7 ms·

r/worldnews The sub has gone to hell a good few years ago. If your opinions are anywhere right of woke, you get banned straight up. It is often considered a ba

by screye 5y ago

r/worldnews The sub has gone to hell a good few years ago. If your opinions are anywhere right of woke, you get banned straight up. It is often considered a badge of honor to get banned from r/worldnews. A sign that you haven't fully given in to the hive mind. Funnily enough, the best world news subreddit right now is reddit.com/r/anime_titties (SFW). It started as a joke subreddit satirizing r/neutralpolitics being taken over by porn, but has somehow managed to be the best world news subreddit despite the tongue-in-cheek name. A lot of innocuous subreddits implement sweeping bans for participation in any black-listed subreddit. r/offmychest is famous for a huge ban hammer (I'm a victim). Honestly, every subreddit that has a r/trueSubreddit version has run into this exact problem at some point. Honestly, most of the default subs are pretty much hard-censored already. The election year has to led to the complete deterioration of wat used to be well-moderated subs like r/science and r/ask_historians. Then there are the geographical subs. The default country subs are almost all hard-censored. r/India is so bad, that there's conspiracies about it being run by an ISI operative. Sadly, the reaction to r/India's polarization was the formation of another heavily polarized subreddit in r/india_speaks. So now we have 2 uniquely bad subreddits. In the US, I have noticed a similar thing happen to r/seattle and r/seattleWA around views on homelessness, but to a lesser degree of mutual deterioration. Any time I step into the real world, I squarely fall into the urban atheist liberal mould. Yet for some reason, the exact same views warrant complete ostracization on a lot of these internet front pages. The insularity of the echo-chamber is mind-boggling.

gnarbarian 5y ago
I've completely quit reddit after 15 years and my life is better for it.
- spiderice 5y ago
  I've been very aggressively filtering out problematic subreddits from r/all, and it's helped tremendously.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>It started as a joke subreddit satirizing r/neutralpolitics being taken over by porn, but has somehow managed to be the best world news subreddit despite the tongue-in-cheek name. I routinely find that the best content is on the subs that are parodying the subs you'd think would have that content.
- Plasmoid 5y ago
  /r/neoliberal is a surprisingly informed and nuanced take on a lot of issues
falcrist 5y ago
> If your opinions are anywhere right of woke, you get banned straight up. I hear this from people on the right, but there are plenty of right-wingers in there every time I visit. Go into a thread about Afghanistan, and there will be people blaming biden arguing with people blaming trump.[1] Go into a thread about Isreal and Palestine. People are arguing about which one is the true evil.[2] Go into a thread about climate change. People are openly downplaying climate change.[3] The subs I most often see suppressing speech are generally on the right, so it sounds a lot like projection when I hear people making these accusations. [1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbzuye/large_explosion_at_abbey_gate_at_the_kabul_airport/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbzuye/large_exp... [2] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/nimqkg/tens_of_thousands_attend_largest_propalestine/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/nimqkg/tens_of_t... [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbkpqt/atmospheric_co2_levels_havent_been_this_high_in/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbkpqt/atmospher...
- lordloki 5y ago
  I clicked on each of these and while there seem to be a few "right of woke" comments they are massively buried. It could be that most non-woke commenters have either already been banned or now avoid it. This doesn't disprove the original comment.
  - falcrist 5y ago
    There are plenty of "right of woke" comments in there, but as far as proof, what would you like to see? There are plenty of folks who haven't been banned, so clearly it's not everyone. Do you have records of all of the people who have been banned so we can directly test the assertion I'm responding to?
- screye 5y ago
  You make my case for me right here Every example you give here is of intra-left debate within a tiny overton window. Opinions around palestine haven't yet crystallized, because WW2 wounds of the holocaust are still fresh. Similarly, Biden was the most hated of the democratic choices on the left. The far-left is still trying to squareoff between their opinion of biden vs hatred of trump vs hawkish liberal empire building vs mistreatment of afghans by Taliban. The opinions around these topics have still not concretized in the culture war. That being said, I certainly see the direction in which the winds are blowing. __________ On the surface social propaganda dynamics function in a way that is wonderfully elaborated on this post : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183001 (I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup) However, under the surface, real propaganda emphasizes the an insidious ostracization of another community member : the in-group-contrarian. (IGC) (read more here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23596617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23596617) Propaganda mods will often allow the stupidest of opinions on climate change and racism to stay on. In part, because the community does their job for them by heavily downvoting these opinions. But, the IGC is far more dangerous. They start making too much sense (are usually thoughtful & polite), have a proven 'correct' identity (can't easily be dismissed with adhominems) and have some level of credibility (professional stature in the correct circles). Classic examples of IGCs would be black conservatives (Glenn Loury), Anti-woke academics (Jordan Peterson) or atheist ex-muslims (Ayaan Hirsi Ali). Don't read too much into the examples, I don't endorse or even totally agree with most of these people. (The fact that I feel a need to say this, shows the soft fear I have of being called an islamophobic transphobic trump-lover by association, despite aligning with none of those groups) The IGCs are treated far far worse than any outgroup member. Classic gives are that they get called stupid, opportunist, sell-outs,self-help shills and the like. I have heard some vicious anti-semitic and racist stuff being thrown at IGCs by the left-woke establishment, to shut them down before they get too big. The fear of these people is palpable. I feel like I got insta-banned due to having the trappings of a prospective IGC. If a member is too prominent at the time of them expressing an IGC opinion, then they get de-platformed (Bari Weiss, Matt Yglesias). The smartest IGCs know to sandwich their IGC view a ton of qualification, express IGC views as a way to point guns in the direction of common ideological enemy and express it sparsely enough to not aggravate too many people. (Contrapoints, John McWhorter). The most dangerous IGCs are those that cannot be deplatformed by a minority, whose ethical compass and merit cannot be dismissed, and are practically pillars of their community ( Total Biscuit RIP, Noam Chomsky, Scott Alexander, Chapelle, Paul G to a lesser degree). This last group is a total pain in the ass to deal with for propagandists.
burnished 5y ago
could you give some examples of these opinions? My experience is that posts like this are usually hiding some pretty ugly opinions that get dressed up as "right wing opinions", and I'd love to see a counter example where a very reasonable and respectful position is being banned/excluded. Links instead of descriptions if you don't mind.
- screye 5y ago
  I really don't like the assumption of guilt being thrust upon me, but I'll play along. I assume a lack of anonymity in general, so I'll share my profile. You can always dig through my HN profile too. But in the interest of good faith, please don't go around doxxing/stalking me. The comments that got me banned on r/worldnews are here (That's the day I got banned, hadn't posted for a while before that): https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22screye%22,%22subreddit%22:%22worldnews%22,%22resultSize%22:100,%22after%22:%222021-02-11T05:00:00.000Z%22} https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22scre... They have all been deleted from the subreddit (hard censorship), but the internet is forever.
  - falcrist 5y ago
    I mean... it just looks like that whole branch of the conversation was nuked, including everyone disagreeing with you and the whole discussion about whether Modi should be called a Nazi.
  - thowpol 5y ago
    I am indian (part of the society that benefits the most from Modi's economics and politics) but I just made this account (also another exhibit of how far-right my government is) to say that I read the conversation and I really think you gotta dig deeper into the social fabric of the indian culture to realise how far-right the organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh) behind the government (from which Modi comes) is. They have an entirely different image of the Indian subcontinent (based on this guy's vision of "Hindutva" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar). This image roughly includes three parts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva:_Who_is_a_Hindu%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva:_Who_is_a_Hindu%3F): 1. Religion 2. Culture (Caste etc) 3. National Identity Now the problem is that the government might actually not be really into building the one nation, one religion Indian subcontinent presented in the vision (yes that includes Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan) but the millions of kids being trained by the RSS since forever in thousands of schools kinda do want that. The problem with Modi is not that he's a nazi or not. The problem is with a sizeable population in India who support him because they think he's their guy and will do to Muslims and other lower caste people what the Nazis did to others. Hitler is considered a strong military leader amongst that population. The last part is of course anecdotal (the sample size was around 50 people through out my life spread over different socio-economic-geographic factors. TL;DR This is going to be a problem in the long term for the world
keewee7 5y ago
>r/India More than a year ago I was banned from both r/worldnews and r/India for a comment about how the US and Pakistan funded and armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. I'm a Danish guy and I have never posted anything in r/India. Someone who mods both r/worldnews and r/India doesn't like criticism of Pakistan. Pakistani nationalists becoming mods of both r/India and r/worldnews is just the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with the mods on reddit.
- Animats 5y ago
  banned from both r/worldnews and r/India for a comment about how the US and Pakistan funded and armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Which is no secret, and is not disputed. There's even a movie, "Charlie Wilson's War", with Tom Hanks. "And then we blew the endgame."

by screye 5y ago

gnarbarian 5y ago

I've completely quit reddit after 15 years and my life is better for it.

spiderice 5y ago
I've been very aggressively filtering out problematic subreddits from r/all, and it's helped tremendously.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>It started as a joke subreddit satirizing r/neutralpolitics being taken over by porn, but has somehow managed to be the best world news subreddit despite the tongue-in-cheek name. I routinely find that the best content is on the subs that are parodying the subs you'd think would have that content.

Plasmoid 5y ago
/r/neoliberal is a surprisingly informed and nuanced take on a lot of issues

falcrist 5y ago

> If your opinions are anywhere right of woke, you get banned straight up. I hear this from people on the right, but there are plenty of right-wingers in there every time I visit. Go into a thread about Afghanistan, and there will be people blaming biden arguing with people blaming trump.[1] Go into a thread about Isreal and Palestine. People are arguing about which one is the true evil.[2] Go into a thread about climate change. People are openly downplaying climate change.[3] The subs I most often see suppressing speech are generally on the right, so it sounds a lot like projection when I hear people making these accusations. [1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbzuye/large_explosion_at_abbey_gate_at_the_kabul_airport/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbzuye/large_exp... [2] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/nimqkg/tens_of_thousands_attend_largest_propalestine/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/nimqkg/tens_of_t... [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbkpqt/atmospheric_co2_levels_havent_been_this_high_in/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/pbkpqt/atmospher...

lordloki 5y ago
I clicked on each of these and while there seem to be a few "right of woke" comments they are massively buried. It could be that most non-woke commenters have either already been banned or now avoid it. This doesn't disprove the original comment.
- falcrist 5y ago
  There are plenty of "right of woke" comments in there, but as far as proof, what would you like to see? There are plenty of folks who haven't been banned, so clearly it's not everyone. Do you have records of all of the people who have been banned so we can directly test the assertion I'm responding to?
screye 5y ago
You make my case for me right here Every example you give here is of intra-left debate within a tiny overton window. Opinions around palestine haven't yet crystallized, because WW2 wounds of the holocaust are still fresh. Similarly, Biden was the most hated of the democratic choices on the left. The far-left is still trying to squareoff between their opinion of biden vs hatred of trump vs hawkish liberal empire building vs mistreatment of afghans by Taliban. The opinions around these topics have still not concretized in the culture war. That being said, I certainly see the direction in which the winds are blowing. __________ On the surface social propaganda dynamics function in a way that is wonderfully elaborated on this post : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183001 (I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup) However, under the surface, real propaganda emphasizes the an insidious ostracization of another community member : the in-group-contrarian. (IGC) (read more here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23596617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23596617) Propaganda mods will often allow the stupidest of opinions on climate change and racism to stay on. In part, because the community does their job for them by heavily downvoting these opinions. But, the IGC is far more dangerous. They start making too much sense (are usually thoughtful & polite), have a proven 'correct' identity (can't easily be dismissed with adhominems) and have some level of credibility (professional stature in the correct circles). Classic examples of IGCs would be black conservatives (Glenn Loury), Anti-woke academics (Jordan Peterson) or atheist ex-muslims (Ayaan Hirsi Ali). Don't read too much into the examples, I don't endorse or even totally agree with most of these people. (The fact that I feel a need to say this, shows the soft fear I have of being called an islamophobic transphobic trump-lover by association, despite aligning with none of those groups) The IGCs are treated far far worse than any outgroup member. Classic gives are that they get called stupid, opportunist, sell-outs,self-help shills and the like. I have heard some vicious anti-semitic and racist stuff being thrown at IGCs by the left-woke establishment, to shut them down before they get too big. The fear of these people is palpable. I feel like I got insta-banned due to having the trappings of a prospective IGC. If a member is too prominent at the time of them expressing an IGC opinion, then they get de-platformed (Bari Weiss, Matt Yglesias). The smartest IGCs know to sandwich their IGC view a ton of qualification, express IGC views as a way to point guns in the direction of common ideological enemy and express it sparsely enough to not aggravate too many people. (Contrapoints, John McWhorter). The most dangerous IGCs are those that cannot be deplatformed by a minority, whose ethical compass and merit cannot be dismissed, and are practically pillars of their community ( Total Biscuit RIP, Noam Chomsky, Scott Alexander, Chapelle, Paul G to a lesser degree). This last group is a total pain in the ass to deal with for propagandists.

burnished 5y ago

could you give some examples of these opinions? My experience is that posts like this are usually hiding some pretty ugly opinions that get dressed up as "right wing opinions", and I'd love to see a counter example where a very reasonable and respectful position is being banned/excluded. Links instead of descriptions if you don't mind.

screye 5y ago
I really don't like the assumption of guilt being thrust upon me, but I'll play along. I assume a lack of anonymity in general, so I'll share my profile. You can always dig through my HN profile too. But in the interest of good faith, please don't go around doxxing/stalking me. The comments that got me banned on r/worldnews are here (That's the day I got banned, hadn't posted for a while before that): https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22screye%22,%22subreddit%22:%22worldnews%22,%22resultSize%22:100,%22after%22:%222021-02-11T05:00:00.000Z%22} https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22scre... They have all been deleted from the subreddit (hard censorship), but the internet is forever.
- falcrist 5y ago
  I mean... it just looks like that whole branch of the conversation was nuked, including everyone disagreeing with you and the whole discussion about whether Modi should be called a Nazi.
- thowpol 5y ago
  I am indian (part of the society that benefits the most from Modi's economics and politics) but I just made this account (also another exhibit of how far-right my government is) to say that I read the conversation and I really think you gotta dig deeper into the social fabric of the indian culture to realise how far-right the organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh) behind the government (from which Modi comes) is. They have an entirely different image of the Indian subcontinent (based on this guy's vision of "Hindutva" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar). This image roughly includes three parts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva:_Who_is_a_Hindu%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva:_Who_is_a_Hindu%3F): 1. Religion 2. Culture (Caste etc) 3. National Identity Now the problem is that the government might actually not be really into building the one nation, one religion Indian subcontinent presented in the vision (yes that includes Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan) but the millions of kids being trained by the RSS since forever in thousands of schools kinda do want that. The problem with Modi is not that he's a nazi or not. The problem is with a sizeable population in India who support him because they think he's their guy and will do to Muslims and other lower caste people what the Nazis did to others. Hitler is considered a strong military leader amongst that population. The last part is of course anecdotal (the sample size was around 50 people through out my life spread over different socio-economic-geographic factors. TL;DR This is going to be a problem in the long term for the world

keewee7 5y ago

>r/India More than a year ago I was banned from both r/worldnews and r/India for a comment about how the US and Pakistan funded and armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. I'm a Danish guy and I have never posted anything in r/India. Someone who mods both r/worldnews and r/India doesn't like criticism of Pakistan. Pakistani nationalists becoming mods of both r/India and r/worldnews is just the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with the mods on reddit.

Animats 5y ago
banned from both r/worldnews and r/India for a comment about how the US and Pakistan funded and armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Which is no secret, and is not disputed. There's even a movie, "Charlie Wilson's War", with Tom Hanks. "And then we blew the endgame."