to homeopathy.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#92

Post by faeriechangling »

sinecure wrote: post #54
b0sk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no rational discussion to be had between homeopathy doctor and an oncologist, for example. It's just a waste of bandwidth and source of misinformation which is killing innocents.

Assuming your position on any subject, especially novel viruses and novel vaccines, is 100% correct and immune to debate or criticism is irrational. When your position is "I'm right, they're wrong, they shouldn't be allowed to talk about it" you are the censor. If the facts support your position, why silence debate or criticism? The scientific method requires hypothesis tested by experimentation. Have we fully proven…

If vaccine safety can't be established by anything but time, than debate definitionally cannot inform us about the safety of vaccines. Vaccines can not only be unexpectedly dangerous in the long term, they can also theoretically be unexpectedly protective, and we can't know without waiting.

I've seen no evidence of /r/thenewnormal advancing scientific research in any way, and arguably they are having the effect of having amateurs direct research priorities due to phenomena like them promoting ivermectin leading to a surge in poisoning cases and thus scientific interest. The presence of "debate" does not nessecarily advance the scientific process, debate can be rhetorical sophistry that hardly achieves the same end as for instance peer review.

The best argument I can think of for allowing such communities is to put mainstream science in a position where they MUST respond to heterodox scientists or risk the public heeding their concerns and not getting vaccinated etc. etc. I don't think this is an incredibly convincing argument either, since it's a rather costly way to enforce sufficient scepticism, and it's disputable if it's nessecary.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#93

Post by dang »

croutonwagon wrote: post #57
postalrat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN?

HN is nice but historically the topics had to be very specific to tech, startups, etc. Recently it seems to have been a little easier on the political and social commentary stuff which i think is pretty nice and refreshing. Though I understand why some aren’t as much of a fan. It does attract more drama and flame baiting.

The mix hasn't changed on HN. There's some fluctuation of course but people have been perceiving and pronouncing the same trends for 10+ years.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#96

Post by myWindoonn »

TMWNN wrote: post #37
sinecure wrote: post #27

Reddit's procedure for communities that go against any mainstream progressive narrative is to quarantine them and then ban them under the accusation of "brigading". They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. The…

>They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. This has been going on for years. After the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, /r/news and /r/worldnews completely shut down postings about it because a Muslim was th…

Weird hill to die on, IMO. Remember when we were younger and there was immense pressure on cable news to stop sharing the details of mass-shooting incidents because it was glorifying the shooters and their violent means? What Reddit is doing is what we asked cable news to do.

(Also, like, stop blowing your dogwhistle so damn loud.)

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#97

Post by TMWNN »

myWindoonn wrote: post #96
TMWNN wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. This has been going on for years. After the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, /r/news and /r/worldnews completely shut down postings about it because a Muslim was th…

Weird hill to die on, IMO. Remember when we were younger and there was immense pressure on cable news to stop sharing the details of mass-shooting incidents because it was glorifying the shooters and their violent means? What Reddit is doing is what we asked cable news to do. (Also, like, stop blowing your dogwhistle so damn loud.)

>Remember when we were younger and there was immense pressure on cable news to stop sharing the details of mass-shooting incidents because it was glorifying the shooters and their violent means? What Reddit is doing is what we asked cable news to do.

First, I was never part of said "immense pressure" so don't speak on my behalf.

Second, please read the links I posted elsewhere. /r/news's moderators, and Reddit's own CEO, admitted that the subreddit had completely bungled coverage of the shooting. As the Washington Post article and the replies to the previous posts discuss, they did more than that; for hours it was impossible for /r/news visitors to learn that a mass murder of 50 people in a nightclub had happened at all. I am a witness of the censorship on that subreddit that day.

Third, I question whether there was ever "immense pressure" in the US to do such a thing. Even in New Zealand, where said immense pressure by the government and others caused the manifesto written by the mosque attacker to be universally censored, and overseas sites hosting footage of the shooting itself were blocked, at least the public knew such an attack had occurred in the first place.

>(Also, like, stop blowing your dogwhistle so damn loud.)

Ah yes, the fabled "dog whistle". AKA "I can't find something to attack in what ideological opponent said, so I'm going to pretend that what he said actually means something else, and attack that instead".

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#98

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

mint2 wrote: post #45
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to know we finally found the final arbiter of what exactly is "extremism and misinformation"! This will make governing the people so much easier now!

Please refrain from sarcasm that doesn’t add anything. If you want to add to the discussion please elaborate on why you think it is impossible to know if something is extremism in a reasonably objective manner, and explain the examples most people would think of like neonazi propaganda and vaccine disinformation that causes people to prefer unstudied horse dewormer over studied vaccines.

The people who invented ivermectin got a Nobel Prize in medicine for it. Hardly "unstudied", especially compared to something that required emergency use authorization to be used on humans.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#99

Post by inkblotuniverse »

seattle_spring wrote: post #44
pope_meat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering what it says about us humans that the only way to maintain even a modicum of civility is heavy censorship. Also, don't these folks realize that Jesus was Jewish... like, what kind of brain worms crawling in their heads that they can in one breath proclaim faith to an Abrahamic religion, hate for people from that part of the world, and how morality comes from a society following their preferred religion.…

Moderation isn't censorship, and moderating out 5% of a userbase that makes 95% of the noise doesn't really say anything about society. I don't expect this comment to get much love in a thread linking to patriots.win, a clone of one of the most heavily moderated and hateful subs in Reddit history.

When you agree with it, it's moderation; when you don't, it's censorship.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#100

Post by myWindoonn »

TMWNN wrote: post #97
myWindoonn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird hill to die on, IMO. Remember when we were younger and there was immense pressure on cable news to stop sharing the details of mass-shooting incidents because it was glorifying the shooters and their violent means? What Reddit is doing is what we asked cable news to do. (Also, like, stop blowing your dogwhistle so damn loud.)

>Remember when we were younger and there was immense pressure on cable news to stop sharing the details of mass-shooting incidents because it was glorifying the shooters and their violent means? What Reddit is doing is what we asked cable news to do. First, I was never part of said "immense pressure" so don't speak on my behalf. Second, please read the links I posted elsewhere. /r/news's moderators, and Reddit's own…

Oh, you're not from the USA? So, uh, we have a lot of mass shootings. A common point of discussion is whether we should publically discuss the details of mass shootings, because discussion can easily excuse and glorify the shooters.

The dog whistle in your earlier post is that the mean old liberals wouldn't let you talk about violence committed by Muslims, but fortunately Donald's fans were there to give you a space; how generous of them.

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