r/The_Donald helped radicalize users into far-right identities and discourse – Active users on r/The_Donald increasingly used white nationalist vocabularies in their comments within three months.

ZeroCool@vger.social to Reddit@lemmy.world – 657 points –
journals.sagepub.com

I know most people that were on reddit at the time are fully aware of this and won't be surprised but don't dismiss the findings out of hand. It's important that studies are being conducted and the fact that the finding match our lived experience is still noteworthy.

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Literally everyone on Reddit could see this except spez, who is a greedy little pigboy

Oh he could see it too and didn't care because he's a self proclaimed libertarian.

What's a right wing libertarian other than a fascist so selfish they aren't concerned or swayed by ideas of nationalism or "heritage". But they'll happily enable and march with the ones who are. When their self interest aligns. They just want to be the ones on top.

They’re mostly just conservatives who like drugs.

Be fair. They're also conservatives who are more open about not wanting the age of consent to be a thing. Which also explains the sub spez used to moderate.

There are only three kinds of libertarians:

  1. Likes drugs and naive about economics.
  2. Hates minorities and understands economics but naive as fuck about NAP.
  3. Pedophile.

Extremists are engagement.

I really wonder if the nouveau rich tech startup boys look around and realize that their greed is directly responsible for the 2016 election and by extension, the state of US domestic politics today, and feel even a tiny bit of guilt over it.

Probably not.

I don't think that's how they're wired. If anything, they'd be excited to learn they're a couple of million dollars of AI astroturfing from being able to choose the president.

But that's not true I've heard it straight from the tech-bros mouth. They build these technologies to help us, the little people. To spread peace and love and build deeper connections with the people that we love. I'm sure that they feel pain and guilt that they have to deposit those large checks into their bank accounts. /s

Why would they feel guilt regarding something they wanted to do?

See, I don't think that. I think they are power hungry, sure. But I don't think they ever realized the power that their product would grant them. It's totally unprecedented. They get right into our brain and tickle our dopamine receptors while they mess with everything else.

I don't think they expected or were prepared to yield that type of power, at all. I really feel like Zuck et al accidentally stumbled into being a supervillain. Like some sick Mr. Bean skit.