5 ms·

The horrors in Rotterham weren't exposed by conspiracy nuts, though. It was exposed by real investigative journalism and law enforcement work. That's the whol

The horrors in Rotterham weren't exposed by conspiracy nuts, though. It was exposed by real investigative journalism and law enforcement work. That's the whole point here: it's not that bad things don't happen, it's that this fact is not sufficient evidence for other bad things happening. The suppression here is of baseless conspiracy theories about child abuse because they're baseless, not because they're about child abuse.

ALittleLight 6y ago
The victims in Rotterham went to the police and were turned away because the police considered what they were reporting to be potentially offensive. You're right that it wasn't exposed by conspiracy nuts, but that's because it was a real thing and the people with flimsy evidence were ignored. That it wasn't exposed by people with flimsy evidence is my point. In a different context and with different laws they would have the circulated the story and it would have gained attention, credibility, and scrutiny. There is a reason why "Grooming gangs" are common in the UK compared to the US. I think the suppression of speech is one of those reasons. It's basically gaslighting to praise the work of the government by saying "It was exposed by real investigative journalism and law enforcement work". Absolutely not. Multiple victims reported it to the government and were turned away. The government and journalists ignored it for decades. That's hardly "real investigative work". The government and journalists managed to detect the organized rape of hundreds of children after only 30 years! The other reason to bring up Rotterham is to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy. Sometimes the government is involved in the organized rape of children. Prohibiting people from talking about the possibility because you feel their evidence is insufficient is not a trade off I think should be made.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy You're doing it again! You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work. And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    I don't think it's appropriate to say things like "Stop it". Please do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child and acting like you are instructing me. The QAnon conspiracy is about pedophiles in government. The Rotterham scandal is about pedophiles enabled by government. The Epstein case is a mix of pedophiles and government. It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. We have multiple contemporary cases of this happening now. Furthermore, it is exactly the tendency to censor speech which enabled the Rotterham scandal to endure for so long. Because people were censored for fear of causing offense hundreds of children were raped and victims were ignored. That's an extremely relevant example to a case where people are saying we must not permit people to talk about offensive things.
    - supernovae 6y ago
      This makes no sense. Trump has several claims of rape against him, has been known to be on Pedophilia flights and private trips with Epstein and walked in on pageant changing rooms and other things. If QAnon was about pedophilia, it would be about pedophilia. BUt its not. It's really about projection. Make enemies of people with baseless claims so they believe its true. Sad really. He's using your desire to not be censored to fill your desire for hate. And anyone who disagrees with your hate violates your freedom to talk about it. Everything you don't believe in is fake news. It's a reality distortion field.
    - alimw 6y ago
      Since you can't even spell Rotherham, I'll not give much weight to your analysis of the reasons behind the police failure there.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        Since you evaluate arguments based on the spelling of proper nouns from foreign places I'm afraid I can't bring myself to care about the esteem with which you regard my analysis.

ALittleLight 6y ago

The victims in Rotterham went to the police and were turned away because the police considered what they were reporting to be potentially offensive. You're right that it wasn't exposed by conspiracy nuts, but that's because it was a real thing and the people with flimsy evidence were ignored. That it wasn't exposed by people with flimsy evidence is my point. In a different context and with different laws they would have the circulated the story and it would have gained attention, credibility, and scrutiny. There is a reason why "Grooming gangs" are common in the UK compared to the US. I think the suppression of speech is one of those reasons. It's basically gaslighting to praise the work of the government by saying "It was exposed by real investigative journalism and law enforcement work". Absolutely not. Multiple victims reported it to the government and were turned away. The government and journalists ignored it for decades. That's hardly "real investigative work". The government and journalists managed to detect the organized rape of hundreds of children after only 30 years! The other reason to bring up Rotterham is to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy. Sometimes the government is involved in the organized rape of children. Prohibiting people from talking about the possibility because you feel their evidence is insufficient is not a trade off I think should be made.

newacct583 6y ago
> to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy You're doing it again! You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work. And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I don't think it's appropriate to say things like "Stop it". Please do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child and acting like you are instructing me. The QAnon conspiracy is about pedophiles in government. The Rotterham scandal is about pedophiles enabled by government. The Epstein case is a mix of pedophiles and government. It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. We have multiple contemporary cases of this happening now. Furthermore, it is exactly the tendency to censor speech which enabled the Rotterham scandal to endure for so long. Because people were censored for fear of causing offense hundreds of children were raped and victims were ignored. That's an extremely relevant example to a case where people are saying we must not permit people to talk about offensive things.
  - supernovae 6y ago
    This makes no sense. Trump has several claims of rape against him, has been known to be on Pedophilia flights and private trips with Epstein and walked in on pageant changing rooms and other things. If QAnon was about pedophilia, it would be about pedophilia. BUt its not. It's really about projection. Make enemies of people with baseless claims so they believe its true. Sad really. He's using your desire to not be censored to fill your desire for hate. And anyone who disagrees with your hate violates your freedom to talk about it. Everything you don't believe in is fake news. It's a reality distortion field.
  - alimw 6y ago
    Since you can't even spell Rotherham, I'll not give much weight to your analysis of the reasons behind the police failure there.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      Since you evaluate arguments based on the spelling of proper nouns from foreign places I'm afraid I can't bring myself to care about the esteem with which you regard my analysis.