7 ms·

The members of the the_donald had a history of breaking rules and crying foul any time any sort of administrative action was taken against them for it. Whether

The members of the the_donald had a history of breaking rules and crying foul any time any sort of administrative action was taken against them for it. Whether it was for brigading and harassment, or flooding modmail in other subreddits, or other actions. The result was that after the banning of the just as toxic "fatpeoplehate", admins were loathe to interfere with t_d. Any administrative response was met with charges of politicization, "liberal bias", and more rule-breaking. I'm surprised it's taken this long, but it appears that Reddit's staff waited until they had an obviously non-partisan reason for doing it. In this case, threatening police officers. I think they wanted to wait until they had a reason that would be difficult for people to turn into a partisan brawl that would give Reddit bad publicity. Imagine if you will the difficulty conservative sites may have in threading the needle that t_d is simultaneously being persecuted here for their conservative, pro-Trump political views, and that the particular views they were banned for were making violent threats to law enforcement.

gfosco 7y ago
I don't think there are many subreddits that praise and love law enforcement more than the_donald. They used a Media Matters hit piece to censor and contain one of the most popular subs, for purely partisan reasons.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Did you read the Media Matters piece? Here it is in case you hadn't: https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/06/24/A-pro-Trump-subreddit-is-full-of-calls-for-violence-in-support-of-Oregon-Republicans/224018 https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/06/24/A-pro-Trump... Scroll down and read the screenshots. It doesn't quite matter what the subreddit praised before when they still broke the rules.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    If I make a sockpuppet and post the same comments in r/politics, does that mean it should get quarantined? A lot of those screenshots are "1 point, 11 minutes ago" or "2 points, 17 minutes ago". If that's being expanded to cover an entire subreddit, then no sub would be safe when applied consistently.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      If you look at these accounts, many are 1+ years old. Calling them sock puppets is confirmation bias to avoid reading the article.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        Age is not a good determination of sockpuppetness, at least with competent opponents. Past activity might be, since that at least costs something, while age just costs prep time.
        bduerst 7y ago
        Okay, did you look at the age and the comment activity of these accounts? Because they're not sockpuppets accounts. You're making a textbook No True Scotsman.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        I don't doubt that many of the accounts screenshotted in the article linked are actual, active accounts on /r/The_Donald. I doubt that you can usefully distinguish real accounts from fake ones for the purposes of identifying false flag attacks in other subreddits.
    - dwild 7y ago
      A lot of those screenshots are theses too: - 49 votes, 9 hours ago - 27 votes, 7 hours ago - 53 points, 1 day ago - 66 points, 1 day ago Go do a sockpuppet and do the same! That won't last long and you'll get down-voted heavily.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        My impression reading the article was the more blatant the call to violence, the lower the score. I haven't exactly done a proper study of that, of course.
saltminer 7y ago
>that the particular views they were banned for were making violent threats to law enforcement They were quarantined, not banned. I honestly doubt they'll get banned at this rate, it was headlines like [0] that got it quarantined. [0]: https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2019/06/25/you-cant-offer-to-murder-cops-on-reddit-unless-youre-on-r-thedonald/ https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2019/06/25/you-cant-offer-to-...
- AaronFriel 7y ago
  Good correction, I'm outside the edit window on my comment to fix it. I think if other subreddits behaved similarly to t_d, they would have been banned, and much more swiftly.
grandridge 7y ago
bullshit

gfosco 7y ago

I don't think there are many subreddits that praise and love law enforcement more than the_donald. They used a Media Matters hit piece to censor and contain one of the most popular subs, for purely partisan reasons.

bduerst 7y ago
Did you read the Media Matters piece? Here it is in case you hadn't: https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/06/24/A-pro-Trump-subreddit-is-full-of-calls-for-violence-in-support-of-Oregon-Republicans/224018 https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/06/24/A-pro-Trump... Scroll down and read the screenshots. It doesn't quite matter what the subreddit praised before when they still broke the rules.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  If I make a sockpuppet and post the same comments in r/politics, does that mean it should get quarantined? A lot of those screenshots are "1 point, 11 minutes ago" or "2 points, 17 minutes ago". If that's being expanded to cover an entire subreddit, then no sub would be safe when applied consistently.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    If you look at these accounts, many are 1+ years old. Calling them sock puppets is confirmation bias to avoid reading the article.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Age is not a good determination of sockpuppetness, at least with competent opponents. Past activity might be, since that at least costs something, while age just costs prep time.
      - bduerst 7y ago
        Okay, did you look at the age and the comment activity of these accounts? Because they're not sockpuppets accounts. You're making a textbook No True Scotsman.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        I don't doubt that many of the accounts screenshotted in the article linked are actual, active accounts on /r/The_Donald. I doubt that you can usefully distinguish real accounts from fake ones for the purposes of identifying false flag attacks in other subreddits.
  - dwild 7y ago
    A lot of those screenshots are theses too: - 49 votes, 9 hours ago - 27 votes, 7 hours ago - 53 points, 1 day ago - 66 points, 1 day ago Go do a sockpuppet and do the same! That won't last long and you'll get down-voted heavily.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      My impression reading the article was the more blatant the call to violence, the lower the score. I haven't exactly done a proper study of that, of course.

saltminer 7y ago

>that the particular views they were banned for were making violent threats to law enforcement They were quarantined, not banned. I honestly doubt they'll get banned at this rate, it was headlines like [0] that got it quarantined. [0]: https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2019/06/25/you-cant-offer-to-murder-cops-on-reddit-unless-youre-on-r-thedonald/ https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2019/06/25/you-cant-offer-to-...

AaronFriel 7y ago
Good correction, I'm outside the edit window on my comment to fix it. I think if other subreddits behaved similarly to t_d, they would have been banned, and much more swiftly.

grandridge 7y ago

bullshit