Reddit Quarantines Pro-Trump Forum Because of Threats (thedailybeast.com) 743
The r/The_Donald subreddit has been "quarantined" by Reddit administrators after a series of threats against police were posted there. Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares an excerpt from The Daily Beast: "Recent behaviors including threats against the police and public figures is content that is prohibited by our violence policy," a Reddit spokesperson said in a statement. "As a result, we have actioned individual users and quarantined the subreddit." The new quarantine was brought on by anti-police threats posted on The_Donald. Some users had apparently encouraged violence against law enforcement, angry that officials in Oregon were trying to bring back GOP state senators who fled the state to avoid voting on a climate-change bill. In a note to The_Donald moderators, Reddit administrators said they had "observed this behavior in the form of encouragement of violence towards police officers and public officials in Oregon." The report notes that The_Donald has roughly 754,000 subscribers and is "one of the largest forums for Trump fans on the internet, and by far the largest on Reddit." Donald Trump himself answered questions from the forum's members during the 2016 campaign.
BigTech Censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
Reddit has now sunk below slashdot in my books.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Reddit Literally has a subreddit called fu*kthepolice. Go on the chap trap house reddit or any lefty reddit to see daily calls for violence. The Donald is perhaps the most well heeled subreddit out there that deals with politics, but the admins can't stand that it exists.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
The Donald is perhaps the most well heeled subreddit out there that deals with politics
Did you just say "well heeled". LOL. The_Donald is a safe place for DJT sycophant snowflake groupies that piss their pants at any post that isn't a DJT verbal BG.
Re: (Score:3)
Please stop appropriating the term "snowflake" from the left. People who disagree with you have actual facts, reason, and logic to back that disagreement. You are a special snowflake who emotionally melts when exposed to the very notion that someone is too stupid to share your half-baked opinions.
Re: BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, save that kind of hate... for Reddit!
Re: (Score:2)
That makes it the planet's prime venue for thoughtful political discussion to DeploraNazis - they love safe spaces more than anyone else.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
So what do you call /r/latestagecapitalism and /r/communism that both actively post messages to kill police, members of the military, and force communism on people by force? A good start? Maybe they're just warming up for the next 100m dead.
Re: BigTech Censorship (Score:4, Informative)
You call them "history that actually happened". Communism is by far the leader among all ideologies in mass murder in known history. Nazis comes a very, VERY distant second. As in, it's in the wrong order of magnitude, missing a zero at the tail end compared to communism.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat after me. Freedom of speech does not exist on a privately run internet forum. You have none.
The right to freedom of speech is foundational. The privilege to be a corporation is not.
The legal right to immunity to liability to things posted on your platform is contingent on being a neutral platform. Lotta platforms have decided to instead be publishers in recent years, and publishers are liable. Sue em for every defamatory statement posted anywhere, since they made the editorial decision to allow that content.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Informative)
Repeat after me. Freedom of speech does not exist on a privately run internet forum. You have none.
The right to freedom of speech is foundational. The privilege to be a corporation is not.
The legal right to immunity to liability to things posted on your platform is contingent on being a neutral platform. Lotta platforms have decided to instead be publishers in recent years, and publishers are liable. Sue em for every defamatory statement posted anywhere, since they made the editorial decision to allow that content.
Apples and oranges.
The legal responsibilities of a publisher under libel law are not the same as the constitutional responsibilities of a government under the First Amendment.
Yes, free speech is (constitutionally) foundational, but any non-government organization is under no obligation whatsoever to support your exercise of it.
To put it another way: the First Amendment protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, free speech is (constitutionally) foundational, but any non-government organization is under no obligation whatsoever to support your exercise of it.
I think lgw's argument is that if you are a corporation and choose to moderate who gets to say what, you are part of the publication process and cannot claim you are not liable for what appears in your fora. It has nothing to do with the first amendment, it has to do with existing libel and slander laws.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Informative)
And that argument is wrong. [cornell.edu]. Moderation under CDA 230(c)(2) does not transform an information service provider in CDA 230(c)(1) into an information content provider.
No, it has to do with the way that Republicans want the law to become [slate.com], not the existing laws as they are.
What are the odds that such a change gets through the House? Yeah, just about zero. So instead, the right simply pretends that it already is so. But its not.
Re: (Score:2)
Moderation under CDA 230(c)(2) does not transform an information service provider in CDA 230(c)(1) into an information content provider.
Says you, just making shit up. Let's see what the current SCOTUS has to say, even if the GOP doesn't tame the worst corporate outrages.
But I guess the Democrats are pivoting from the party of slavery to the party of corporate slavery. Gotta defend those corporate rights!
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
I've cited the actual law. Show me the language that supports you. Show me another law that supports you. Show me a case that supports you. The SCOTUS has nothing to say, because they haven't granted certiorari on any case involving the CDA.
The Communications Decency Act was passed under House Speaker Gingrich and a Republican House of Representatives. Republican operatives pushed Citizens United. You have no problem defending corporate rights under the first amendment to spend money on elections (money is speech)(, but you have a problem with corporations exercising speech and freedom of association that might affect elections? Puh-lease.
Re: (Score:2)
Republican operatives pushed Citizens United. You have no problem defending corporate rights under the first amendment to spend money on elections (money is speech
I draw the line at "publicly held corporation". Simple as that.
* A group of people who know each other and share values (beyond profit), especially when assembled for the purpose of political speech, do not lose their individual rights by the means they choose to pool their money.
* A group of strangers chartering a corporation for the purpose of profit are not engaged in political speech, and the entity created certainly has no damn rights at all.
Re: (Score:3)
You can expound upon what you want the law to be to your heart's content.
That is what we do here on Slashdot. Perhaps you're confused about where you are.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if I were to accept that as true, so what?
Requiring equal access to private communications media violates the first amendment [wikipedia.org]. Editorial judgment and freedom of association are protected first amendment activities.
Conservative opposition to the Fairness Doctrine [wikipedia.org] is so longstanding and entrenched that they'll look like complete hypocrites for pursuing it, and
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Fun fact: your right to free speech is neither created by the First Amendment nor any government. You will always have the right, even when your exercise of it may be restrained by government, corporation, illness, or what have you.
Re:BigTech Censorship (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's really not. 47 USC 230 [cornell.edu] says:
(1) is very clear that the immunity to liability for things posted on your platform exists unconditionally. (2) allows blocking of material that is "otherwise objectionable," like threatening people whether or not it meets the Brandenburg threshold, and says nothing about revoking the immunity of (1).
Lotta plaforms have decided to be "interactive computer services," and interactive computer services are not liable for anything posted by other information content providers (i.e., users).
And be dismissed on the pleadings. And pray that you don't receive the Rule 11(c) notice that any attorney worth their salt will send you in a bid to obtain sanctions for filing a baseless complaint.
Re: (Score:2)
You can legally fart in public and shit your pants while you're still wearing them. That doesn't mean anyone will respect you or take you seriously. I don't care if Reddit devolves into a leftist echo chamber as long as they admit that's what they are. They can suffer the same fate as CNN. Just don't pretend what's going on.
Re: (Score:2)
Way to refute an argument nobody made, genius. Freedom of Speech is a principle that applies to all communication, private or government does not matter. It is the principle that a healthy social discourse is achieved when everyone is allowed to speak. Bad ideas are beaten by good ideas, not censorship. It has absolutely nothing to do with the government, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, none of that.
If someone argues it's illegal for Reddit to do this because of first amendment, they're an idiot. It's
It Makes Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I'm a hippy-dippy liberal who thinks Trump is a stain on our already-broken federal political system.
But I'm an ACLU liberal which means I'll be the first to jump up and say, "Hey, that's stupid! Even if you're NOT the government, you should still facilitate free speech as a principal." For that reason, I don't like that Ravelry has banned all support for Trump on their forums. It's bad to normalize these types of policies simply because they presume that the tables will never turn and the popular sentiment will always be in your favor.
But if your population is calling for the physical harming of people or issuing threats (even if just to instill fear with no intent of following through), then the hammer has to come down. A communications platform doesn't need related lawsuits hitting them. That's too much liability.
All freedoms have limitations. Even speech. And especially in privately controlled areas. And necessarily when it deals with severe risk/liability.
Re: (Score:3)
If Reddit thinks this was a good idea they're sorely mistaken. At best it's going to lead people to reason that just by going into other forums and making similar violent thr
Re: (Score:2)
But if your population is calling for the physical harming of people or issuing threats (even if just to instill fear with no intent of following through), then the hammer has to come down. A communications platform doesn't need related lawsuits hitting them. That's too much liability.
Slashdot wouldn't ban a user for posting that kind of thing. There's some very offensive stuff that gets left up, if you dare read at -1.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this post gets some extremely offensive replies that never get deleted. Seriously though, how offensive can it get? Doesn't bother me. [smbc-comics.com] I mean, Doesn't bother me [existentialcomics.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It Makes Sense (Conspiracy angle) (Score:5, Insightful)
And before anyone goes "but both sides", Reddit is a big place. Many magnitudes bigger than slashdot. Maybe there are places where ultra-left-wing nuts regularly call for violence. And if there are, I'd support action there as well. But it's definitely not in a place with 750,000 subscribers.
Re:It Makes Sense (Conspiracy angle) (Score:5, Insightful)
People are saying that the mods were removing the posts as they found them, but the admins wanted an excuse to shut down the thread. Because it's quarantined it's pretty hard to verify this, one way or another, but it would be pretty easy for the admins to pull off if that's the case.
For example:
Suppose it takes the mods an average of 5 minutes to find and remove posts that violate Reddit policy. That seems reasonable to me, especially considering these are volunteer mods, not paid staff. Bear in mind that mods can't prevent a post, they can only ban people from the subreddit (I assume they can, anyway). So they can only deal with them on a case by case basis.
Admins: We told you to remove these posts. If we see more we'll shut down the subreddit.
Mods: We're removing them as fast as we find them!
Admins: *see new post making threats* That's it, subreddit is quarantined!
They are saying they were given an impossible standard to meet, and that's frankly something the Reddit admins could easily do.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem isn't the posts. The problem is that the moderators/admins aren't doing their job.
Actually it's worse than that. The irony of folks here screaming "Censorship!" is that The_Donald is censorship central. Anybody who posts anything which contradicts or criticises the prevailing group-think is promptly banned by the moderators. It's a MAGA echo chamber.
Re: (Score:2)
..and if you woke up one morning with a yard full of protestors, you'd probably feel differently about your personal property being utilized by others to perpetuate their "free speech".
If you advertise your front yard as a publicly available free speech medium, then you should not be surprised to wake up and find it full of protesters exercising their idea of "free speech".
Sounds like a frame job (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't sound like a level playing field at all [humanevents.com].
Snip.
The time certainly seems convenient for Democrats...
Re:Sounds like a frame job (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh.. what? There's clearly a link to the original, so obviously they aren't taking credit for the text. It's also in quote blocks, and a middle section was removed, with an extremely obvious "Snip" indicating such a thing occurred.
Am I completely missing the point you're trying to make, or are you just an idiot?
Reddit has always been a leftist hugbox (Score:5, Interesting)
Threats were made against police during black lives matters. Nobody batted an eye. I don't know why right wingers do this to themselves, but they wont get a fair shake on leftist controlled propaganda websites. Thankfully we have people like msmash and Beau who will stand up for free speech on Slashdot.
A Knitting Club (Score:5, Insightful)
And then we've got that mess in Oregon [slate.com]
This is not normal. This is what happens when the working class gets desperate and turns to a demagogue. Now is the time to nip this in the bud. We need pro-worker laws that take the pressure off. Otherwise those camps [twitter.com] down south are going to turn into the real deal in 10-20 years. Maybe sooner.
Re:A Knitting Club (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they didn't *have* to. Rather they're so unhinged that they banned Trump supporters because even saying "I support President Trump" caused users who don't to freak the fuck out and cause massive community issues.
That mess in Oregon? The same one where democrats who did the same thing and were cheering on when the roles were reversed is suddenly an issue. Hmm...isn't that strange. Including having their own protestors and militias show up...well fuck me.
It's sure not normal, but ask yourself why only one side freaks the fuck out and starts banning people for saying "I like Trump." This isn't the "working class" getting desperate, this is the non-city elites getting desperate because the last 30 years of left wing politics pissing their soup is making them desperate. Just think, you could stop it all from happening...if you stopped labeling all Trump supporters as racist xenophobes that hate gays and want to put 'immigrants' into camps. But you probably just started nodding mentally to that entire screed thinking it's the proper descriptor.
Then again, maybe while you're at it. You can get left wing politicians to stop supporting groups like Antifa and BAMN, and so on. And engaging in tactics like they did ~100 year to drive people away from any type of leftwing political discourse.
Re: (Score:3)
No Democrat threatened violence. No Democratic supporters offered to provide armed protection.
Yes, we could stop it all - by giving our country over to people who support racist xenophobes,support people who hate gays, and support people who want to put immigrants into c
Re: (Score:3)
If you search Reddit to find a knitting forum so you can go there and make a post saying you support Trump then yes, you are doing things very wrong.
However, if you've been a user of a knitting forum for years and post a picture of your latest project along with a comment that you're working on it at a Trump rally, that is perfectly fine. Or at least it should be.
Maybe they don't want to be neutral (Score:3)
1. He makes fun of the disabled.
2. He's running for profit concentration camps.
3. He is not opposed to sexual assault and has independent 22 accusers.
4. He banged a porn star 2 days after the birth of his son.
5. He demonizes refugees from countries fleeing violence _we_ caused (go look up how MS-13 got it
I'm not sure what's worse (Score:2)
In any case, when you were a wee lad did you ever think you'd take time out of your day to accuse a knitting club of fascism in order to advance the political career of Donald Trump? I'm guessing not. But, welp, here we are.
This was inevitable... (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't much like obama, but his AMA was amazing and one of the highest rated threads on Reddit for a long ass time. T_D started out as a joke sub, eventually devolving into a wretched hive of scum and villainy that likely got a warrant canary removed, and now this. America, what have we become?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
America, what have we become?
You should be looking into the mirror for the answer to that after describing Trump supporters as " a wretched hive of scum and villainy".
Touché. T_D was obviously a veritable cantina of acceptance and compassion.
Re:This was inevitable... (Score:4, Insightful)
False Flag (Score:3, Informative)
I have never seen anti-police comments there. Whoever at reddit did this is either a dupe or a bigot.
Thanks to this person, reddit has opened a can of worms, in that the other areas on that site, some well-known for advocating violence, will now be exposed for what they are.
Re:False Flag (Score:5, Informative)
Screenshots and links to the (now usually deleted) posts making threats here: https://www.mediamatters.org/r... [mediamatters.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Irony (Score:2)
What a necropolis (Score:3, Insightful)
Twitter is a comparative oasis of highbrow discourse.
so... (Score:4, Insightful)
...if I were to create an id, go into a subreddit I didn't like and start threatening violence, I could get that sub blocked?
Nice.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wouldn't work if the moderators were willing to delete your posts and maybe ban your account. It's the fact that the moderators didn't act, and in fact joined in with replies, that got them quarantined.
Re:so... (Score:4, Funny)
LOL @ the admins.
I was banned from r/atheism. (Honestly, to this day I genuinely don't know what for. TBH I'm not even Christian myself, but I do enjoy attacking the ironically-sacred-cows of Atheism probably too much....)
When I got their "you've been banned" note, it had a link "if you have questions about this ban, message ..."
When I messaged that a single time, asking only "What did I say that got me banned?" (Again, being totally honest, I wasn't going to apologize, I just wondered what I said that was so effective at tweaking their nose.)
In reply I got a permaban for 'harassing' the mods.
When I sent this conversation to the admins (again, a single message), I got a warning about harassing mods and admins.
I took it as a life lesson that Reddit really is a cesspool and while it might have been trollishly entertaining baiting people about their beliefs, it was probably making me more of an asshole than was healthy. So I stopped going to reddit.
That sub was alway masterful propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
What amazed me about that particular sub was the masterful propaganda it provided. It goes so far that not even the heavy users realize how much they deceive themselves. How? This way:
It was always very, very heavily moderated. They don't delete comments, they simply ban users. Anything that looks like dissent or not agreeing with the current (subject to change) political opinions and lines from Trump will get banned right away. And the comments will get deleted. Lots of users of this forum reported they were banned themselves, even if they are ardent fans of Trump. Just because they happened to deviate from the line an inch or so one time.
This breeds complience. Thus even the most bullshit articles will only have cireclejerk comments. Since the expectation on Reddit is that bullshit content will get called out in the comments, because all subs work like this, this exception to that rule makes the outrageous bullshit content, which is mainly weird conspiracy theores (Trump also frequently peddles conspiracy theories) believable. So much so, that I think the users deceive themselves that the shitposts of QAnon, Seth Rich, Pizzagate, Project Veritas, etc. are real or in any way credible.
Quite amazing. It's a breeding ground for pure ignorance. If you want to find out about bad effects the internet is having on democracy and society, /r/the_donald is prime research material.
And? (Score:3, Interesting)
If /. editors were looking for Dems threatening Reps they'd have no shortage.
In a nation of hundred of millions you can find anybody to say anything. Not to mention we know the left runs troll campaigns with fake "Trump supporters".
If you look at who actually does violent crimes, i think you'll find Democrats slightly over-represented, lol
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
We've seen it before. Leftists pretending to be part of the right.
In Oregon we have a history of Democrats crowing about their ability to register as Republicans so they can help the Republicans select "better" candidates in the primaries. And of course the Russians who pose as good ole 'mericans expressing their opinions who managed to change the course of history...
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, your claiming the people you don't like did something so as usual its all their fault.
No, I didn't say that. I gave two examples of people posing as something they were not to support the suggestion that maybe there are people posing as something they are not in the Reddit postings. Kind of like anonymous cowards pretending to be true, honest participants in /. discussions. It is neither proof nor disproof, and I never said I didn't like any of the people who did either thing.
Voting for representatives will also be, but within a state.
So people who live in rural areas would have absolutely no representation in the state government at all. Once the b
Re:I see (Score:4, Insightful)
Retard, r/The_Donald bans lefties out of their forum. The only posters left to advocate attacking police have a long rightwing reddit history. Ah, no problem, you will now fall back on conspiracy theories....
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Send bachelors and come heavily armed
Source: https://twitter.com/PatDooris/status/1141464157574684673
That's a clear threat, in video from a republican in Oregon at the time of the threat. Definitely not a false flag as was claimed and was definitely a republican making the threat.
Re: I see (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Trump will be needing a war to ensure his re-election next year, and conveniently Iran is looking like a target right now.
Unfortunately the rubes who "continue to figure it out" will be the ones sending their children off to die in it.
Have you seen any evidence over the last 2.5 years that Trump is a warmonger?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you notice his ridiculously over-the-top warmongering rhetoric, including leaked discussions on invading Venezuela; his recent almost-strike on Iran, and the fact that he chose John "Ares" Bolton as a national security adviser? Or do they not cover that stuff on Fox News?
Re: I see (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that coming from the same Democrat and left-aligned politicos that were screeching "Trump is a warmonger" and then when he doesn't respond with force start screeching "Trump is a coward." Yeah...I can see why people think the progressive wing of politics is unhinged.
Trump is not a very good warmonger ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you notice his ridiculously over-the-top warmongering rhetoric, including leaked discussions on invading Venezuela; his recent almost-strike on Iran, and the fact that he chose John "Ares" Bolton as a national security adviser?
So he makes blustering noises during negotiations and doesn't actually follow through with military action.
:-P.
And he has a hawk of an advisor he seems not to agree with.
And he doesn't think losing an unmanned drone warrants taking even the lives of a foe.
Trump is not a very good warmonger, it seems to be another thing he doesn't know how to do properly
He should learn from Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama and get those drones taking out foes and their wives and their children.
That said, I am not a Trump supporter. He is *not* qualified for the job in so many ways. But when he actually gets something right have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
Re: (Score:2)
How many of these posts were false flags?
There's been evidence of this being done before. Some of them quite prominent. If the Trump supporters were in fact as violent as claimed then there would not be a need to construct false evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
but calls to violence of any type, are not condoned
Uh.....there's a whole lot of post history by a lot of different people that demonstrates otherwise.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Apparently you don't understand what "quarantine" is. Users can still access the sub they just have to opt in while logged in. So you are free to post examples.
So, you agree it exists then. Since it has to exist to get nuked.
The existence of questionable content is everywhere and if the GP is correct much of it is posted by people trying to shut down subs.
Re:Of course ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Just as likely is was Reddit themselves, to provide the excuse. Must deplatform all the things!
Re:Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as likely is was Reddit themselves, to provide the excuse.
Yup, because there are absolutely no unhinged Trump supporters. /s
Just in my neck of the woods:
Trump supporter smacks Orlando Sentinel reporter's phone, is arrested [orlandosentinel.com]
These two men were arrested at President Trump's Orlando rally [clickorlando.com]
I'm not saying the left doesn't have its share of loonies who step over the line too, but it's time to man up and admit both sides have people who take their politics a little too personally.
Re:Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying the left doesn't have its share of loonies who step over the line too, but it's time to man up and admit both sides have people who take their politics a little too personally.
There's "a little too personally" and "outright bonkers to the point of violence". Such as those students that threaten to burn the university campus to the ground if a "Nazi" like Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, or Dave Rubin have plans to speak on campus.
For those that don't know who those "Nazis" are I'll point out that they have some popularity for putting political commentary on YouTube and/or talk radio, and they all happen to be Jewish.
Re: Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Like, this month? At least 70.
This year, there have been over 390 prosecuted acts of political violence committed by leftists against political opponents in America.
Care to provide any evidence of a single one?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh dude. Did you miss the antifa and bamn groups rioting all over the US over the last 3 years? If 9 people showing up is literally nazi's marching, and 1000 protestors showing up...is that really people on the right advocating for genocide. 'Cause if it is, with 9 people they sure have gotten their oppression by numbers handbook really sorted the fuck out.
Re: Republicans (Score:4, Funny)
That time when a 310 lb two-pack-a-day smoker collapsed 12 feet from a car accident and had a heart attack, you mean?
Huh? Donald Trump marched at Charlottesville with the Nazis? ... I thought he was a non-smoker?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People who legitimately advocate for genocide do not deserve to have their views unchallenged, nor must we sit and listen to them.
So when are you lining up to protest the communist agitators currently running amok in western countries, trashing businesses, public property and threatening people.
Re:Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)
You refuse to take far right threats seriously, claiming they are free speech, false flag or some other excuse. You will take Brietbart's word that "leftist" students are striking matches in anticipation of some arson though.
Groups like BAMN, and Antifa on university campuses are doing a pretty good job of striking matches and attacking people. I mean, let's look at your 'far right' claim. Why is it that nearly all hate crimes that get reported these days turn out to be faked by either the the person making the claim, or an elaborate hoax like Juciy Boy saying "They said, "this is maga country!"" in Chicago.
Speaking of ridiculous Nazi comparisons, Ben Shapiro called PETA literal Nazis.
An organization that kills animals rather then putting them up for adoption, holds contradictory and hypocritical views as long as it serves their point of view? And funds terrorist organizations that attack researchers, burn labs, and engage in arson. Hmmm...
Turns out abuse of that word is hardly limited to one part of the political spectrum, although admittedly the right tends to prefer calling you a communist. I heard one call Teresa May a communist the other day, I mean how far off the deep end do you have to be for that to make any kind of sense?
Turns out that the truth isn't too far off the marker. Teresa May is effectively a communist in conservative clothing. She and her party have chased the libs and lib-dems so hard the last few years that there is no effective difference in their policy positions. Only just how hard they're going to screw you over while further creating a police state, engaging in censorship, and arresting people for wrong think.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Smaking a phone is totally the same as rioting, starting fires, smashing the glass of businesses all to keep a gay Jewish man from advocating freedom of speech. Not to mention the two attempted assassinations of Trump thus far. One side is recreating the Black Shirts and the Brown Shirts, and it's not the right.
Re:Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
What? How'd I miss two assassination attempts?
Was it his body guards? Melania?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What? How'd I miss two assassination attempts?
By not paying attention.
Was it his body guards? Melania?
It was actually three. Two prior to him becoming president, by people wound up by the media screeching he was worse than hitler. The last was a few months ago by a die-hard bernie and later hillery supporter who was stockpiling explosives and guns in DC.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Attempts to assassinate Trump? Let's see... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We have a mentally ill British man, some rando in the Philippines apparently affiliated with IS, and an ex Navy guy who had also threatened to kill Obama. I'm not seeing the Antifa connection.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying the left doesn't have its share of loonies who step over the line too, but it's time to man up and admit both sides have people who take their politics a little too personally.
I think you mean well but sorry I am not buying this "both sides" crap you are spouting. Both sides are not the same. You may be thinking back to the 60s when there were bomb-throwing radicals but even then those were outliers.
Today:
There is one political affiliation that equates civil rights and patriotism with carrying guns and threatening violence if, in their own judgement, it is "necessary."
There is one political affiliation that is trying to preserve its power through gerrymandering, vote supp
Re:Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
The_Donald is a very pro law enforcement forum. To the point of being too pro law enforcement IMO. Any threats against cops are far more likely to be false flags than legitimate users. There was a leak of private Slack conversations between the moderators of default subreddits and the ceo some time ago and in the logs they were spending a lot of time trying to devise ways to deplatform the The_Donald. It can't be a coincidence that it coincided with the first presidential debate. If this isn't election meddling then I don't know what is.
Re: Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
Which side rioted its way across America after the election shouting, "Not My President!"?
The imaginary one, which existed as much as Trump's millions of illegal voters, the inauguration attendees, and the exoneration that Trump claimed was in the Mueller Report.
There were worse riots in Toronto after the Raptors won the NBA title. Notice how there were no actual videos or even criminal charges.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which side rioted its way across America after the election shouting, "Not My President!"?
Was it the same people chanting Lock Her Up about their political opponent?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, look. Another Russian troll trying desperately to confuse the issue of traffic shaping with forum moderation.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, look. Another Russian troll trying desperately to confuse the issue of traffic shaping with forum moderation.
We also need to seperate censorship from centsorship as demonitizarion is not the same thing as quelling freedom of speech.
Re: (Score:2)
Well you're right that it's a false flag operation, but you're wrong that it has anything to do with US citizens. They're all foreign nationals, and this is their actual job. Now, prove to me you're actually a US citizen and just stupid, rather than just one more of them.
Re: (Score:2)
So... they fled to avoid doing their job? And that's legal?
I haven't looked into this deeply but this is what I see....
Republicans decided that they wanted to end the session because they didn't like where things were going. Democrats threatened to have them arrested by state police for this and so they left the state.
If you don't like this then have them fired. Don't pay them. Don't let them back in the legislature building. But that just means the bill still won't pass, at least not until other representatives are elected.
How is it legal to arrest a legislato
Re: (Score:3)
Besides, what's the rush? Can't this bill wait?
According to democrats no. See Oregon allows "passage of bills by quorum" meaning they don't have to vote, they only have to have 10 members sitting in order to make it happen. This entire bill has to do with cap & trade, companies are already bugging out to other states because the democrats are trying to rush it through. Republicans see tax revenue fleeing as a bad thing along with massive job losses. Democrats want to force it through because it panders to their voters.
So what was the option? Do
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why I want term limits of one term, at all levels of government.
If you are good at politics then get on the city or county council. If you are still good then run for state representative. Then state senator. Then US representative. Then US Senator. Then governor. Then VPOTUS. Then POTUS. Add in a few things like county sheriff (a political position as much as a law enforcement position), public attorney (at local, state, and federal levels), military service (flag officers must be approved by the Senate), cabinet members, heads of government agencies, ambassadors, and on and on. This means a person can be in some political office or another for 40 years and not be elected or appointed to the same office twice.
By running for the same office again and again we have people that try to cater to the most vocal of people in their little corner of the world instead of thinking of a larger picture. No one is obligated to an office. No one is so valuable in an office that we can't find someone else that can do just as well.
Re: (Score:3)
Send bachelors and come heavily armed,
Sen. Brian Boquist, a Republican from Dallas, said late Wednesday as the prospect of a walkout loomed.
I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple.
Instead of coming back and being sensible, hiding In silence, orresigning, he's inciting terrorism and threatening to kill cops so he doesn't have to vote on legislation. Mind you it's to keep polluting the environment because short term political donors means more To them than selling out the country, children, and the world long term.
Re: Reddit was a mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the point is that, if anything, Google helped usenet by giving it a web forum-like interface. Dejanews was just an archive after all. It was a fine tool, but it was not usenet.
Re: Reddit was a mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, the point is that, if anything, Google helped usenet by giving it a web forum-like interface.
Uhh, no, that wasn't "help". Unless "helped into uselessness" is a valid kind of help. It converted Usenet from people who knew what a distributed messaging system was into a mass of people who thought every newsgroup was a moderated forum with someone who could remove stuff they didn't like, just like every other web discussion board they use.
It aided the push towards creating nothing but moderated newsgroups, which the people who volunteered as moderators didn't understand, and then walked away when they found out how much work it was to do it right.
Some newsgroups survived. Many did not. They're still in the list of groups that the now mostly irrelevant Big 8 Management Board pushes out every so often, but they don't have much traffic.
That's not help. It's so much not help that it makes Eternal September seem like a picnic.
Re: Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
The Nazis...were leftists...
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Lemma guess: because they were the Nationalist Socialist Party, right? And socialism is left wing. Because political names are always honest.
People's Republic of China: totally a republic.
People's Democratic Republic of Korea: clearly both a republic and democratic.
Pineapple: related to neither pine nor apple
Titmouse: neither a tit nor a mouse
Let's see...the Nazis hated the communists and socialists of the Weimar Republic. Those were the two groups of parties banned first. They were vehemently anti-union. Pro-business.They were indeed nationalist, and nationalism is generally considered a conservative ideology. Contrary to right-wing talking points, the Nazis did NOT ban guns. Quite the contrary for German citizens. The gun ban so widely touted was for Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine during World War 2.
But yeah, they had "socialist" in their name. Must have been leftists. *eyeroll* Take a goddamn history class and pay attention next time.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, the Nazis were originally both nationalist and socialist. Until they purged the socialists in 1934 [wikipedia.org], after that they were exclusively nationalist.