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While these "free speech" Reddit alternatives end up taking a far-right tone, what's funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angl

While these "free speech" Reddit alternatives end up taking a far-right tone, what's funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angle. So you can't just talk about your favorite TV show. You have to first make a nod to how it features a Jewish conspiracy to push black-white interracial relationships. Only then can you go on to discuss the actual episode.

deleted 5y ago
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hunterb123 5y ago
While these "moderated speech" Reddit alternatives end up taking a far-left tone, what's funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angle. So you can't just talk about your favorite article. You have to first make a nod to how it features a white supremacist conspiracy to push anti-Jewish sentiments. Only then can you go on to discuss the actual submission.
- dymk 5y ago
  Perhaps in certain subreddits that's true, but on Reddit, it's easy to find both far right and far left echo chambers. And it's easy to find centrist communities. It's also easy to find communities where people don't talk about politics at all, and just discuss their favorite TV show or 3D printing filament without bringing anything else up. That's not the case on these other "free-speech" reddit clones - they're exclusivly far-right extremist content.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    My post was exactly what GP was doing here. He couldn't talk about the article posted without bringing in some neo nazi fantasy he had. I simply changed the words he spouted and it fit perfectly with what he is doing. Reddit bans anything "far right" (whatever that means) that gets popular. Extremist used to mean terrorist, now it's used for people you don't align with politically. No one on [Patriots . win] is an extremist, but I'm sure you'd say they were.
    - dymk 5y ago
      That seems fair game to bring up though, because this is a thread discussing the site as a whole, and not about a TV show. And the pattern of reddit clones hosting exclusively far-right ~~~extremist~~~ (edit: I'll replace this with "leaning") content while reddit itself is far more diverse is an interesting observation.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        I dunno, go look through any popular subreddit and it's all about "extreme" leftist politics, even /r/funny, etc. But sure, some fantasy about neo nazis discussing tv shows that I'm sure GP totally saw and didn't just make up is relevant. I guess my point is, yes, it can happen but it happens on both sides. Mostly, people just want a nice place to hang out amongst their like minded peers, and no that doesn't mean discussing Jews 24/7 believe it or not. GP talks like someone who has never talked with someone on the other "side". We're all people, stop dehumanizing the other political spectrum because you don't understand them. tldr: the most extreme people on the right probably discuss Soros/Jews as much as the most extreme people on the left discuss Trump/MAGA. That doesn't represent anyone else.
        dtjb 5y ago
        wait, patriots.win isn't extremist but r/funny is?
        hunterb123 5y ago
        extremist != extreme extreme is used to denote it's a far swing in the spectrum, extremist alludes to terrorism.
        shkkmo 5y ago
        While "extremist" might have connatations of violence/terrorism, those connotations are not inherent in the meaning of the word. I would argue that it behooves us to push back against such a connotation because it really only serves to delegitimize people who don't have mainstream beliefs by implying that they intend violence without having to justify an actually disprovable statement.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    > it's easy to find both far right and far left echo chambers Could you point to 3 "far right echo chamber" active-ish (more than 50,000 subscribers) non-banned subreddits? For "far-left" I'd say: r/politics r/LateStageCapitalism and r/socialism EDIT: I knew this post was going to get heat. I consider myself a "leftist" (and by US standards I would be maybe consider a communist) but my point was that there is active censorship of right/far-right discourse in Reddit. Even in my pro-socialist/anti-capitalist view I like reading and seeing the other side's point of view. Main reason being that I think we should be open to other views to see the things to improve in our ideas. I would invite people to engage in the conversation instead of having a knee-jerk reaction.
    - dymk 5y ago
      r/the_doland (banned) r/CringeAnarchy (banned) r/Greatawakening (banned) The myriad of r/incel communities and their clones that Reddit plays whack-a-mole with
      - dtjb 5y ago
        r/antifa and r/chapotraphouse were also large communities that were banned. Reddit policy definitely appears to be based on behavior, not ideology.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        yeah real great "behavior" they got over there https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
        dtjb 5y ago
        I could see some people finding it in bad taste, but since all names are obscured, what specifically is bannable about that community?
        hunterb123 5y ago
  - uabstraction 5y ago
    It's a mistake to think echo chambers are a phenomenon which only take place on the political extremes. Reddit itself is an echo chamber of tepid liberal orthodoxy and American exceptionalism, moderated by a former member of the Atlantic Council. A fish doesn't recognize the water it swims in. Redditors might call a place like Hexbear an echo chamber for instance, but it wasn't the members of Hexbear who chose to isolate themselves. Reddit made that decision by banning them.
    - noobermin 5y ago
      While this is true, I feel like there really is a difference between modern online communities and the ones that existed in the older era, before the so-called web 2.0 era. You can't escape bias at all, that should be any person's educated perspective, but there is a difference in degree that is sharper both on reddit and facebook groups and the like. Ironically, twitter (which does skew left wing at least in some places), while having its host of issues, has a much lower degree of echo chamber-ness because there are no groups, everyone is thrown in a pot together. It does have the cancel mobs and all that but an echo chamber it is not, which at least proves "echo chamber" isn't the default final state of any social media platform.
Igelau 5y ago
The comment that got flagged for trying to reverse this missed its point, but I thought it had one. My reply-too-late: While that is a little hyperbolic, there's definitely a "kid gloves" approach you have to take in a lot of online discussions. E.g. there was an article on burnout that popped up on HN[0] recently where the author made sure to apologize for being a "privileged white chick" early on. You can't just talk about your problem with burnout and how you handled it, you have to virtue signal about issues that might not even be related first. I've seen discussions on Twitter get swamped with "what are you doing in our conversation?" replies that drew the line on racial boundaries, when the issues at hand weren't even exclusive to race. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28665065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28665065
- jszymborski 5y ago
  > you have to virtue signal about issues Acknowledging your privilege is not categorically virtue signalling. One can think there's not value is acknowledging privilege (or that it might not exist), but let's not pretend it's impossible (or unlikely) that another does.
  - finfinfin 5y ago
    Are you saying that it’s not categorically virtue signaling because someone can find value in that? Doesn’t sound logical to me. If the detail doesn’t contribute to the discussion but is meant to appease a specific group - that’s definitely closer to virtue signaling than to a genuine expression.
    - jszymborski 5y ago
      Again, I think the problem here is that you might not find that privilege acknowledgement contributes to the discussion, but there are plenty of people who acknowledge their privilege in the belief that it is contributing to the discussion. I think it's very telling that folk think that writing "I'm saying this from a position of privilege" invariably is done with a proverbial gun to their head, hoping to evade a public flogging if they fail to do so. People, myself included, genuinely see disclosing your position of privilege in the same way someone from Company X might say "Disclosure: I work at Company X" when commenting on a post about Company X. Now, it might seem that acknowledging ones privilege is shoe-horned into every conversation, but I challenge you to think about how privilege touches so much of our lives. Anyways, all I'm saying is you don't have to "find value" in folks acknowledging privilege. You just need to be able to imagine a world in which they do.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
They're akin to when you're a kid with friends and one of you starts cussing, the rest don't react negatively, and then you just f-bombing all the things. Some people don't want to be adults or approach life that way, they just want the veneer of adulthood.
devmunchies 5y ago
you had to do that on reddit every time you discussed trump. "I loathe that racist, I didn't vote for him, but I thought it was funny that he said... blah blah" conforming to groupthink and avoiding judgement by the ingroup is a major problem across the "free world". regardless of political leanings.
- noobermin 5y ago
  Again, why are people equating weak virtue signaling about milquetoast democratic leanings with singaling about *Anti-semitic conspiracy* mongering? I think the issue isn't about signaling or "when in rome" sort of fitting in, it's that to signal you are part of a the community you have to appear super fringe.
  - somethingor 5y ago
    Comparing is not equating. The only thing being compared is the “when in Rome” aspect.
    - noobermin 5y ago
      My point is people are missing the point...again, clearly stating it again, the issue isn't the signaling, it's what must be signaled.
      - syshum 5y ago
        You don't believe, that perhaps people are not missing the point at all, but instead your political bias' are showing? That you agree with political bent of one type of signalling...
        noobermin 5y ago
        I don't agree that Jews are trying to make black people marry white people. Is that what you're referring to? I'm certainly not for white people "checking their privilege" either because as I said it's annoying. Why are you attacking me?

deleted 5y ago

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hunterb123 5y ago

While these "moderated speech" Reddit alternatives end up taking a far-left tone, what's funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angle. So you can't just talk about your favorite article. You have to first make a nod to how it features a white supremacist conspiracy to push anti-Jewish sentiments. Only then can you go on to discuss the actual submission.

dymk 5y ago
Perhaps in certain subreddits that's true, but on Reddit, it's easy to find both far right and far left echo chambers. And it's easy to find centrist communities. It's also easy to find communities where people don't talk about politics at all, and just discuss their favorite TV show or 3D printing filament without bringing anything else up. That's not the case on these other "free-speech" reddit clones - they're exclusivly far-right extremist content.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  My post was exactly what GP was doing here. He couldn't talk about the article posted without bringing in some neo nazi fantasy he had. I simply changed the words he spouted and it fit perfectly with what he is doing. Reddit bans anything "far right" (whatever that means) that gets popular. Extremist used to mean terrorist, now it's used for people you don't align with politically. No one on [Patriots . win] is an extremist, but I'm sure you'd say they were.
  - dymk 5y ago
    That seems fair game to bring up though, because this is a thread discussing the site as a whole, and not about a TV show. And the pattern of reddit clones hosting exclusively far-right ~~~extremist~~~ (edit: I'll replace this with "leaning") content while reddit itself is far more diverse is an interesting observation.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      I dunno, go look through any popular subreddit and it's all about "extreme" leftist politics, even /r/funny, etc. But sure, some fantasy about neo nazis discussing tv shows that I'm sure GP totally saw and didn't just make up is relevant. I guess my point is, yes, it can happen but it happens on both sides. Mostly, people just want a nice place to hang out amongst their like minded peers, and no that doesn't mean discussing Jews 24/7 believe it or not. GP talks like someone who has never talked with someone on the other "side". We're all people, stop dehumanizing the other political spectrum because you don't understand them. tldr: the most extreme people on the right probably discuss Soros/Jews as much as the most extreme people on the left discuss Trump/MAGA. That doesn't represent anyone else.
      - dtjb 5y ago
        wait, patriots.win isn't extremist but r/funny is?
        hunterb123 5y ago
        extremist != extreme extreme is used to denote it's a far swing in the spectrum, extremist alludes to terrorism.
        shkkmo 5y ago
        While "extremist" might have connatations of violence/terrorism, those connotations are not inherent in the meaning of the word. I would argue that it behooves us to push back against such a connotation because it really only serves to delegitimize people who don't have mainstream beliefs by implying that they intend violence without having to justify an actually disprovable statement.
- xtracto 5y ago
  > it's easy to find both far right and far left echo chambers Could you point to 3 "far right echo chamber" active-ish (more than 50,000 subscribers) non-banned subreddits? For "far-left" I'd say: r/politics r/LateStageCapitalism and r/socialism EDIT: I knew this post was going to get heat. I consider myself a "leftist" (and by US standards I would be maybe consider a communist) but my point was that there is active censorship of right/far-right discourse in Reddit. Even in my pro-socialist/anti-capitalist view I like reading and seeing the other side's point of view. Main reason being that I think we should be open to other views to see the things to improve in our ideas. I would invite people to engage in the conversation instead of having a knee-jerk reaction.
  - dymk 5y ago
    r/the_doland (banned) r/CringeAnarchy (banned) r/Greatawakening (banned) The myriad of r/incel communities and their clones that Reddit plays whack-a-mole with
    - dtjb 5y ago
      r/antifa and r/chapotraphouse were also large communities that were banned. Reddit policy definitely appears to be based on behavior, not ideology.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        yeah real great "behavior" they got over there https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
        dtjb 5y ago
        I could see some people finding it in bad taste, but since all names are obscured, what specifically is bannable about that community?
        hunterb123 5y ago
- uabstraction 5y ago
  It's a mistake to think echo chambers are a phenomenon which only take place on the political extremes. Reddit itself is an echo chamber of tepid liberal orthodoxy and American exceptionalism, moderated by a former member of the Atlantic Council. A fish doesn't recognize the water it swims in. Redditors might call a place like Hexbear an echo chamber for instance, but it wasn't the members of Hexbear who chose to isolate themselves. Reddit made that decision by banning them.
  - noobermin 5y ago
    While this is true, I feel like there really is a difference between modern online communities and the ones that existed in the older era, before the so-called web 2.0 era. You can't escape bias at all, that should be any person's educated perspective, but there is a difference in degree that is sharper both on reddit and facebook groups and the like. Ironically, twitter (which does skew left wing at least in some places), while having its host of issues, has a much lower degree of echo chamber-ness because there are no groups, everyone is thrown in a pot together. It does have the cancel mobs and all that but an echo chamber it is not, which at least proves "echo chamber" isn't the default final state of any social media platform.

Igelau 5y ago

The comment that got flagged for trying to reverse this missed its point, but I thought it had one. My reply-too-late: While that is a little hyperbolic, there's definitely a "kid gloves" approach you have to take in a lot of online discussions. E.g. there was an article on burnout that popped up on HN[0] recently where the author made sure to apologize for being a "privileged white chick" early on. You can't just talk about your problem with burnout and how you handled it, you have to virtue signal about issues that might not even be related first. I've seen discussions on Twitter get swamped with "what are you doing in our conversation?" replies that drew the line on racial boundaries, when the issues at hand weren't even exclusive to race. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28665065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28665065

jszymborski 5y ago
> you have to virtue signal about issues Acknowledging your privilege is not categorically virtue signalling. One can think there's not value is acknowledging privilege (or that it might not exist), but let's not pretend it's impossible (or unlikely) that another does.
- finfinfin 5y ago
  Are you saying that it’s not categorically virtue signaling because someone can find value in that? Doesn’t sound logical to me. If the detail doesn’t contribute to the discussion but is meant to appease a specific group - that’s definitely closer to virtue signaling than to a genuine expression.
  - jszymborski 5y ago
    Again, I think the problem here is that you might not find that privilege acknowledgement contributes to the discussion, but there are plenty of people who acknowledge their privilege in the belief that it is contributing to the discussion. I think it's very telling that folk think that writing "I'm saying this from a position of privilege" invariably is done with a proverbial gun to their head, hoping to evade a public flogging if they fail to do so. People, myself included, genuinely see disclosing your position of privilege in the same way someone from Company X might say "Disclosure: I work at Company X" when commenting on a post about Company X. Now, it might seem that acknowledging ones privilege is shoe-horned into every conversation, but I challenge you to think about how privilege touches so much of our lives. Anyways, all I'm saying is you don't have to "find value" in folks acknowledging privilege. You just need to be able to imagine a world in which they do.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

They're akin to when you're a kid with friends and one of you starts cussing, the rest don't react negatively, and then you just f-bombing all the things. Some people don't want to be adults or approach life that way, they just want the veneer of adulthood.

devmunchies 5y ago

you had to do that on reddit every time you discussed trump. "I loathe that racist, I didn't vote for him, but I thought it was funny that he said... blah blah" conforming to groupthink and avoiding judgement by the ingroup is a major problem across the "free world". regardless of political leanings.

noobermin 5y ago
Again, why are people equating weak virtue signaling about milquetoast democratic leanings with singaling about *Anti-semitic conspiracy* mongering? I think the issue isn't about signaling or "when in rome" sort of fitting in, it's that to signal you are part of a the community you have to appear super fringe.
- somethingor 5y ago
  Comparing is not equating. The only thing being compared is the “when in Rome” aspect.
  - noobermin 5y ago
    My point is people are missing the point...again, clearly stating it again, the issue isn't the signaling, it's what must be signaled.
    - syshum 5y ago
      You don't believe, that perhaps people are not missing the point at all, but instead your political bias' are showing? That you agree with political bent of one type of signalling...
      - noobermin 5y ago
        I don't agree that Jews are trying to make black people marry white people. Is that what you're referring to? I'm certainly not for white people "checking their privilege" either because as I said it's annoying. Why are you attacking me?