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I just checked out http://thedonald.win/ http://thedonald.win/ and it has gotten a lot more extreme since it was moved off Reddit. I think it would have not got

I just checked out http://thedonald.win/ http://thedonald.win/ and it has gotten a lot more extreme since it was moved off Reddit. I think it would have not gotten as extreme if it were in the Reddit ecosystem still.

whymauri 6y ago
I'm willing to bet it'll go the same way as Voat. Except Voat actually had a diversity of topics to discuss when it founded (although it turned to garbage in a few weeks), this website is laser focused on one demagogue.
- zionic 6y ago
  Pretty sure its way above voat in terms of traffic, and now with admins purging the top /r/conspiracy mod they're moving there as well. The .win ecosystem is trying to parallel reddit and its doing so much faster by pulling in high profile departures.
dragontamer 6y ago
Groups becoming more extreme when they exodus is fine and part of the calculus. The reason to take it off of Reddit is to prevent more followers from joining up with them. Stormfront is extreme and everyone knows about them. (Literally a white-nationalist website). But without a foothold on Reddit, they lack the ability to gain followers. When LUE was banned from GameFAQs decades ago, they just formed up their own group (G00Ns, Something Awful, etc. etc.). They were no longer GameFAQ's problem, and GameFAQs no longer had to deal with its members slowly becoming indoctrinated by an group bent on posting pornography on video game forums where children were active. The rest of GameFAQs got better. Ditto with 4Chan when they kicked the Gamergate people off to 8Chan. 4Chan got better, though the Gamergate dudes grew more extreme.
- jandrese 6y ago
  It's the Amiga effect. The smaller a group is the more radical the membership. Having thedonald.win be a cesspool isn't all bad. If someone is on the fence and goes to check it out their first reaction is likely to be of disgust, especially if the userbase is hostile to "noobs" because they're paranoid about infiltration.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    Does that apply to an existing community? Why not "coup it" like Reddit did with the Covid-subs and enforce nicer rules.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      It is most visible in communities that are shrinking, especially if they were originally very large. Moderate members slowly filter out for one reason or another until only the die hards are left.
- s3r3nity 6y ago
  > Groups becoming more extreme when they exodus is fine and part of the calculus. The reason to take it off of Reddit is to prevent more followers from joining up with them. Is this really any better than religious idealogues burning books that aren't its Bibles, lest people get tempted to reject their faith or question their ideologies? Or North Korea blocking any information about capitalist successes, lest that cause their citizens to question the communist / fascist ideologies they've been exposed to and cause more followers to switch? Pretending that there aren't other opinions because you're worried that people can't properly evaluate and weigh the evidence / ideas is a weak excuse for censorship. Of course, I should mention that I do not support many of the prevailing sentiments in r/DonaldTrump - but we should be better arming individuals with better critical thinking and believability weighting abilities, rather than resort to censorship. "Censorship is telling a man he can't have steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    "Censorship" seems to work pretty well around here in HackerNews. When someone's opinion becomes violent or unhelpful, the mods around here will delete their post, curtailing discussion and making this area more reasonable for overall discourse to move forward. There are unreasonable opinions and unreasonable people out there. The only possible weapon online groups have to combat unreasonable people in a discussion forum, is censorship. ------- But sure, feel free to use the decades old arguments of "unmoderated speech" from the days of USENET. Some of us have been around long enough to see this argument style play out over-and-over again. Again-and-again, the only USEFUL discussion forums are those who are run by good moderators. "Censoring" Spam, pornography, doxxing and yes, censoring calls to overt violence in the real world, is incredibly important to keep online discussions safe. Cutting out hateful groups is _effective_. Its the weapon of last resort, but given what we've seen this past week, it is a well warranted move. It is no different than a moderator coming around here to delete spam.
    - s3r3nity 6y ago
      Successes to an ends for censorship doesn't make it any more ethical. China is a pretty strong economy right now - that doesn't make the CCP's aggressive forms of censorship any more just or ethical.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  What / who is LUE?
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    In the early 00s, the LUEsers were a subforum of GameFAQs. Their official name was "Life, the Universe, and Everything". They got their notoriety by posting pornographic images all over the site, notably on Pokemon forums where children often came to discuss the game. It was a silly meme ("Mods are asleep, post Tub-girl" or whatever). But their memes were beginning to harm the site. The LUEsers cried "free speech" and bemoaned the moderators for attacking their memes. Eventually, the admins shut down the LUE-subforum entirely (though with a "Grandfather clause", so that old LUEsers can still talk with each other, but newbies couldn't join their forum anymore).
rat87 6y ago
The question is if Reddit has gotten less extreme since banning them
- Tokkemon 6y ago
  Anecdotally, yes, it has on the whole.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - MarcellusDrum 6y ago
    Less right-wing extreme, yes, but it is not filled with left-wing extremists. As someone that has literally never been in the US and consider himself very left-leaning, the leftist echo chamber that reddit has become disgusts me. Posts that just say "Trump should be impeached" gets literally 50k+ upvotes. Any attempt to show any wrongdoing by a Dem gets downvoted and banned.
    - Tokkemon 6y ago
      You're not wrong. Fortunately, left-leaning circle jerks rarely kill people or incite violence so I think society tolerates them much more. It's not like the USA has a real violent left-wing like there would be in the communist revolutions of yore.
rightbyte 6y ago
It was a big mistake banning it from Reddit. Their own platform is way more radical and informally and in practice allows incitement to violence.
- johnghanks 6y ago
  Sure but it means their exposure is limited to only those seeking that content already. You won't have Soccer Moms stumbling from their city or birdwatching subreddit into /r/thedonald.
- MaxLeiter 6y ago
  They had access to a much larger community on Reddit. This way you have to try to find the site, and you won’t just have it appear on your /r/all or front page
zionic 6y ago
Oh wow, they broke top-500 US and are about to break top-400 https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thedonald.win https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thedonald.win
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
As I've been saying here in HN. The political divide is the democrats. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-divide-1994-2017/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-d... Put your finger on the Median Republican line and it either moves left or stays put. The political divide has not been the republicans. In the last year that changed for many reasons. The republicans have now moved. That political divide is now much larger. That 'more extreme' that you've noticed is because the political divide has shifted.
- PNWChris 6y ago
  I dispute this assessment, it’s a drastic simplification and the comparison only starts in 1994, which is after a heavy swing in America to the right throughout the 80s and 90s. If anything, what the article shows is a regression to the long-term political mean, not a move left. A great example I happen to have favorited on YouTube, check out the healthcare debate in 1971 [0]. It’s essentially Medicare for all (D) vs practically Obamacare (but from an R). [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFJ7vv8vDU&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFJ7vv8vDU&feature=youtu.be
  - sleepysysadmin 6y ago
    >I dispute this assessment, it’s a drastic simplification and the comparison only starts in 1994, which is after a heavy swing in America to the right throughout the 80s and 90s. If anything, what the article shows is a regression to the long-term political mean, not a move left. It shows the political swing over 25+ years capturing clinton, bush, and obama presidencies. We see that during bush and clinton the democrats were quite stable. Only at around 2011 did the graph start seeing a shift where 2017 has the democrats having moved far left on average. This data is available from other sources. The other reality is that I can personally see it. The democrats used to have a strong moderate base, they are gone. There are many many people writing on how the political divide is so bad that it feels like never before. The reality is that Obama(first black president) was doomed to identity politics. Which has created this much division. >A great example I happen to have favorited on YouTube, check out the healthcare debate in 1971 [0]. It’s essentially Medicare for all (D) vs practically Obamacare (but from an R). Not available in my country. 1971 is much to old to properly compare to today's political climate.

whymauri 6y ago

I'm willing to bet it'll go the same way as Voat. Except Voat actually had a diversity of topics to discuss when it founded (although it turned to garbage in a few weeks), this website is laser focused on one demagogue.

zionic 6y ago
Pretty sure its way above voat in terms of traffic, and now with admins purging the top /r/conspiracy mod they're moving there as well. The .win ecosystem is trying to parallel reddit and its doing so much faster by pulling in high profile departures.

dragontamer 6y ago

Groups becoming more extreme when they exodus is fine and part of the calculus. The reason to take it off of Reddit is to prevent more followers from joining up with them. Stormfront is extreme and everyone knows about them. (Literally a white-nationalist website). But without a foothold on Reddit, they lack the ability to gain followers. When LUE was banned from GameFAQs decades ago, they just formed up their own group (G00Ns, Something Awful, etc. etc.). They were no longer GameFAQ's problem, and GameFAQs no longer had to deal with its members slowly becoming indoctrinated by an group bent on posting pornography on video game forums where children were active. The rest of GameFAQs got better. Ditto with 4Chan when they kicked the Gamergate people off to 8Chan. 4Chan got better, though the Gamergate dudes grew more extreme.

jandrese 6y ago
It's the Amiga effect. The smaller a group is the more radical the membership. Having thedonald.win be a cesspool isn't all bad. If someone is on the fence and goes to check it out their first reaction is likely to be of disgust, especially if the userbase is hostile to "noobs" because they're paranoid about infiltration.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Does that apply to an existing community? Why not "coup it" like Reddit did with the Covid-subs and enforce nicer rules.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    It is most visible in communities that are shrinking, especially if they were originally very large. Moderate members slowly filter out for one reason or another until only the die hards are left.
s3r3nity 6y ago
> Groups becoming more extreme when they exodus is fine and part of the calculus. The reason to take it off of Reddit is to prevent more followers from joining up with them. Is this really any better than religious idealogues burning books that aren't its Bibles, lest people get tempted to reject their faith or question their ideologies? Or North Korea blocking any information about capitalist successes, lest that cause their citizens to question the communist / fascist ideologies they've been exposed to and cause more followers to switch? Pretending that there aren't other opinions because you're worried that people can't properly evaluate and weigh the evidence / ideas is a weak excuse for censorship. Of course, I should mention that I do not support many of the prevailing sentiments in r/DonaldTrump - but we should be better arming individuals with better critical thinking and believability weighting abilities, rather than resort to censorship. "Censorship is telling a man he can't have steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  "Censorship" seems to work pretty well around here in HackerNews. When someone's opinion becomes violent or unhelpful, the mods around here will delete their post, curtailing discussion and making this area more reasonable for overall discourse to move forward. There are unreasonable opinions and unreasonable people out there. The only possible weapon online groups have to combat unreasonable people in a discussion forum, is censorship. ------- But sure, feel free to use the decades old arguments of "unmoderated speech" from the days of USENET. Some of us have been around long enough to see this argument style play out over-and-over again. Again-and-again, the only USEFUL discussion forums are those who are run by good moderators. "Censoring" Spam, pornography, doxxing and yes, censoring calls to overt violence in the real world, is incredibly important to keep online discussions safe. Cutting out hateful groups is _effective_. Its the weapon of last resort, but given what we've seen this past week, it is a well warranted move. It is no different than a moderator coming around here to delete spam.
  - s3r3nity 6y ago
    Successes to an ends for censorship doesn't make it any more ethical. China is a pretty strong economy right now - that doesn't make the CCP's aggressive forms of censorship any more just or ethical.
im3w1l 6y ago
What / who is LUE?
- dragontamer 6y ago
  In the early 00s, the LUEsers were a subforum of GameFAQs. Their official name was "Life, the Universe, and Everything". They got their notoriety by posting pornographic images all over the site, notably on Pokemon forums where children often came to discuss the game. It was a silly meme ("Mods are asleep, post Tub-girl" or whatever). But their memes were beginning to harm the site. The LUEsers cried "free speech" and bemoaned the moderators for attacking their memes. Eventually, the admins shut down the LUE-subforum entirely (though with a "Grandfather clause", so that old LUEsers can still talk with each other, but newbies couldn't join their forum anymore).

rat87 6y ago

The question is if Reddit has gotten less extreme since banning them

Tokkemon 6y ago
Anecdotally, yes, it has on the whole.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- MarcellusDrum 6y ago
  Less right-wing extreme, yes, but it is not filled with left-wing extremists. As someone that has literally never been in the US and consider himself very left-leaning, the leftist echo chamber that reddit has become disgusts me. Posts that just say "Trump should be impeached" gets literally 50k+ upvotes. Any attempt to show any wrongdoing by a Dem gets downvoted and banned.
  - Tokkemon 6y ago
    You're not wrong. Fortunately, left-leaning circle jerks rarely kill people or incite violence so I think society tolerates them much more. It's not like the USA has a real violent left-wing like there would be in the communist revolutions of yore.

rightbyte 6y ago

It was a big mistake banning it from Reddit. Their own platform is way more radical and informally and in practice allows incitement to violence.

johnghanks 6y ago
Sure but it means their exposure is limited to only those seeking that content already. You won't have Soccer Moms stumbling from their city or birdwatching subreddit into /r/thedonald.
MaxLeiter 6y ago
They had access to a much larger community on Reddit. This way you have to try to find the site, and you won’t just have it appear on your /r/all or front page

zionic 6y ago

Oh wow, they broke top-500 US and are about to break top-400 https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thedonald.win https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thedonald.win

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

As I've been saying here in HN. The political divide is the democrats. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-divide-1994-2017/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-d... Put your finger on the Median Republican line and it either moves left or stays put. The political divide has not been the republicans. In the last year that changed for many reasons. The republicans have now moved. That political divide is now much larger. That 'more extreme' that you've noticed is because the political divide has shifted.

PNWChris 6y ago
I dispute this assessment, it’s a drastic simplification and the comparison only starts in 1994, which is after a heavy swing in America to the right throughout the 80s and 90s. If anything, what the article shows is a regression to the long-term political mean, not a move left. A great example I happen to have favorited on YouTube, check out the healthcare debate in 1971 [0]. It’s essentially Medicare for all (D) vs practically Obamacare (but from an R). [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFJ7vv8vDU&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFJ7vv8vDU&feature=youtu.be
- sleepysysadmin 6y ago
  >I dispute this assessment, it’s a drastic simplification and the comparison only starts in 1994, which is after a heavy swing in America to the right throughout the 80s and 90s. If anything, what the article shows is a regression to the long-term political mean, not a move left. It shows the political swing over 25+ years capturing clinton, bush, and obama presidencies. We see that during bush and clinton the democrats were quite stable. Only at around 2011 did the graph start seeing a shift where 2017 has the democrats having moved far left on average. This data is available from other sources. The other reality is that I can personally see it. The democrats used to have a strong moderate base, they are gone. There are many many people writing on how the political divide is so bad that it feels like never before. The reality is that Obama(first black president) was doomed to identity politics. Which has created this much division. >A great example I happen to have favorited on YouTube, check out the healthcare debate in 1971 [0]. It’s essentially Medicare for all (D) vs practically Obamacare (but from an R). Not available in my country. 1971 is much to old to properly compare to today's political climate.