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.
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.
To all the people rushing to sarcastically comment how surprised they are: Yes, we all saw it happen. But..
This is why OP posted it. Science isn't feelings, you need data.
Typo? 🤣
Yes
Seriously 😮💨 science is literally the opposite of something vague like "feelings"
Could be social commentary on what passes as "science" on social media these days. 🤣 That's what made me laugh.
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:
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.
Remember when they lifted the no racism rule? I do.
Yes. And I really should have left Reddit then and never looked back.
It was a hilarious mask of movement. They did it to "own" /r/Sweden in the subwars and obviously got their asses handed to them.
Reddit or the sub?
The Donald.
We 'member.
While it certainly is a bit of a captain obvious moment that exposure to far-right echo chambers helped radicalise vulnerable people into the far-right, but I can see the merit in having empirical evidence supporting what we see (as OP said) - it is a lot easier to dismiss an andecdote than statistical evidence
To add on to the people pointing out that science is data:
Yes, it is incredibly obvious that the turmp fanclub subreddit would radicalize people to become white nationalists.
What is not obvious is that this is happening everywhere. And, if you get a hold of one of the "leaked" white supremacist recruiting guides from the 80s and 90s, that is by design.
South Park Libertarians and all but it really is telling how many people, to this day, insist that the f-slur for gay people is really "Oh, we took that back. it means obnoxious motorcycle drivers". Let alone statements like "har har, you are so butthurt" that (regardless of what urban dictionary says) are on the same level as "ha ha, you are gay"
We see it every day. And it makes communities hostile. And if you call it out, you get driven out. Which means there are fewer people around to say "... what the fuck? How can we think this is acceptable?". And then someone whose entire vocabulary is "lolzors go woke go broke pepe pepe" gets rightfully made fun of elsewhere and now they are a victim and all those "for the lolz" become their identity.
They're polarizing and definitely hateful.
But as the volume got cranked higher and higher, I think it encouraged more silent disgust than popular approval.
You just couldn't see it under all the pro-Trump spam.
The online Shoot And Cry strategy. Always be the victim.
the f-slur can't be reclaimed for me, personally, I'm happy for those who do reclaim it but its just too painful as it's what I got called when I was badly hurt and was worried I would die as a 12 year old.
However, those who do reclaim it then use it around me, which just makes me think about what happened - involuntarily - and ruins my day (or part of it).
It's also tricky being a bi man in a het relationship in this regard, as if someone knows that it's hard to overcome their feelings that due to my partners existence, I now no longer have a say in these matters.
insert shocked pikachu here I mean, is this really surprising? That place was a cesspool disguising as irony. But news flash, it stops being ironic after a certain amount of time.
Who was that other dude? Think idubbz interviewed him.
Was doing the same thing trying to hide behind layer of “meta irony” or whatever water muddying bullshit they wanted to call it.
People who shoot crooked just don’t need to be trusted period
Sam Hyde?
That’s the one
It’s not about how expected this was. It’s about the fact that we have data to prove it, and it is definitely a probable phenomenon.
Incidentally, I’d be fascinated to see the data the alphabet agencies have doubtlessly gathered on what major players on /r/TheDonald are affiliated with foreign agents (primarily Russia, though China and Israel absolutely had a hand in it too), or just straight up foreign agents themselves. I hear they’re going to release a big report about that on February 31st.
Agreed, it's such a dereliction of duty to not report on this.
As well as letting all the kompromized 4th of July legislators, et. al., and one former commander in chief in particular continue their treasonous subversion.
We are heading right off the rails.
I mean… it’s basically one entire party.
Remember when they popped the DNC’s email server and released stuff tactically at just the right moments to have the most damaging effect on Hillary?
It’s kind of an open secret that they popped the RNC’s email server too… and then didn’t release anything. Ockham’s razor might suggest there wasn’t anything there, but if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’ve been looking to sell. FancyBear/FSB/Russian Mafia/whoever is kinda obviously blackmailing like at least half of the Congressional Republican caucus, as evidenced by the entirely astroturfed opposition to Ukrainian military aid and extremely peculiar Russophilia.
Exactly.
And again, when TF are the TLA's going to do something about this? They better do something soon or else they might be mistaken for Christo-fashists.
We are heading right off the rails.
About this. It was legitimately funny at first, when the Orange One had no chance.
The thing that turned it so fast from absolute satire into not at all satire was the immediate, within seconds, banning of anyone who called it out as a joke. The speed of those bans convinced me that someone was being paid to steer the narrative in their desired direction 24/7.
It was a masterclass in modern propaganda, and I'm glad it's being studied.
I learned personal lessons from it. I'm absolutely more PC now, because you never know who's going to take your absurd joke seriously. As Waddle said, if you say something ironically enough, it stops being ironic.
See also: various still-existing places such as PoliticalCompassMemes
This won't make Spez any more uncomfortable when he wants to sleep at night. According to him, that subreddit was "valuable discussion".
One cannot be an active thedonald user without already being a white nationalist.
Any dissent gets an instant permaban.
So just like r/conservative? I only commented there once and was instantly permabanned. It was a while ago. Deinately before Trump was president, maybe 2015. Maybe earlier.
I kinda watched the political climate change drastically since 2015. Statring form Trumps presidency to spreading all over America, Europe and the world. And I wonder where this came from in such masses. Russian efforts and paid propagandists? They can't be THAT powerful, can they? It is insane and it spreads everywhere. Into every corner of the world. I don't understand it. People seem to want authoritarian leadership. Have they all lost their minds?
If you ever want to observe or engage (be ready for the pile-up) with these same folks, r/ShitPoliticsSays contains the exact same user-base of extremists. These are dyed-in-the-wool folks because they use this as a launching-point for brigading other subs comment threads. Lots of Canadian righties there, too. The only credit I'll give is unlike r/conservative that they never censored so you could pretty much discuss and test argumentative points to your heart's content.
Just read the thread covering this very article about T_D lol
Of course I still think a sizable chunk of these folks operate in discord channels and astroturfed Sanders subs (especially the 2020 election), ChapoTrapHouse, etc.
I don't know what they mean. I hung about in there for three years and I never picked up any white nationalist vocabulary.
This article sounds like (((globalist))) propaganda to me!
Edit: Incidentally, I was perma-banned from reddit for making a similar joke there.
No. Fucking. Shit.
Any and I do mean, any conservative based subreddit all now function the same. r/conservatives have turned into a shithole. Hell, even TrueUnpopularOpinion has turned into it's own shithole because it's just a foundation for right-wingers to express their radicalized thought processes for all to see.
,
Yeah, I've always described r/Conservative as The_Donald dressed up in their dad's suit and tie. But once The_Donald was finally banned (after they already left for their own website - thanks for nothing spez) r/Conservative dropped all pretenses.
R/republican was a right wing echo bunker, too. I got banned for pointing out that the letter in the "article" that someone posted that claimed that the DOJ had found massive voter fraud in Georgia and asking the state to reject Biden's win was actually written by a Trumpist shill and contradicted the Republican AG, the DOJ, the Republican Governor, the Republican Secretary of State, and Republican election officials.
I asked them a couple of times when major events in the prosecution of John Eastman occurred if they would reconsider. They blocked me for 30 days each time. When he was finally disbarred I asked again and they told me that if I didn't stop asking they would report me to the admins.
Delicate little snowflakes in their echo bunker.
r/unpopularopinion was a shithole. Any sub called "realXYZ" "QRS2" or "TrueABC" is just the "free speech" version started by someone pissed that they got banned for using slurs, so I'm not surprised r/TrueUnpopularOpinion went to shit. I'm surprised you think it was decent at any point tbh.
There were a couple "trues" that actually had a purpose and were actively less shitty than the original one. The games and gaming subs were mostly memes and fan boys being assholes, but truegaming was for longer form discussion and memes weren't allowed.
I remember TrueGaming having such a stingy requirement, like they wouldn't have allowed you to post for a month. It was dumb but I understood. It's no longer there.
Yeah r/gaming is a shitfest, you can't have an honest engaging conversation about games. It's always about sensationalist takes, cosplayer females dressing sexually to appeal to the lonely losers who frequent there, rage porn for like 2 weeks, unfunny memes and junk posts like "REMAKE THIS ONE GAME ONLY I REMEMBURH! COME ON, I PRETEND TO UNDERSTAND BUSINESS! THIS WILL RAKE IN SO MUCH MONEY!"
And the same person will pull a two-face and condemn the industry for practicing what they think is bad business, while simultaneously STILL PAYING FOR THE SHIT THEY THINK IS THE PROBLEM!
Hypocritical pieces of shit are what that community is.
Weak, all of them
Yes, that's why nazi digg kept them around.
I would be extremely interested if things changed after the sub went private.
It's all about living in a silo. Surround yourself with one side, and there's no other direction to go but further down your side.
,
Lmao the fascists are ready to burn down Reddit faster than greed would
4chan was pure weaponized autism in those days. They still call Trump "The meme president".
weaponized autism?
They've very much revealed that they come straight from 4chan.
i thought the donald got banned, guess there's a new the Donald.
Please read the link! It's a study of that time on Reddit when the Donald was growing rapidly.
Blasphemy!
thanks for the info, i will be potentially forgetting it .
yeah, but i'm sure theres plenty of other subreddits doing the same shit. Reddit doesnt get rid of bad actors, it just redistributes them.
FTFT. I so hate it when people who should know better ignore the actual meaning of terms.
I would've been curious to see what kinds of words got counted as "far-right vocabulary" but it appears that research has recently gone back to being effectively concealed behind paywalls for those of us not in academia.
It's 2024, anyone feigning ignorance about what constitutes a "far-right vocabulary" is just being disingenuous.
Oh, hey! Come on now!
They could just be really, really stupid.
Speaking of online extremism, imagine calling someone stupid for wanting to read a scientific paper before forming an opinion about it.
One can assume, yes. But that's not especially scientific, is it? What's the point of the research if you can't look at the methodology?
Someone else defended the post from people saying "well d'uh" by saying we need to corroborate our theories and not just assume they're correct. Kind of hard to do when research is hidden behind paywalls.
Was going to say this same thing to back you up. We can't both defend this "obvious" study by saying "it's good to have data to back it up!" And then simultaneously argue against having data because it's "too obvious".
I completely agree, a study like this is as good as worthless without disclosing the list of words, or the methodology used for testing words (if they are stored in a latent space rather than a list, for example).
That's not really true. Anyway, the "supplementary material" provides a few examples at least. We can only assume that they should be representative and that care was taken in drawing the boundary between that sort of thing and less objectionable but culturally adjacent terms.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240511183257/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/1532673X241240429/suppl_file/sj-pdf-1-apr-10.1177_1532673X241240429.pdf
Good find, thanks.
"Gamer precursor" is a bit of a surprise. I know gaming communities can be toxic, but it seems like the odd one out in a list with "conspiracy, racist, violent, sexist, and offensive."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign)
Yes lol I've heard of Gamergate. But I still don't think "far right" when I hear "gamer." It wouldn't shock me to learn that they correlate to some degree, but whereas the other precursors sound per se characteristic of the far right to me, "gamer" seems like an odd fit.
Like lots of people from a broad range of backgrounds would describe themselves as gamers, and that's generally uncontroversial. Not the same for any other precursor in that list.
Hence, surprised.
Why are we downvoting this comment? It's a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about the study, and I had the same thought.
Not because I can't possibly imagine what could constitute "far right vocabulary..." But just cause I'm interested in the study methodology.
Like yeah, any of us can often identify far-right language when we see it... But how did the researchers approach that systematically? Are there any surprises there, like phrases that I wouldn't recognize? Did they include patterns like "randomly capitalizing words for emphasis?" That would be interesting to know.
Or maybe I misunderstood, and the people downvoting are just pro-paywall, idk.
Some people seem to be more concerned with this study "feeling" correct more than it actually being verifiably correct.
So what's the definition of white nationalist vocabulary?
EDIT: Why da fuck am I getting down voted for wanting specifics on the very premise of the article?
If you were familiar with far-right extremists before Reddit gave them a comfy little platform, it was painfully obvious.
Sticking to vocabulary only, terms like "cuck" becoming their favourite insult was straight from neo-nazi circles, where it very deliberately meant "race traitor" -- someone who would let a black man fuck their wife.
Since it had the most plausible deniability behind it, "cuck" survived about as long as "alt-right" did, before it became obvious to even the dullest of fucks that it was all just neo-nazis.
But scattered around that, you had terms like "Zionists" and "ethnostate" that aren't inherently Nazi terms but are neo-nazis go-to problem and solution. You had outright dogwhistles like (((Soros))) and 1488. You had preferred slurs for women and minorities that came straight from places that were openly far-right, Holocaust advocates.
You also had various versions of the same old Protocols/Mein Kamph conspiracy theories, custom built for internet reactionaries. Hell, the anti-Hillary frenzy escalated to accused the Democrats of blood libel for fucks sake -- one of the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theories there is.
Most of these came and went as they carefully balanced remaining "mask on". If it became too much of a give away, it was retired and replaced. These days, they know to not even name their movement, because it makes it harder to attack. The "alt-right" is now just "Republicans" so they can hide their extremism behind moderates.
Anyway, fuck the lot of them. Reddit providing a platform for groups like neo-nazis and anti-vaxxers has likely caused more social damage than anything on the internet to date.
Sounds like they learned well from the progressive left :D
There's no such thing as 'woke'!
Sir ur not allowed to point out that both sides are using the same strategies. If ur socialist ur allowed to use any means to achieve the goals u desire because they are grounded in superior morality.
Sounds like you're a cunt.
Wow that's a lot of text with a lot of opinion I don't really care for. I was more looking for a list but all I got was cuck, zionist, ethnostate, soros, and 1488. The rest is ideas and concepts and Dumas's conspiracy theories not vocaulary.
Also imo its incredibly nieve to lump anyone who identifies with republican as an alt-right Nazi. That is literally the same generalisation group think blame game that Hitler used to blame and prosecute the Jews.
I guess my only other question is why are the Palestinian protesters using at least 2 of these ideas/words?
What a shock, you didn't want an answer, you wanted the foundation of apologist talking points to bail out your friends.
Damn, you wanted a list and all you got was a list. If you want something more specific, buy the paper instead of insisting people spoon feed you answers. My money would be on you being perfectly aware what that list contains but hoping nobody wanted to write you out a giant list of racist, sexist and antisemitic slurs.
Yes, as I clearly stated.
Not a thing I did, but if you're upset that your friends and family are being labeled as scumbags just because they vote, bankroll and repeat the talking points of scumbags, maybe you should direct your tantrum at the alt-right Nazis and the Republicans that tolerate them, if not openly support them.
Fuck off with your "the left are the real Nazis". I'm not shipping people off to death camps, I'm pointing out the undeniable fact that the Republican party is riddled with far-right fuckstains, an idea that apparently hurts your feelings.
They're not remotely comparable acts on any level and I'm not going to fall for the awkward manipulation tactics you learned on 4chan.
Rub your two braincells together and see if they spark. Zionism plays an important part in Israeli hostilities towards Gaza. That doesn't mean far-right conspiracy theories about Jews running the world and needing genociding have any merit.
You're blatantly just trying to link my opinions to Hitler (hoping people will be dull enough to think "both people bad") and racist extremists to Palestinians (hoping people will be dull enough to think "both groups good").
Save the awkward manipulation for whatever members of your family still speak to you.
I wanted a list I thought I said that? I refuse to pay hence I asked as I want to be better educated on the topic.
Here is u lumping all republicans together with the people u call extremists Nazis, antivaxxers, and antisemites.
I never said the left where Nazis. I made no comment of political affiliation or assumptions about you or myself.
The right is riddled with far right extremists same as the left is riddled with far left extremists. The reason u do that see them as extremists is because u are aligned with them (no extremist thinks they are an extremist).
They are completely comparable acts both Hitler and the left are finding real examples of a problem, both then selected a section of these people based on a common ideology (that they happen to not like), both then attributed the bad shit committed by a small percentage no higher than the societal average to the whole group, both then used that to organise societal prosecution of the whole group based on the actions of a few. Hitler not the left then used the general disapproval of these people to relocate them which he then used as justification to murder them because out of sign out of mind. Lot of similarities here.
So its antisemitic when the right does it but acceptable to literally call for the destruction of their nation if the left does it (from the river to the sea etc)? That's some very impressive doublethink does 2+2=5?
I'm not trying to link u to Hitler just pointing out the similarities and ur hypocritical or idiotic refuse to a knowledge said similarities. I have literally no say power or influence over what 2 other sovereign nations choose to do. It is quite literally 2 democratic nations going to war with each other I believe that we should respect the peoples decisions on how their democratically elected government operates. I'm simply concerning myself with the actions violence and hate happing in my backyard.
That's two mentions of my family not speaking to me. I'm not sure what kind of a psychopathic family refused to talk to someone because of political ideology but Me thinks you doth protest to much.
Nope. You asked "So what's the definition of white nationalist vocabulary?" and then when that was answered, you moved the goal posts.
Nope, there is me explaining that the far-right no longer give themselves labels like "alt-right" and instead insist they're regular Repiblicans so that apologists like you can claim "you just call all Republicans Nazis".
You've tried really hard to strip that context out of your quote but since you knew cutting the sentence off half way through would be too obvious, there's still enough context there to show you're lying. It's right there in the "so they can hide behind moderates" part -- who are the "moderates" if I'm calling all Republicans Nazis?
Not even remotely close. I know you've been trained to bleat "both sides" on command but this isn't going to fool anyone outside your little bubble of people who will believe anything as long as it's right wing.
But sure, let's play. Who are the Democrat versions of Matt Gaetz or MTG, both of whom are seeing to control what people learn by attacking teachers and banning books? Who is the Democrat version of Paul Gosar, who has shared videos depicting violence against their political rivals? Who are the Democrats promoting conspiracy theories to undermine elections, like Boebert and Trump?
Not nearly as many differences. Bullshit comparisons like this are trivial to make and I could link Hitler to 100 Republicans in 1000 ways using surface level shit that everyone does, even without lying.
Hitler isn't known as one of the most vile people to ever live because he made generalisations about a group of people, it's because he was a political leader who arranged to systemically murder millions of innocent people.
I genuinely can't even figure out what your point is supposed to be here.
Nope, I just keep tabs on what extremists are up to and it's common to see both "how do I redpill my friends and family?" and "my family doesn't speak to me any more".
Don't worry, I'm sure they're unrelated and your family are good people that know your true opinions.
Too be fair I too was looking for something of a list. Of the few words mentionned in the comments, I only knew about cuck and I thought it was a fetish thing.
I’m not too sure why people on here tend to exaggerate the slightest of things. One can simply be curious, you know.
And I don’t know why everyone is defending the paywall. I thought lemmy was leftist and leftists were agaisnt this kind of thing. Especially since most papers, if not all, are partially or fully funded by taxpayer money.
I’m not too sure why people on here tend to exaggerate the slightest of things. One can simply be curious, you know.
Just because you can't spot the bullshit doesn't mean it's not there. By your own admission you didn't know any of the dogwhistles nor the extra layer of gross in their love of calling everyone "cucks".
You fell for their plausible deniability but many of us have seen these tricks 1000 times now. We're not exaggerating, we're experienced.
I'm not defending the paywall. If someone wants to undermine the content of the paper, they can start by reading it, not crowd-sourcing excuses.
Well that’s the point. I know what cuck can mean in that context now because it was mentionned and I was able to look it up. If everyone wants to hide what the other words are because “it’s so obvious you’re an idiot for not knowing them”, how am I supposed to recognize them in the wild? As it is I’ll probably just hear some fancy new term and assume they’re educated.
As for the paywall, maybe you weren’t against it yourself but the other comments that were agaisnt it got downvoted, though perhaps it wasn’t the sole reason.
Nobody is hiding anything. They're slurs and dogwhistles. If you really want to know what they are, use your initiative to look them up. Insisting people on social media to explain it to you is not only indistinguishable from sea-lioning but a great way to get manipulated.
I was looking for the ones mentionned in the study I couldn’t read. I ended up looking them up as you said and that did the job too I suppose.
I mean, you asked a bunch of random strangers instead of going to google, so ya gets what ya gets, I guess.
Riiiight... becasue right-wingers are born right-wingers, correct? Is that why you want to equate right-wingers playing the victim card to people who were actually murdered simply for existing?
As you yourself have just proven - all right-wingers walk the same path.
Good job outing yourself, fascist.
If u could read u would realise that's not what I said at all. If I really wanted to equate the left with Hitler I would point out he gained most of his public support from promising everyone land a fammilly and job. Sounds like the same thing socialism is promising.
Have u ever gone and spoken to a republican in person? have u ever gone and had a legitimate conversation with one? Have u even left the world greatest 3rd world country?
And since it seems to be your culture to call me a facist as an Aussie its culturaly insensitive for you to stop me calling you a cunt.
FTFY... but I guess it doesn't sound very socialist any more now, does it?
Why? I grew up in a fascist regime, genius - I have been hearing the garbage fascists peddle since birth.
Newsflash - you all sound the same.
I don't see how which group ur pandering to matters?
in person?
So that's a no? Get off the fucking internet and go civilly speak to the goddamn people especially the ones u disagree with.
Of course you don't, fascist.
Which part of...
...didn't you understand the first time around, fascist?
What makes u think I'm a facist what facist things have a done/said?
You're here running interference for fascists because you're not a fascist?
Call the internet historians... this is a historic first!
So pointing out that facists make up a very small percentage of people politically right of centre is running interference now?
Overt fascism is merely the visible tip of the iceberg, genius.
You want examples of you regurgitating narratives created by fascists to hide behind? Sure thing!
I guess it's just pure coincidence that you are peddling these excuses for fascism over and over again, eh?
My guess would be because they are protesting a Zionist ethnostate.
So they are using and you are using a word that according to this article is radicalising or is that only when the right uses it?
The same thing is happening here with Hexbear and .ml to the other direction.
Even in a thread about nazis over on reddit, you punch left.
Do you do anything other than punch left? Lol. Of course Lemmy is going to have Leftists, it was made by Marxist-Leninists along Communist principles. You are the one picking Lemmy over Reddit, here.
You’re legendarily wrong here time and again, and probably the most banned for misinformation, and you cast aspersions at me?
How about this- you call me a “tankie for Israel” and I’ll call you a “tankie for Trump” and we’ll both agree on mutually assured destruction.
Hmmmm?
You just showed up on a thread about reddit to whine that some lemmy users aren't far enough to the right for you.
I’ll show up on a thread about anything to call out propagandists when I see them. You of all people should know this- since you follow me around wherever I go.
I thought you said you blocked me. Guess that was another filthy lie.
Again, this thread is about reddit bein' fulla nazis, not about how you're angry that people to your left exist on lemmy.
What this thread is about is irrelevant. Propaganda is propaganda. I’ll call it out every time I see it. That you call yourself a “leftist” is irrelevant.
That people seeing you for what you are…. Isn’t.
And I can block and unblock you as many times as I wish. Until your kind wins in November, I remain free to do as I wish from the comfort of my own home.
And what propaganda have I spread on this thread? Quote it.
And every time you imagine it. I think there are tankies under your bed.
lol you wanted to leave our last conversation in a huff but couldn't commit.
ROFL!!!! Dude. Seriously… you really need to stop. I honestly cannot handle the hilarity of you thinking I’m dumb enough to fall for your little misdirection bullshit where you steer the discussion away from the subject in order to appear as if you have a valid point to defend.
Now, it’s your turn to predictably pretend to have the high ground while simultaneously responding by talking a lot and saying very little.
I was on this thread before you showed up. If you don't want people to say that all you do is whine that people to your left are permitted to continue existing, do something else.
I notice you weren't able to quote what you lied about me doing.
Fellas, fellas... I think we can all agree that you're both just terrible.
Yeah… calling out propagandists is just downright fucking horrible.
Did it actually radicalize, or just take the mask off? They may have used vocabularies they always wanted to.
I think there's a lot to be discussed on the topic but I wouldn't put much on this methodology.
,
Radicalization happens yes, it's a question of The Donald specifically doing it. It's not so big that many people will just randomly stumble into it like Fox (which is passive and 24/7). People have to kinda seek the sub out and engage. At that point they were probably quietly, let's just say, racist. So I put that in the category of mask off. I know people they could do that.
,
I did read the portion accessible, I quoted it in my original comment.
When a community allows you to feel comfortable "taking the mask off" and embracing your inner bigot that is radicalization. So yes, The_Donald did radicalize people. Your comment is an attempt to highlight a distinction without a functional difference.
I guess you could define radicalization like that, but I'd define it as taking regular Joe with no hate and you know radicalizing them.
Yeah I think there's a difference between radicalization and mask off.
"Increasingly" is the key word there, pal.
Adopting is the key word actually. Mask off is revealing it.
There is no one key word. They all kind of intermingle to explain the whole idea. Picking and choosing which word you feel most comfortably explains your own opinion doesn't make it right.
Honestly, before now, this is what I had implicitly assumed was going on. I'm not American, and I had blocked most of this trash when it was happening, but my impression was that these ignorant people were just "coming out of the woodwork" so to speak.
Of course, fear and hate are learned behaviors, but it's interesting to me to see that these people were actually being quantifiably radicalized by that website in particular, and they weren't simply bringing views to the platform that were being established elsewhere.
People are emotional creatures. And in a place where a type of view is being actively promoted, it's very easy to align those emotions in that specific direction.
An example here on Lemmy is ACAB. It's anti-police and it posts the bad stuff that's meant to show ACAB. They might say it shows the truth and people going through All, watching the videos and reading the articles might start thinking, huh cops seem bad. They keep going, read statistics and articles posted by other commenters and driven by this information, they eventually end up saying ACAB. Suddenly, anyone not saying ACAB is complicit, an enemy, a troll, part of the problem etc.
It's the same for any politically charged social hub. It's not just people who had the views but lacked a place to vent them, but people who are ignorant on the subject and are radicalized through emotional outrage. Emotional opinions are the hardest to change because the investment in them is the greatest.