darq

Do you vote for Republicans?

I would love to do something like this, except it’s way too goofy with the attached controllers.

Steamdeck in a tablet form factor would be perfect.

Yup, that’s what happens whenever “civility” is the primary metric used for moderation.

Trolls post heinous nonsense, and respond to people in the most insufferable rage-bait-y manner. But if anyone so much as calls them an asshole, they get their comments removed for saying a no-no word.

Brainworms.

This is a display of power, and dominance. It’s a taunt.

To “clarify” by both denying the claim and doubling down on the claim at the same time. To state that people taking the words as a threat are snowflakes, while immediately threatening them again. And to do it twice over, reclarifying his original threat with another one.

He knows that makes no sense. But words don’t have to make sense under fascists. Only power makes sense. He knows he can get away with it. That’s the point.

The journalist should have drilled him on the spot.

Even without knowledge of the source of the image, there is no reasonable way a normal person interprets that message as a genuine threat of violence.

Because the picture of the “gayroller 2000” is very obvious satire from the known-satire comic The Oatmeal, originally posted to satirise conservatives’ baseless fears of “the gay agenda”. Seeing a pattern?

On the other hand, there a pattern of hostility, hatred, and violence from conservatives towards LGBT people. This pattern is both historical and contemporary, and currently it is absurdly common for LGBT people to be called “groomers” and be accused of being dangerous to children.

Gay people obviously do not want to run over straight people with a steamroller. On the other hand, the people posting wood chipper memes… Some of them would, and have, followed through.

I quite simply do not believe that for even a second.

Let’s not pretend that you actually give a damn about transgender people. This is just concern trolling.

A massacre, or a genocide, is more than just “one’s” life ending. It is one’s own life, the lives of one’s loved ones, and the lives of one’s people.

And unfortunately, that gives them power in undermining progressives.

stop enabling a broken system.

What do you mean “enabling”?

The system is broken, I fully agree. But it exists, and sadly it isn’t going anywhere. Not voting is not going to change that, the system is just going to continue, unaffected, and will continue to affect people’s lives. Your only options, within the system, are to minimise harm or to not do that.

The system absolutely needs to be changed. But not voting isn’t going to change it. And reducing harm isn’t somehow making that change more difficult.

The DNC would have to accept that they need to nominate a truly progressive candidate

I think they’d rather die.

I mean unironically yeah. They can basically ignore a significant part of the electorate with the threat of the Republicans coming into power if those voters don’t capitulate on their interests and vote Democrat. It’s a hostage situation.

I’d urge you to try and read my comments again.

But how can I hear “diverse opinion” if X opinions are banned/blocked/moderated in the first place?

There is no space where all opinions are welcome. It simply does not exist. Some opinions are going to force out others.

If you run a space where Nazi opinions are okay to speak, you can’t really expect to hear Jewish opinions. Or opinions of PoC or queer people or disabled people and so on and so on.

So most places do the calculations. You can ban this one view. And in return an entire spectrum of views becomes more welcome.

Bigotry is a painfully simple, painfully shallow, and painfully boring viewpoint. It is almost completely one-dimensional, simplifiable to the idea that the “other” is inferior or dangerous and is to be shunned or feared. It is a viewpoint that we all already know, one we have all already heard. Banning it loses us almost nothing, and in return we gain so, so many more valuable insights.

Is it the fault of the principle of free speech, or the legion of stupid people being allowed to talk freely?

I’m not talking about “the principal of free speech”. I’m pushing back on the foolish assertion that moderation leads to echo chambers for lazy and dull minds. When exactly the opposite is true.

I’m saying that if you want to hear diverse opinions, a free-for-all is a bad idea. Because that free-for-all leads to echo chambers.

You probably want restrictions because it would never apply to you. Denying you talking about stuff that doesn’t phase you, is easy.

No no, don’t make stupid assumptions about me so that you don’t have to confront my point.

What if that platform bans opinions that you happen to have?

Most of them do. Your assumptions are wrong.

Sure, if you point at 4chan or similar…free speech attracts shitnuggets and end up being an echo chamber. But that’s the fault of us humans being crap, and not free speech being inherently bad.

I never said free speech was inherently bad. Try responding to what I wrote, not what you imagined that I wrote.

I personally prefer spaces where everyone can voice any shit. Censorship is for lazy minds and a dull audience. IMHO.

I always find this take to be remarkably short-sighted.

Because if you actually want to hear diverse opinions, you have to cultivate a space where diverse people, with diverse experiences, feel free to speak.

Pretty much every space that tolerates open bigotry becomes deeply unpleasant for the targets of that bigotry. Which means those people tend to leave.

Which in turn means that those spaces soon turn into the dullest echo chamber, populated only by people unaffected the bigotry. Sure no views were censored. You just harass everybody different off the platform. The net effect is the same.

You can’t just block someone doxxing you. And it’s a lot different when it’s not one person, or even a handful of people, but thousands of people who are sincerely furious with you because of things they’ve convinced themselves that you have done.

For fascists, the only dealbreaker is appearing weak.