As we start to see more users join, it’s inevitable to see trolls (especially low-effort trolls) making more of an appearance and trying to be controversial and noticed.
Best just to scroll past them. They want to spark unwinnable arguments and rack up negative rep. If something seems absurdly ridiculous or inciteful, just move on. It’s not even worth down voting.
Hope the moderation gets more aggressive soon, or this place is fuuuucked. There’s already like three the_donald magazines.
Opposing political opinions are not trolls. Let’s not be like Reddit where “opposite opinion” = bad.
No, but fascists are troll (and worse. Much worse). And yes, trump and his cult are fascists
as much as i hate trump we should hate the sin and not the sinner
lots of trump supporters could easily be leftists
Not if they support anything he or his political party or cult have done in the past few years!
…what the fuck? The guy who’s got a record of felonies he’s in court for, and has been absolutely the most fascist piece of shit to happen to America could easily have leftists supporters? The guy who lost “bigly” in the popular vote and created the most partisan and polarized political voters possible? This is Q Anon level of reality.
If there is a leftist in the “lots of trump supporters”, they are by definition, not a leftist.
zizek talks about this a lot. who are trump’s most loyal fans? sure, there are the harvard educated elitists who like that he lowers taxes on the rich and the business magnates and whatnot. but the bulk of it in terms of absolute numbers is the redneck poor people
why do they support trump? because their jobs were lost to outsourcing, their wages aren’t going up so housing is more expensive, their towns are slowly rotting away. they see these things and feel a (in my opinion, justified) anger towards the establishment.
someone like Trump and the GOP in general comes around, blames the gays and immigrants and tells them they will fight for them. we all know it’s a lie and that they are voting against their interests - but the MAGA propaganda has gotten to them first
these same triggers (stagnant wages, anger towards the establishment/elites, erosion of infrastructure, inaccessible healthcare) also causes people to become leftists
these people could have easily flipped one way or the other and the only different is propaganda. we need to reach out to these people and convince them that the left has viable solutions for their problems. if you’re interested, i can find a zizek bit where he talks about this but I’ve seen it myself talking to a lot of trump-supporting conservatives.
some of them are racist bigots and whatnot, but others are just really ignorant old folk who genuinely want the best for most people and have been misled by propaganda
Except the difference is: leftists have empathy. Sympathy. They care for their fellow human whom they haven’t met. They are called “progressives” for a reason. Right wing is being regressive, to hurt people not like you. It’s about cruelty specifically.
You’re talking about moderates that don’t give a shit. I’m talking about the actual term leftists.
No, but someone rocking up to a news magazine just to post “Trump won and everyone knows it” with no news article is trolling. Some of these folks are trolls trying to piss people off.
If that’s what the people in that magazine want to see they’re not being trolled at all. Now if that shit leaks out, then yeah I’m 100% with you.
If they want to see that, they can start their own instance. No one is obligated to host them.
“Can I come over to your house and shit in your hair?” said the pigeon.
“No thank you. I’d rather you do that somewhere else.” said the man.
“Censorship! Triggered! Snowflake!” Said the pigeon. Then he shitted in the man’s hair anyway.
Sure, and if the instance operators decide that I respect it. Just saying it’s not up to me, or you, or the person I replied to.
It’s not what people in that magazine “want to see.” Every post save the troll post linked to a news article, with little to no commentary. Thus the “News” name.
Even among people who like trump, there are plenty of people who know that he lost the election.
Even if Biden cheated (and I’m not saying he did), people who cheat to win elections are called the winner of the election. Laws tend to fine campaigns for cheating rather than changing the outcome of the election.
As an example where a campaign was fined for malfeasance during a campaign, the Clinton campaign was fine for misbehavior in the 2016 election related to the steele dossier https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/dnc-clinton-campaign-fine-dossier-spending-disclosure-00021910
However, although that example was of a losing campaign, up in my home country of Soviet canuckistan, several election cycles ago the conservative Stephen Harper government was fined for election fraud, and that’s all that happened. They were officially in charge and they stayed that way until the election of Justin Trudeau in 2015.
Typically, lawmakers want election issues to be dealt with by the electorate, they’re extremely extremely wary about stepping in and changing elections on their own.
While we’re on the topic though, I would like to remind everybody that it is extremely typical for the losing side of an election to claim that the other side cheated. In 2000, there were plenty of people pointing out fuckiness in the supreme Court decision that ended George W. Bush the election, and in 2004 election machines were singled out as a potential method of cheating by the Democrats when John Kerry lost the presidential election, and in 2016 there were lots of cries saying that there was election interference that led to the election of Donald Trump.
hey children, yes this is a Prime example of a troll.
You think so?
Seems like an awfully high effort post to be just a troll. Maybe it’s just that other people don’t have the same views as you do.
Hey little Jimmy looks like you have a question?
Oh Jimmy, it’s not always about the effort or length of a post that defines a troll. A troll is someone who purposefully stirs up conflict or posts inflammatory or off-topic messages to distract and control the conversation, often eliciting emotional responses.
Check it out: So, imagine you’re playing with your favorite toy car, alright? Then someone, let’s call them SJ_Zero, comes over and says, “Oh, that’s a nice car, but did you see this super-duper rocket? And oh, did I tell you about this ultra-cool submarine I once had? And oh, there was this time when I played with a helicopter…” and on and on they go!
What happened to your toy car? Poof, it’s forgotten, lost in the whirl of rockets, submarines, and helicopters. That’s what SJ_Zero is doing here, taking us on a whirlwind tour of election history, far away from our original chat about the 2020 election and how Trump lost.
So you get it Jimmy? And that’s why you shouldn’t feed the trolls.
The_Donald was not about political opinions. It was a hate farm that made neofascists out of people who came for the lulz. By all means let’s have actual conservatives discuss politics as a counterpoint to more liberal views, but smack the fascists down - because it’s the only way to truly have a tolerant society and civil discourse: Intolerance as politics must not be tolerated. If that basic rule is ignored, everything else fails.
See the paradox of intolerance.
I really like this interpretation of the Paradox of Intolerance:
Link to source.
That does seem like a more reasonable way to think about it.
That “paradox” is bunk and is only good for justifying censorship.
No, it’s good for getting rid of antisocial shit heads who feel like they’re entitled to an audience for their toxic or abusive ideas and beliefs.
Because that’s exactly what it speaks to.
Now, if you want to argue with Karl, might I recommend getting a PhD in philosophy and starting from there, rather than whining on the internet?
Are you saying that disagreement with this person is not legitimate unless you have the same level of education?
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Ah yes, because all opinions are equal and NAMBLA and Nazis need to be given equal weight for their “opposite opinions”.
That’s not what they said at all.
What they said is that just because you don’t agree with the opposite opinion doesn’t make the person saying that opinion a troll. They may be a hateful motherfucker, but a hateful motherfucker who is trying to talk in good faith.
They aren’t arguing some enlightened centrist “everyones opinions are equal” bullshit. They’re just arguing that opposite opinion does not equal automatic troll.
You can block people and communities… I’m a trans woman; naziism and really just social conservatism works against me. I still think they should have a space to spout off, just as I should have a space to spout off about how irresponsible, bigoted and cruel their statements are. I also think there is nothing wrong with safe spaces; I mean look at raddle.me and on the opposite end Facebook and Twitter. Taking someone’s tounge doesn’t prove them wrong, only that you are afraid of what they have to say. The words of a fascist should be said and maybe repeated so they can be struck down by those who prefer love to hate.
Thank you for this. The only way to combat ignorance isn’t too silence, but to educate. When you silence someone, you isolate them to places where their opinions are only reaffirmed and never challenged, thus exacerbating the ignorance.
I wish I could upvote you twice.
You can start by boosting instead of using the arrow, which is actually currently only counting as favoriting and does nothing to counter any reduces on a post. It’s an oversight that’s being worked on and will eventually change, as I’ve understood it.
I did both!
Don’t platform fascists. Don’t play apologetics for platforming fascists. Don’t tolerate people who platform fascists.
Stop treating fascism as a mere difference of opinion.
" Hey you want the humane and equal treatment of all peoples, and I have an opposite opinion that some people should be subservient or eliminated. Woah woah why are you banning me."
It’s a painfully American sentiment that was prominent in the civil war. “Hey we just disagree on slavery…”
I would argue that there is a line where speech becomes hate speech, in fact that line is already defined as criminal libel/defamation and assault.
Argue all you want. But if you’re going to argue that the line between what is acceptable and what isn’t is what is legal, first off, uh, no (fascist rhetoric is legal in most places), and second, whose laws do you want to apply?
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