For the past 11 years, an eternity in internet time, Reddit has touted itself — repeatedly, and loudly — as the place to have "authentic conversations" online. For a variety of reasons, that sentiment has always rang hollow. Now, Reddit, in its goal to be a laissez-faire haven of (relatively) free expression, has been overrun by nationalist trolls. Its staff of volunteer moderators is losing hope in the site's future.
Illustration: Sam Woolley/Gizmodo
Gizmodo spoke with five high-ranking volunteer moderators of some of Reddit's biggest communities, as well as a Reddit spokesperson. We discovered the site's unusual working relationship with its most problematic community — r/The_Donald — a community which, by exploiting poor enforcement of Reddit's already limp user protections, has effectively been holding the rest of the site hostage.
The site's subreddits serve as fiefdoms organised around a specific interest. Reddit's The_Donald subreddit was founded a year ago as the premier online meeting place for Trump supporters. It has since sought to — in CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman's words — "dominate the conversation" on the site. Its members spread coded hate speech, openly antagonise other Redditors and break the site's most basic rules with impunity while moderators feel the brunt of the abuse, and Reddit leadership fail to adequately address the problem.
Reddit is one of the most-trafficked websites in the world. Its culture reflects the culture of the time, and what performs well on Reddit has widespread ramifications for what is considered interesting, shareable and news-worthy. So how did things get this bad?
Reddit's Cosy Relationship With The_Donald
"There have been multiple iterations of The_Donald," a Reddit spokesperson, who did not wish to be identified by name, told Gizmodo in a phone call. (CEO Steve Huffman previously said that The_Donald's team of top mods had turned over at least four times over the year.) "The [moderator teams] that I've been involved with for the last six months or so, we've actually had a very close working relationship with. We share a Discord channel with them — their private chat. It's been highly responsive when we need to ask them to take things down that are probably rule violations," Reddit contended. (The moderation team of r/The_Donald did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
If Centipede Central is the chat Reddit is referring to — a chat room within the Slack-like Discord program, the one linked in the sidebar of The_Donald and one of the largest servers on Discord — its users have encouraged the harassment of other moderators, artificially inflated the vote count on posts, rigged off-Reddit polls and posted John Podesta's personal Netflix login information for the chat's 1000+ members to use at will.
Screengrabs from Centipede Central.
Several current and former high-ranking moderators of Reddit's other communities told Gizmodo they had no knowledge of Reddit's "collaboration" with The_Donald. Although Reddit, as a platform, prides itself on a hands-off approach, Reddit claims that there are "probably two dozen of these type of collaborations set up" between Reddit corporate and subreddit mods.
Reddit did not elaborate on which specific communities were in regular contact with the Reddit leadership, or in what capacity, but most of these "close working relationships" are, according to Reddit, with the "default" subreddits — the ones logged out users will see, which tend to be the biggest, oldest and best-moderated, encompassing neutral interests like art, fitness, gaming and music. If Reddit is a city, the default subs are a flawlessly-manicured public park, while The_Donald is a crumbling tenement next to a sewage plant.
Yet somehow, The_Donald is part of the select few. Usually, "there is very little interaction or support" between the moderators and corporate, a veteran volunteer Redditor who helps to run a default community told Gizmodo in a lengthy email. "It's a free-for-all... which led to the trolling nature and (I would say) takeover by groups like r/The_Donald."
"What is more surprising [than the Discord chat between the_Donald and Reddit] is that their behaviour is allowed even with having that close of admin communication," a moderator of r/politics — one of the communities which has been hit the hardest by The_Donald users — told Gizmodo.
The_Donald is not uniquely dysfunctional in the history of Reddit, but it is unique in Reddit leadership's continued tolerance of its behaviour. "Like many other subreddits before it (FatPeopleHate, CoonTown, etc) it's having a negative impact on other subreddits, but nothing is happening to it," another high-ranking moderator told Gizmodo in an email. "The moderators of the sub will 'work' with the admins in regards to situations that pop up, but then turn around and won't actually enforce it."
Reddit claims that "Because of… their close working relationship with us, they couldn't really get away with a lot of the things they're being accused of." And yet, they do.
A Website Overrun
Voting posts up or down is the very mechanism that allows the site to function and dictates what shows up on the top of each page including r/all, Reddit's front page. "Asking for votes or engaging in vote manipulation" is the very first "prohibited behaviour" listed on the Reddit's Content Policy, and is reiterated on the Redditquette page — it is a site-wide rule.
A possible consequences of breaking content policy rules, according to Reddit.
Besides leaving Reddit links in their public Discord to direct users to promote those posts, The_Donald regularly makes use of title constructions which invite aggressive upvoting. "Wouldn't it be a shame if r/all saw this" is perhaps the most common variation on the theme.
A smattering of The_Donald's title constructions.
"It is arguably a wink wink nod nod attempt to bypass our vote manipulation rules although quite frankly that is a rule that is fairly largely ignored by our community as a whole and it's really not one that we as a company enforce that much," Reddit told Gizmodo. Even if a hands-off attitude is one of the reasons users flock to Reddit, it's deeply concerning that this ironclad vote brigading tenant is not enforced.
According to a default moderator, "r/The_Donald used to make up 30-40% [of r/all] in the past." In spite of Reddit's tepid acknowledgement of The_Donald as a problem, site-wide changes have sought to limit the subreddit's disproportionate visibility. In an announcement post earlier this year, Huffman rolled out changes to the algorithm that surfaces popular posts to r/all — effectively the frontpage of "the frontpage of the internet" — to specifically mitigate The_Donald's propensity to upvote posts as a hivemind. Arguably block voting makes conversation and interaction on the site inauthentic, and Huffman would seem to agree.
Many people will ask if this is related to r/the_donald. The short answer is no, we have been working on this change for a while, but I cannot deny their behaviour hastened its deployment. We have seen many communities like r/the_donald over the years — ones that attempt to dominate the conversation on Reddit at the expense of everyone else. This undermines Reddit, and we are not going to allow it.
Even with this more aggressive algorithm in place, the community's posts still float to the top with clockwork regularity and rack up extraordinarily high vote totals. Most egregiously, on the day of the US election, an all-caps post directed towards the LOSER SJWS OF REDDIT asked the site's diverse users HOW DOES OUR DICK TASTE on the front page.
Reddit's frontpage on the day of the US election
The thread's author — rsashe1980 — is a moderator of The_Donald, as well as TheNewRight, HillaryMeltdown, our_politics (created to directly oppose the default r/politics) and le_pen, a community which is attempting to help install far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as France's president in their upcoming election.
In addition to the volunteer moderators who create and enforce rules in their communities, Reddit employs a number of administrators to enforce the site's broader bylaws. When asked what instances merit intervention by admins, the Reddit spokesperson gave three examples: Targeted harassment or doxxing of an individual, two mod teams requesting mediation to resolve a conflict with each other or the breach of a site rule.
"I know there's always been a 'dark side' to reddit. But the dark side used to be confined to the corners," a default moderator told Gizmodo in an email. "It was manageable. What The_Donald has become, and what it's doing to the site isn't."
Acceptable Bigotry
"Reddit is the internet's home for conversation," Reddit told us. "Not all conversation is comfortable." Unfortunately, that mantra has allowed trolls and bigots to gain a foothold on the site in the past, and protects The_Donald today. The problem lies in Reddit's own narrowly defined harassment policy, which addresses individuals only — harassment against whole groups or identities is not included:
Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
As a result, bigotry, painted with a broad enough brush and the same "wink wink nod nod" tactics employed for block voting is perfectly acceptable. "The mods and leadership in r/The_Donald know how to troll. To dance the line between what clearly constitutes hate speech and what goes for something CLOSE but not quite," a default mod told Gizmodo in an email. But Reddit knows full well that such policies are ultimately damaging to the site.
According to a 2015 Reddit user poll, "The number one reason redditors do not recommend the site — even though they use it themselves — is because they want to avoid exposing friends to hate and offensive content." While leadership is generally content to allow troublesome communities to coexist with neutral ones on Reddit, banning of whole communities does have precedent.
During her time as interim CEO, Ellen Pao famously booted five "harassing subreddits", most notably the 150,000-subscriber-strong r/FatPeopleHate. (Those evicted communities went on to set up shop on Reddit knockoff Voat.) "We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment," Pao's announcement post read, "Today we are removing five subreddits that break our reddit rules based on their harassment of individuals."
Though he was not employed by Reddit at the time, the site's spokesperson did not characterise the banning of those communities as a result of harassment. "I'd actually posit that those were unhealthy in that there was no respect for the other side, there was no respect for the conversation as an entity, there was no respect for anything but advancing a particular, stilted incredibly prejudicial agenda in those cases," Reddit told Gizmodo.
The_Donald falls squarely into that very definition. "No Dissenters or SJWs," is among the community's rules — limiting who from "the other side" can post there from the get-go. Users are, according to the New York Times, banned by one of the roughly 47 moderators from The_Donald subreddit at rates much higher than any other on the site, for such grave offences as expressing civil but dissenting opinions. Conversation takes a backseat to loyalty. And where a prejudicial agenda is concerned, the well-documented and regressive beliefs held by Trump's own transition team are reflected in The_Donald users, who gleefully attack people on the basis of their religion, race, heritage, sexuality, gender identity or political leanings.
"r/The_Donald mods have set their subreddit up as a safe space. One where dissent or questioning is not tolerated. You either follow or you are banned," a default mod wrote to Gizmodo, "That rule does not apply if you make a statement on Reddit elsewhere. The brigade will both downvote, doxx, and go after those who do post something that is against the r/The_Donald hivemind."
How bad does it have to get before a community gets banned? "I think that if a community culture was so toxically broken that we saw no hope of resolving it, then we would proceed to shut down the community," Reddit told Gizmodo.
Before last weekend, Reddit banned r/pizzagate, a community with close ties to The_Donald which existed to investigate the ludicrous and debunked notion that Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC pizzeria, was a Clinton- and Podesta-run front for child-trafficking. The site's statement claims r/pizzagate was banned due to "repeated violations of the terms of our content policy". A now-deleted post suggests the only reason Pizzagate was given the axe while The_Donald remains alive and well is moderator cooperation. (Like other banned communities, Pizzagate has found a new home on Voat.)
Following the ban, displaced pizzagaters caused a stir on The_Donald that merited a post by a moderator. "I want to gently remind everyone that The_Donald is a sub about Donald Trump," IFIFIFOKIEDOKE wrote, "too often, discussions about topics such as pizzagate will completely dominate the sub and drown out any thoughtful discussion or Trump related content." The irony, it seems, was lost on them.
Impotent Leadership
Last week, co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, after months of harassment and "getting called a pedophile constantly" by The_Donald users, finally cracked. He made a childish, poorly-advised and quickly-uncovered attempt to edit the offending users' posts in retaliation — "trolling the trolls for a bit," as he described it. In retaliation, a mod leaked the internal chatlogs from a Slack channel for default moderators and admins.
"There have been unquestionably instances [where] moderators of other subreddits were targeted by users in The_Donald," Reddit told Gizmodo, and the leaked chatlogs reveal the extent.
A screenshot from leaked chatlogs.
Some moderators had been flooded with constant harassing messages. "One threatened to kill my fucking dog," a moderator pleaded in the leaked Slack chat. A The_Donald user hacked r/politics and booted half of the moderation team, another told Gizmodo in an email.
"We have had multiple moderators doxxed and sent death threats, we had one moderator who had his truck broken into and vandalised," an r/politics mod told Gizmodo over Reddit private message.
A screenshot from leaked chatlogs.
One of the moderators named in the chat told Gizmodo he experienced a deluge of racist and abusive messages after the leak. "The vast majority had mentions to me being a traitor, how I should be deported, and how I was going to be hunted down and killed… It got so bad, in order to give themselves some room, [the admins] had to 'black hole' my inbox. Basically, any messages that were sent to me were instantly deleted."
One of the messages sent before the inbox was "black holed".
"Myself, and others, are frustrated with the inaction of the admins as a group, especially in regards to The_Donald," a default moderator told Gizmodo. Another went as far as to say that "we mods have had a series of duds and corporate bureaucrats supporting us for years".
The chatlogs, as well as our correspondence with some high-ranking moderators, suggest The_Donald has been a known problem for a long, long time. So what's keeping administration from taking action?
One possible explanation for Reddit's inaction is money. The_Donald is, by Reddit's own admission, "one of our most popular subreddits and most active subreddits," and like almost every community on the site, sponsored ads appear alongside user posts. The content of most posts on The_Donald should raise deep concerns with most advertisers paying for space on Reddit, if their ad ends up on The_Donald, regardless of how popular or active the page is. (At the time of this writing, Uber ads are appearing on The_Donald.)
More likely it comes down to fallout and optics. After the ban of r/FatPeopleHate Reddit became near-unusable. The displaced users, with nothing left to lose, stirred up as much trouble as they could, and likely the Reddit admins fear a repeat. "Trying to take action against 4 million unique subreddit visitors (300,000 subscribers) will be impossible," an r/politics moderator told Gizmodo. "Even if only 1% of their total visitors are a problem, that leaves 40,000 accounts to be handled. Glance around the community, it is much more than 1%."
A maelstrom of bad blood and digital vandalism, no matter how bad, is always temporary. But some moderators felt the leadership's attempts to plaster a gaping wound came down to potential claims of political bias. "[The_Donald] was the sub for a major political candidate even from a small size, and there would have been fallout if they'd banned it then, and will be far more if they do so after the election," a default moderator wrote to Gizmodo.
Even former CEO Yishan Wong chimed in on a thread last week regarding The_Donald's behaviour:
I can understand that the admins probably wanted to avoid any outright "you're banned" type of shutdown and instead opted to try and contain rule-breaking behaviour on an individual basis. As it happens, doing that is extremely difficult because users will try to push the line and incur essentially no consequence for doing so. /r/The_Donald has the additional unique attribute of being a subreddit that isn't going to "go away" [...] it is likely to continue or grow in prominence.
The impunity The_Donald's users act with is as alarming as it is obvious. "That is a toxic subreddit," the r/politics mod told Gizmodo. "All of our moderators want a strong Trump subreddit. It is good for communities to exist for that kind of thing. [The_Donald] is not it, they have gone too far in so many different ways."
As it stands, moderators have been holding back an unprecedented tide of abuse, backed by an administration that won't admit there's a problem and headed by a CEO acting in his site's worst interest.
Facebook, Google and Twitter spent the days following the US election at least trying to do some soul-searching. Reddit has been conspicuously silent in shouldering blame for giving an audience and a recruitment centre to this groundswell of bigotry, despite harbouring its most prominent community — one which openly mocks the leadership and rules of the very platform that allowed it to proliferate. Reddit needs to contend with its own shrieking tide of ignorance and hatred now, and outgrow the notion that fewer rules is the shortest distance to greater authenticity.
"At this point, I think reddit is a lost cause because of the admins inability to take action on the group while simultaneously being overwhelmed with dealing with the individual," a moderator told us. "No other subreddit has been able to be used [as] a platform for harassment for this long in Reddit's history. And it's likely going to be what kills it." Said another: "The social experiment has run its course."
The names and pseudonyms of multiple sources in this story have been omitted to protect their anonymity due to credible threats.
Comments
This is what drumpf has given rise to. Making a whole bunch of right wing racist dickheads think they are now free to spout any amount of vitrolic hatred without consequence. Drumpf has all but legitimized Racism and Sexism in the mainstream in his followers eyes
Drumpf said he wanted to unite America, Wheras his followers seem to want to seperate it back to civil war days were White males were above everyone else
Last edited November 30, 2016 9:23 amThere's a good reason for that. You've got a whole class of people who've spent their entire lives being spoon-fed idealism in the form of "The American Dream". If you work hard and you're a good enough person, you can make it big. This has the inverse implication though, that if you're poor it's probably just because you didn't work hard enough or you're not a good enough person. Personal value has become linked to the contents of your bank account.
Now take the shrinking middle class and growing lower class in America and you'll see an entire slab of the community who have this cognitive dissonance. They know that they're not lazy. They know that they're good people. But they also know they're not rich. The only way to reconcile this is that is must, therefore, be someone else's fault. Who's fault? Well it's obviously an outsider's fault for ruining the American Dream. It's very easy to then have these people be a target. "If it wasn't for people stealing our jobs, I could...", "If things were like they used to be, then I could...". They 100% believe that "if things were like they used to be" then they could have the world the way they were told about it while they were growing up. A single person with a job could support a family of 5, including buying a house and car. They're not told that it's Trump and his like that have *caused* the massive shift in wealth. That it's their very attitude to money which is causing this divide. That it's the poor financial planning of the baby boomers which has caused them to stay in jobs longer without retiring, clogging up the workforce and stopping promotion opportunities for the younger generation, resulting in the inability for the realisation of home ownership.
The message we've been sending as a society for *decades* (at least) is that, in order to be successful, you should be wealthy and powerful. The message we should be sending is that, in order to be successful, you should be happy.
But now we've got a group of people wanting answers. Wanting to know why they aren't rich and powerful. Wanting to know why they haven't received their promise of the American Dream. The answer, unfortunately, is (in their minds) that it's the fault of *that guy*. And *that guy* looks different to them and has strange customs. But if *that guy* would just leave, everything could go back to how it's supposed to be.
I read something similar to this the other day and totally agree.
You have hit the nail on the head and I wish I could like your post more that once.
That connection between monetary wealth and personal value is something that is sold to so many. And those hardworking, "good people" who are now finding themselves part of a growing class of low income earners are looking for someone to blame. And as has been the case for centuries those in power exploit that for their own gain and point these people to those that are "different" as the cause of all their issues. And offer them solutions that these people are desperate to believe.
The interesting thing will be what happens when those in power start going back on the promises they have made. What will happen to the anger that led to a Trump victory when people realise that he is just like the rest of those in power if not worse?
That's a very good question. In the short term, I have no doubt that Trump will blame others for not fulfilling his promises. "It's not my fault, I did everything I could but was stopped by X". The question is whether the people will have their illusions shattered and realise that he's the same as all the other politicians who have no regard for their best interests or if they believe him and start lashing out at X as the reason that they didn't get what they deserve because, after all, X is what stopped Trump from delivering.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling I know which way the coin will land. Be there's always hope.
Alot of his supporters are just angry at the political establishment that for so long have neglected the people. It was a protest against the system. Sure there are elements that are rascist but i dont think that should apply to all the 50+ million that voted for him
60 million :) What you won't see in the media is that Trump has a large following from the LGBT community, also hispanics, blacks and Muslims. History will judge Trump but he is already kicking goals without being in the whitehouse.
And the Nazis got a fair few votes from the German Jewish and LGBT communities. Doesn't mean it was a good idea.
Keep comparing Trump to Hitler and his supporters to Nazis, within no time you will normalise Hitler and his actions... You should take better care with labelling everything that does not fit your narrative as nazi.
Speaking of normalising, Trump has assigned some of the most staunch anti-gay politicians in America to his cabinet; including vice-president Mike Pence, who believes money should be taken from HIV funding and put into gay conversion therapy; attorney-general Jeff Sessions, who has 100% voting opposition to gay rights bills including opposing the right of gays to serve in the US military, opposing same sex marriage and opposing considering anti-gay violence a hate crime; and education secretary Betsy DeVos, who has given extensive donations to anti-gay and conversion activist groups.
As a gay man yourself, why do you support the choice of a cabinet that believes your condition is an illness that can be cured, that you deserve no protections from people who don't like your sexual preferences, and who believe you don't deserve the same rights as everyone else?
Him getting votes from those groups does no cancel out the large amount of votes he got from intolerant racist and sexists.
Im not saying that it applies to all who voted for him. What im saying is drumpfs actions have legitimized those hardline right wing racists into thinking their views are mainstream now. You only need to look at reports of hate crimes and racist attacks on people in america that has dramaticly risen since the election. but of course conservatives like ZZZ will say they are all false flags.
Yes not all trump supporters are morons, But his supporter base has a good percentage of KKK supporters, Neo nazis and others.
But the hate crimes are also directed at Trump supporters, there have been many assaulted just for voting for him. It's a very sad state of affairs, to many radicals on either side of the fence
Im not denying that, but they are almost miniscule compared to the ones i am talking about.
When children at school are telling their other classmates, "Mexicans and muslims are not welcome" you know its fucked up. Thats not a product of the left, Thats a product of the far right
Last edited November 30, 2016 4:48 pmI don't deny that what the kids are saying isn't disturbing, maybe if parents engaged with their children a little it would help temper the unfiltered shit kids are exposed to (noting that some ppl are just rascist).
Dragging a guy out of a car and kicking the shit out of him isn't minor btw.
That incident was found to be completely innacurate to what Fox news reported. The fight was the result of a traffic altercation and the victim himself said the people who assaulted him had no idea who he voted for, Nor did he have anything on his car indicating who he voted for.
So it was not some liberals bashing a trump supporter, It was just some people fighting over car crash
There was also another incident Fox news reported which they also showed video footage of. What fox news failed to tell you though was the video footage was from early 2015, Long before the trump had even announced, There was even a timestamp in the video fox news completely missed
Last edited December 1, 2016 1:01 amAlternatively it seems the regressive left who wants a safe space for every group, the key to harmony is segregation.
I've never seen the appeal of Reddit.
Depends on the subreddit. There are some fantastic communities on there around certain games, systems etc. What are you interested in?
Create an account, then immediately unsubscribe from r/politics and most of the default subs.
Think about what your interests are and subscribe to subs that interest you. I guarantee that, no matter what you are into, there are subreddits dedicated to your interest. Like building your own stuff? Try r/DIY. Like talking about cars and laughing about the horrors that mechanics see in their line of work? Try r/JustRolledIntoTheShop. Want a good excuse to practice your photoshop skills? r/photoshopbattles is the place for you (or maybe even r/birdswitharms). Want to practice writing instead? Try r/writingprompts or r/nosleep. There's subs for basically every game you can think of (video, board and outdoor). If you're looking for silly humour try r/confusedtravolta, r/catsstandingup, etc. If you want memes, try r/adviceanimals, r/meirl, r/blackpeopletwitter, r/wholesomememes, etc.
Reddit is very average when it's not customised. But with a few minutes of time you can easily turn it into a neverending list of topics you're interested in. Once you've been using it for a while (or if you find the content isn't changing fast enough for you), browse by top/hour (instead of what's hot) and you'll find you get on board conversations at the very start.
nevergoonreddit.mp4
Tearing itself apart or eating itself?
Funny with all the rumors of cannibalism since steve huffman is a mod of /r/cannibalism
https://heatst.com/tech/pizzagate-conspiracy-theorists-accuse-reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-of-cannibalism/
Also the community was instrumental in breaking #pizzagate to the masses. Judging from the threads I've seen, it seems to be a witty sub that has made politics interesting again. Funnily enough, I haven't seen many news outlets commending Trump for his progress so far in relation to trade and foreign policy - and he's not even sworn in yet! It seems that instead of banding together, people opposing him would rather be 'correct' and watch their country/western world crumble, instead of admit that he might actually be making a world of difference - one we haven't seen since JFK got taken out. It's not about being 'right', it's about prosperity for everyone and the equal chance to get ahead.
PS: I'm not a Trump supporter, however I couldn't stomach the thought of Clinton and all her ties to Soros gaining an even stronger foothold on power. Food for thought...
Don't expect friendly responses, most here are for globalism.
The Donald is a lot of fun, what fails to be highlighted is that the sub is very active and has over 300,000 subscribers. At anytime you will find 20-40k users online. This natural means it drifts to the top. The Centipedes stay mostly in the Sub so I dont see the problem, if you dont like it dont go in, same goes for other very questionable subs.
The problem with reddit staff is they are all liberal left and simply dont like the donald.
On social media, I get attacked for being a Trump supporter. All sorts of name calling and aggression from the tolerant left. The Donald is one of the only "safe" spaces for Trump supporters.
The CEO editing posts is very concerning, how would we feel if Zuckerberg edited Facebook post he did not like.
If you have an open mind and in the mood for a bit of fun, go into the Donald have a proper read and you will find blacks, hispanics and even Muslims who post there.
Trump will never be president....oops ok
Trump is a racist, bigot sexist.... oops his cabinet already has the most females in high positions, he has one homosexual and two black guys.
The left media praises Castro but calls Trump a Nazi?
Trump is literally trolling the leftist media, today was a perfect example, he tweets about law around burning the flag, sending MSM into frenzy but he quoted the exact laws Hillary Clinton proposed as senator in 2005.
100% this.
Cognitive dissonance /article
Really? A bunch of mods are getting harassed, doxxed and physically attacked, and you think this is just a disagreement over politics?
As for "name calling and aggression from the tolerant left:" Harassing people for what they are is very different from harassing people for who they are. The "tolerant left" campaigns for people not to be harassed because they're of a different race, gender or orientation. You getting slammed for the things you say and do is another thing entirely.
Exactly, ZZZ is the type of person who thinks people should be able to spout as much racist, sexist and vitrolic hatred and not have to face an consequences.
Summary of article in 4 points:
1) People who are pro-nationalism are trolls. Not logical, I just don't like nationalism, so they're trolls.
2) A large number of people saying things with which I disagree means they're all evil racist trolls who are holding the side hostage.
3) People in the minority (SKJs, PCtards, etc) feel sad about the large number of people who say things they don't like, and sadder about the fact that nobody is silencing all those people by banning them, so, you know, we're all sad and stuff.
4) It's all Donald Trump's fault.
What's SKJ?
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, so the internet tells me.
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