> they can do absolutely nothing to stop you from creating a competing community on the exact same website, leveraging the existing userbase.
Admins can though. I see a recurring pattern of this in U.S. politics or politics-infested parts of reddit: mods of /r/PoliticalHumor or /r/MurderedByWords can make a pro-D. echo chamber out of their subreddits, but an attempt to make a pro-R. echo chamber of the similar temperature would be quarantined/banned/whatever.
For an outsider, it was quite disturbing to see how dissenting opinions on U.S. politics were silenced on reddit in a matter of couple of years (2017-2018, I guess?). I do not care about U.S. politics that much, but erasure of dissent is scary.
It’s not as simple as you make it out and your framing of it suggests a significant bias on your part. Some speech doesn’t deserve a platform. You’re still free to think it, to say it out loud, to buy a domain and host it, and talk about it with like minded people — but you have zero god-given right to engage in that shit-talk in other people’s space in which you are a guest.
Censorship is a concern, free speech is a concern but it’s complicated. Add in the weaponization of social media and the lovely gift of the power of disinformation from your motherland and it gets messier still.
You’ve provided incredibly weak evidence to make your case (an article that didn’t praise T and an article that unnecessarily dunked on him). And all the while you conveniently ignore key factors (i.e., that T. treated his office as his personal kingdom and expressed contempt for those not loyal to him, ad nauseam).
I'm curious about this dissent you speak of. Could you share some examples of it that you have seen or would like to see?
Edit: the question was asked in sincerity. I haven't seen any such dissent but I live in a bubble. The only conservative dissent I've seen in the last 4 years has been been republicans leaving the party over Trump.
Go to /r/all and try to find the first pro-T. post and the first "orange man bad" post. If you don't find any pro-T. posts quickly, then this is your example.
We know from the election results that about half of the U.S. voters prefer R. party or T. in particular. This is a lot - this can't be a fringe group by definition of "fringe".
In 2016, scrolling through reddit you could see it. There was a contested election, there were supporters from both sides on reddit, noisy and visible. In 2020, you'll be hard-pressed to find some pro-T. content unless you know where to look (I don't, and won't bother), it's all "orange man bad" now. He probably is, but come on.
So, reddit somehow shut off the half of its home country from participating in political discussion on their website. They're probably in their own right, but this is scary shit.
I need to tread carefully here, but this is the kind of political discussion that HN doesn't want.
I'm interested in discussing policy, and the application of same. Tribal warfare politics is ugly and uninteresting.
Are you religious? Shall I try to talk you out of your faith? Because that's what discussing T is to his followers. From my vantage point (and I'm not alone in this), it's both fascinating and horrifying but above all, frustrating, because there's no possibility of real dialog.
Maybe the reason you don't see anything positive about T where you describe is because there isn't a whole lot to say in that regard?
> Maybe the reason you don't see anything positive about T where you describe is because there isn't a whole lot to say in that regard?
Maybe. Or maybe not. How do I know?
Not reddit, but I bookmarked this example a few years ago. It is a very little thing, but very showing. Remember when T. was trying to negotiate some deal with North Korea? One of the things which came out of it was DPRK returning some remnants of U.S. soldiers from the Korean war back to the U.S.
I consider the New Yorker to be one of the best pieces of journalism which the U.S. has to offer (no irony here). Here are two articles from there: one is about that story, the remnants of soldiers coming back, another one is about Diet Coke. They were on the front page of their website on the same day, and I clicked both.
One of them mentions T, another one does not. Can you guess which one? Can you guess whether it is a "positive" mention?
So, now back to your question:
> Maybe the reason you don't see anything positive about T where you describe is because there isn't a whole lot to say in that regard?
Maybe. Or maybe not. How do I know? I'm not from the U.S., but I guess that you are, so you tell me.
For now, I can tell you that I lost a lot of trust in the U.S. media, but maybe you can change my mind. I'm not a T. follower, so (according to you) there might be a possibility of a dialog.
The 2 articles you cite are interesting. I'd argue that the NK article was fine as it -- it was about the soldiers long story coming to a close. Was it by virtue of the actions of T? Sure, I'll give him that. Did he need to be specifically praised for that in the context? No, it wasn't about him, it was about the soldiers.
The second article is a "culture" piece and the inclusion of T in that is a head scratcher. I was not impressed by it (regardless of the random T tidbit).
That's a sample size of 2, and while both could be arguable evidence for your position, it's not of much to work with.
You say you're not a T. follower, but you imply that "the media" is not fair to him. Were you aware of any of his conduct in these past 4 years? Nothing out of the ordinary?
Are you aware that he's actively trying to overthrow the election that he lost? Does that seem ok to you? Are you aware of Bush v. Gore?
I could go on and on if you wished. But the more important thing is: if I am correct and I'm unable to persuade you then where does that leave us? How can we fix a problem that "doesn't exist"?
> No, it wasn't about him, it was about the soldiers.
It wasn't. But a bit of a context wouldn't hurt, right? Why did Koreans choose to return the remnants, out of the blue? You wouldn't have guessed it unless I told you, right? Given the general atmosphere, it certainly feels like there's a deliberate omission. Yay for the best journalism the U.S. has to offer.
I'm aware of T's conduct, I don't like him and I wouldn't vote for him if I happened to be a U.S. citizen. But I'm not, so I don't really care about him that much.
What I care about is freedom in a very broad sense, including the freedom to share information and express opinions, and to know other what others have to share and express. And here T. and his fate in media and on social platforms is a mere indicator.
Back to reddit: in 2016 you could see supporters from both sides. They were visible and vocal about what they had to say. In 2020, there is only "orange man bad" side to be seen. If I did not know better, I could have thought that this represents a legitimate change of the tides: in 2016 T. had supporters, now he does not.
But this isn't the case. In 2016 he got slightly less than a half of all votes, in 2020 he got slightly less than a half of all votes, no change here. So what changed? Reddit. For what I know, it deliberately chose to suppress the voices of the T. supporters for some reason. Ban this subreddit, quarantine that, change the mods to more loyal ones there. Like I said, they're probably in their own right, but this reverse astroturfing is scary.
This is scary because: what are they going to suppress next? What else did they suppress, but I did not notice? And if venues in the range between the best and the snobbiest magazine and the semi-anonymous public message board choose to suppress something, where do I find it then? And, most importantly, why so many reasonable people find this OK? Even fellow HN folks suddenly became very pro-censorship in the recent couple of years. My guess is that they have never been on the receiving end of it :(
It is not about T, it is not even about Reddit. How do I find something if Google chooses to suppress it? How do I send a link to what I found to my friend, if their messenger of choice bans these particular links, and their email provider puts emails with these links to spam? How do I keep my friends updated about what I have to say if their social networks or news aggregating tools forbid or suppress links to my website? Or (as in the case of Facebook, afaik) suppress links to all websites, while censoring their in-platform content heavily?
Do you really think that the problem "does not exist"?
Suppress what? He was acknowledged for that tiny win. Just because you have an article that doesn't praise him directly you build a case of suppression.
There's not a whole lot positive to say about the man, so far you've offered up the tiniest sliver. You're clearly more informed on this wonderful information that is being suppressed so tell me more. I've already accepted that the NK remains was a good thing and he gets a gold star for that. More please?
As for de-platforming, yes I'm 100% ok with Alex Jones not making money. I'm ok with Trump losing twitter privileges after he leaves office if he continues to engage in stochastic terrorism.
You're scared of the wrong things. I'm scared of a population that wants fascism, that would love to hunt liberals for sport, that want to make their religious beliefs the law of the land.
Like I said, I'm not his supporter, go ask them if you're actually interested. As a foreigner, I'd mention that he did not start any new wars around the globe, the first U.S. president since... Carter, I guess? I wasn't even alive back then. But this is offtopic.
Also, fascism is one of those words which lost its meaning. Every person has their own definition of it, the only common denominator (usually) being "something I don't like and neither should you". For constructive conversation it's better to avoid this word, I believe.
> You're scared of the wrong things.
Am I? I've seen the rise of (state-backed) censorship and silencing of dissent in Russia, and this is one of the reasons I emigrated. I've seen the rise of (society-backed) censorship and silencing of dissent in Ukraine after 2014, and this is why I did not emigrate there and now have to learn a yet another foreign language. Now I see the rise of censorship and silencing of dissent in the U.S., and I don't like what I'm seeing - unfortunately, what happens in U.S. often has world reach. Meanwhile, I'm yet to see any hunters for liberals for sports in these places.
> As for de-platforming, yes I'm 100% ok with Alex Jones not making money.
I don't care about Alex Jones either, that guy sucks. But are you OK with you not making money? Are you OK with subreddits you visit being banned? Are you OK with websites you visit being deplatformed? Are you OK with topics that you are interested in being purged from YouTube?
That's the thing, people usually want those things for others, never for themselves. Do you think that you should have more rights than those 45% who believe in ghosts, or what?
If you don't like a website, or a subreddit, or a mailing list - unsubscribe and never visit it again. I had /r/the_donald removed from my /r/all for years, and it did not bother me.
But if you find yourself wanting to "deplatform" some website or some subreddit - i.e. to disrupt or suppress communications of other people between each other (because you don't like them) - are you sure that it is that different from wanting to make your religious beliefs the law of the land?
> As a foreigner, I'd mention that he did not start any new wars around the globe
Unless you count the US-Iran conflict he started, sure. (And if you don't count that because you want to claim it as a continuation or mutation of a preexisting conflict, a number of other Presidents also haven't started wars, just participated in such evolutions of preexisting crises.)
Like the other guy said, that was not a war. The casualties were minimal, and Iran is still where it used to be. That was a scary moment indeed, but luckily nothing serious came out of it.
Also, I'm quite surprised that someone else is still reading this conversation. Wow.
But, sure, if we arbitrarily exclude some international armed conflicts between military forces of one country and those of another from “war”, then, ok, you can rescue the claim that Trump hasn't started any “wars”, but at the cost of weakening the case for excluding other Presidents from that same description.
* Obama: Libya (in ruins), Syria (in ruins)
* Bush: Iraq (conquered, then partially reconquered back by ISIS), Afghanistan (yet another never-ending Afghan war)
* Clinton: Serbia (ended up relatively OK, had to elect a new president, give away the old one, and also a part of the country declared independence), and I think there were more? I was a kid back then, don't remember it well, need to wiki up.
* Old People's Bush: Gulf War, and I guess wiki would tell more stories.
These all are large conflicts with non-trivial outcomes. Lots of troops involved, lots of casualties caused, serious consequences for the countries attacked. Now, what are the casualties for that T's conflict with Iran? What are the consequences for Iran?
Checked wiki [1]: 7 combatants dead on the U.S. side, 22 on the Iran side (of which 19 is friendly fire), in the grand scheme of things - no consequences so far.
Also, if we need a relatively neutral third party, then English Wikipedia calls these events not "war" but "crisis" [1] and does not list it in their list of U.S. wars [2]. Feel free to try to add it to that list and prove your point to fellow wikipedians, I'd watch how it would go.
Yes, if those incomes are via conning people or inciting hatred. I worked in internet advertising and got out once I could -- that's about as far to the dark side as I've gone.
> Are you OK with subreddits you visit being banned?
I'm actually banned in /r/politics for stating that if Stephen Miller died I wouldn't be sad because at least he'd be out of power. Am I ok with that? I think it's a bit extreme but I'm a guest there and so be it.
I'd be bothered by losing any of my subreddits (or FSM help us, HN!), but then again my intake is content isn't based up on hate speech.
> Are you OK with websites you visit being deplatformed?
Losing stuff you like is a bummer but c'est la guerre. I miss Kuro5hin.
You worry about the State censoring things but every single example you give is a for-profit enterprises adjusting to market pressures. Do you hate capitalism or what?
> Do you think that you should have more rights than those 45% who believe in ghosts, or what?
WTF? I never implied anything like that -- I implied that there's a lot of stupid people out there. Do I have the right to do that?
You also conveniently ignore the dangers of hate speech and frame this all as "people don't get to say nice things about T. because those mean libtards won't let them".
Because I believe in "free speech" I'm not comfortable with having the government come in and shut them down. FFS, I understand that can go both ways. But it's nuanced and simplifying it the way you have borders on disingenuous.
As for not giving money to the companies that pay for that hate to be spread (and encouraging others to do the same -- free speech too, buddy), yes, I'm absolutely fine with that. Why don't you explain to me how that's government censorship. And while you're at it, why don't you explain to me how you think hate speech is good for society?
Admins can though. I see a recurring pattern of this in U.S. politics or politics-infested parts of reddit: mods of /r/PoliticalHumor or /r/MurderedByWords can make a pro-D. echo chamber out of their subreddits, but an attempt to make a pro-R. echo chamber of the similar temperature would be quarantined/banned/whatever.
For an outsider, it was quite disturbing to see how dissenting opinions on U.S. politics were silenced on reddit in a matter of couple of years (2017-2018, I guess?). I do not care about U.S. politics that much, but erasure of dissent is scary.