Twitter Users Are Escaping Online Hate by Switching Profiles To Germany (cnbc.com) 335
An anonymous reader shares a report: A couple years ago, a friend invited Carl Perez to a virtual world promising online discourse free of Nazis. That world was Germany. Perez, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, didn't fly from their home in Colorado to escape the hatred they saw online. Instead, Perez simply changed their Twitter account location. "Since then, I've seen pretty much no nationalist content," they said. Perez is not alone in trying to escape a sea of hate by virtually jumping ship to Germany. But local residents and researchers say German Twitter is not exactly the internet utopia some imagine.
"We are not the paradise of social media without any hate speech whatsoever," said Stephan Dreyer, a senior media law and governance researcher at the Hans-Bredow-Institut in Germany. While the most obvious expressions of Nazism and racism may be harder to find on Twitter accounts with their locations set to Germany, there is still plenty of coded content that slips through the cracks, Dreyer said. Twitter users often point to the company's content policy in Germany to argue it should be able to identify and remove Nazis from the platform in other regions. When Maureen Colford learned about the location setting "hack" to filter out Nazis, she said she was "amazed that somehow Twitter manages to do this in Germany," and wondered, "why can't they do this everywhere?"
"We are not the paradise of social media without any hate speech whatsoever," said Stephan Dreyer, a senior media law and governance researcher at the Hans-Bredow-Institut in Germany. While the most obvious expressions of Nazism and racism may be harder to find on Twitter accounts with their locations set to Germany, there is still plenty of coded content that slips through the cracks, Dreyer said. Twitter users often point to the company's content policy in Germany to argue it should be able to identify and remove Nazis from the platform in other regions. When Maureen Colford learned about the location setting "hack" to filter out Nazis, she said she was "amazed that somehow Twitter manages to do this in Germany," and wondered, "why can't they do this everywhere?"
German Twitter is not exatly the internet utopia (Score:1)
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Ach du lieber Gott!
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Ach du lieber Gott!
Hat der lieber Gott Dir die Erlaubnis erteilt, ihn zu duzen . . . ?
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I realize that the political left wishes to demonize their opponents. But they should really find a better term to use than "Nazis". The only "Nazis" still alive today are amongst the oldest of senior citizens.
Given that the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was abolished over 70 years ago, there haven't been any new "Nazis" created in over seven decades.
No, No, No.. You don't understand.
If you say something I don't like -- you're a NAZI.
If you say something I disagree with -- it is HATE SPEECH.
If you state facts that contradict the official narrative -- you're a HATE SPEECH NAZI
That is what this article is really saying.
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Now-a-days, it's the alt+Left who are the Nazis. Basically trans-nationalist socialists - and fascist to (jack) boot too - they accuse any and all opposition of being "Nazi", which makes for a bizarre and erroneous irony. You see alt+Left Antifa types beating everyone up (socially, economically, online and physically) like some Sturmabteilung/Brownshirt of old, yet accusing those whom they beat of being "Nazi" and "fascist".
'Living interesting times, that's for sure ..
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It's almost as though political viewpoints aren't a linear scale, and any left/right distinction is entirely fucking meaningless.
Most of the population don't give a fuck whether someone's on the left or right, they care about whether a politician wants to take the country to war, what their views are on immigration, if they'll support nationalised health care.
Re: "Nazis" pretty much don't exist today. (Score:2)
The left vs right trope is pushed hard by Big Media because it stultifies public debate. Divide & Conquer 101.
"Nazis" pretty much do exist today. (Score:2)
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And they were tiny and irrelevant until people started to point out to em and give em free marketing.
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I like this (Score:1)
Das ist gut, mein herr!
Irony? (Score:1)
Given Germany's history this seems to be the very definition of ironic... Especially if they are of certain minority groups.
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You should talk to some Germans about it, they see it rather differently.
Modern day Nazis want to keep Nazism alive and draw more people to it by normalizing it. For example, they will point out that the old table in your living room that you inherited was actually stolen from Jews during the war, and every day you use it and are part of what happened. They very much don't want it to become forgotten history.
Of course most Germans don't think of it that way. They were not even born at the time, and their pa
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Pretty much this. One problem is the old propaganda still works. I have seen recordings of Hitler talking in school and they are still very powerful. Most of these recordings are not available to the general public and even the ones I saw were short excerpts. This stuff is dangerous.
The Nazis did not invent propaganda, but they perfected it. And most of the lies are still convincing today to some people and so is the mind-set they had back then. These are the people that would love to be able to actually, l
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Most of these recordings are not available to the general public and even the ones I saw were short excerpts.
Were you injured?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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They were not even born at the time, and their parents and grandparents were actually often just victims of the Nazis lies and propaganda too, even if they weren't the ones directly persecuted.
This argument is epic fail when it is applied to slavery and reparations, for example.
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I've lived in Germany. Never met a Nazi there.
Walked around a German war cemetery one day, met an old German lady putting flowers on a grave. She didn't look like a Nazi either, although we didn't speak, just exchanged quiet looks.
I've been back to Germany since. Still not seen any Nazis. I've seen members of the Stasi, I've seen East German border guards that'd kill you on sight for walking in the wrong place, I've seen German immigration camp officials that lack any sense of humour whatsoever and seem fru
"why can't they do this everywhere?" (Score:5, Informative)
Because, in Germany, unlike in other countries, there is a legal obligation to do so. Laws work people.
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Because, in Germany, unlike in other countries, there is a legal obligation to do so. Laws work people.
Everywhere else, they may well encourage calling each other 'Nazi' as it increases 'engagement' and that means more ad revenue for Twitter.
Because its a crime? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Germany it is a crime to both say pro-NAZI things, and funnily enough, to call someone a NAZI without pretty damn solid evidence..
A crime as in the police turn up at your door..
Is that perhaps the situation these people wish for?
Perhaps they should consider the whole like of things that could be added to such a list.
For example communism and socialism, with its history of mass killings, estimated to be in the range of 50-150 million people, and a long standing hatred of America should probably go on the list.
And probably threats against the democratically elected president of the US should go on the list (at least in the US, which is, I assume, where these people are).
Should make for an interesting discussion.
Personally I sit in the 'shine a light on these idiots' camp. There will always be thugs and trouble makers on both sides, and pushing them underground has never, ever helped. Abusing someone who is disaffected makes them more angry. Listening politely, shaking your head with a smile, and walking away - must less so.
But no, it has to be 'us versus them' - good luck with that.
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Germany has a very specific problem with Nazis. It doesn't have a similar problem with socialism, in fact Germany has adopted many socialist ideas. In fact one of the two largest parties in Germany is called the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and is explicitly for social intervention and social justice.
In fact the old Communist Party merged with the SDP after the Berlin Wall came down. There is a new one, the KPD, and also a Marxistâ"Leninist Party. None of them are banned though, since they haven't co
Re: Because its a crime? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats hilarious. "Germany has a problem with national socialism, but they don't have a problem with socialism. In fact they've implemented it on a national level!"
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It's hilarious that you fell for the line that Nazis are socialists. Do you also believe that Kim Jong Un was democratically elected as leader of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea?
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The NAZIs were quite specifically socialists, in that they operated under the theory that the government, as a representative of the people, were the best at deciding how to redistribute and allocate resources, and make decisions regarding pretty much everything.
That is a critical part of socialism, a removal of individual free will 'for the common good'.
They also specifically identified and vilified a certain subset of their population as being the 'cause of all the problems', and then victimized those peo
Re: "why can't they do this everywhere?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Laws work people." And in the US the law is that the government cannot restrict speech. So I guess it's working here too.
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That pesky 1st amendment cuts multiple ways don't it? But I cannot imagine life without it's protections, so I'd rather keep it than risk being without it...
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Well it's twitter. So the 1st ammendement doesn't count.
Before you go on about trump not being able to block people.... trump is an idiot for not leaving twitter when he doesn't like them.
Just like this person.
Very little positive content of any kind comes out of twitter.
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"And in the US the law is that the government cannot restrict speech." - BZZZT, FALSE. You know nothing about US law. TPM restrictions, gag orders, threats being easily referenced examples. Educate yourselves, Republican nazi children.
For Pete's sake... I DIDN'T say that at all the post before mine which I was responding to did.
Now if you are wanting to get onto somebody's case about being imprecise, yell at the previous poster, not me.
Re: "why can't they do this everywhere?" (Score:5, Informative)
It's worth noting that the US government does actually restrict speech in a lot of ways though, all legally. Like regulation of broadcasters, for example. Also some speech is a crime by itself, e.g. true threats or fraud.
Germany does include freedom of expression as a basic human right, but only to the extent that it doesn't infringe on other people's rights (e.g. credible threats) and Nazism is considered to do just that.
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Saying fraud laws are a restriction on freedom to speak is akin to saying homicide laws are a restriction on the freedom to own a gun. I think it's pretty obvious fraud is a form of theft, and the fact speech is involved is incidental. Speech is not the thing that's being regulated in outlawing fraud. You can say the exact same things, not take anyone else's money while saying them, and you are in the clear.
Threats are a slightly better example, but it's again the physical action that is actually in the c
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Same as going into a crowded theater and yelling "fire!" You are inciting action which places, can place, or gives illusion to danger.
You realise that the Supreme Court decision, Schenck, about this was partially overtuned like 50 years ago, Bradenburg, and it is in fact legal to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.
The current standard established in Bradenburg v Ohio is as follows :
"is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"
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"Laws work people." And in the US the law is that the government cannot restrict speech. So I guess it's working here too.
Twitter isn't the U.S. government though.
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Liberals today, in a nutshell: (And I'm a classic liberal.)
https://southpark.cc.com/clips... [cc.com]
"Mr President can't you FORCE the family guy writing staff to not write about Mohammad? Couldn't you throw them in prision?!"
President: "The fact of the matter is, the Family Guy writing staff are protected by something called the first amendment."
"What exactly is the first amendment?"
President: "You know... the right to free speech." [everyone in the room screams at the microaggression.]
"Mr President. When you creat
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Unfortunately, that is so right on the money, it is not even funny anymore. "Modern" liberals have become a danger.
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Um, I think that show was satire and not a scholarly analysis of modern liberal thought.
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We're getting to the point where I honestly can't tell if these comments are written by bots, or angry liberals smashing their heads against the keyboard.
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Just paste the text into google and you'll find : https://www.democraticundergro... [democratic...ground.com] https://giguebuzz.com/tracking... [giguebuzz.com] http://forums.sailinganarchy.c... [sailinganarchy.com] http://www.netfriction.com/Dis... [netfriction.com] https://pittsburgh.craigslist.... [craigslist.org]
etc, etc. So yeah, pretty sure that's a bot.
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In hte US that law is that the government cannot restrict some speech. The right to free speech is not absolute. Witness libel laws as one example, or the fact that you can be prosecuted for sending a bomb threat, or jailed for sending the SWAT team to someone's house.
The original intent of no "abridging the freedom of speech" seems to be all about political speech: you're free to criticize the government or even call the president a poopy head. However note that some of the original authors of the consti
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Because, in Germany, unlike in other countries, there is a legal obligation to do so. Laws work people.
Sure, for some definition of "work". If you want to remove "hate speech", whatever you conveniently deem that to be, from major corporate platforms, then sure. You can successfully hide from the things people will continue to say elsewhere. And for many, that's the only goal: to not see anything icky.
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All these laws do is reduce visibility of the problem and reduce the ability to recruit the weak-of-mind. The root of the problem, namely the true believers, are always there and are just waiting for a chance. For some reason even modern society has been unable to get rid of the idea that it is not acceptable to kill people that are "different". Far too many people do not seem to have any problem with that idea. And from there it starts.
The Nazis did not create this idea. They just harnessed and streamlined
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For some reason even modern society has been unable to get rid of the idea that it is not acceptable to kill people that are "different".
Why would any modern society want to get rid of that idea? Seems like a good idea, to me.
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Typo. Of course I mean the opposite thing.
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Just curious as to how you would characterize this "underground" and how you've come to know about it? 4chan has been in the news since at least 10 years and 8chan wasn't particularly hard to find.
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Online discourse (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" were looking for online discourse? Why were they using Twitter?
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Because it can be a great platform for that
If you want to get rid of Chinese Gold Farmers (Score:5, Interesting)
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Awesome. What was the letter that was banned? I wanted to make a cunning reply, but I forgot the important bit!
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go to a games forums and post a Winnie the Pooh Meme. Seriously. The entire game will get banned.
I had to jog my memory. For those that do not know (or remember) Winnie the Pooh is banned in China [bbc.com] due to memes about President Xi Jinping.
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Re:The woke are a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
The same people who rant about hate like a baptist preacher with a porn addiction calling upon the Lord to take out the Mindgeek headquarters with hell fire are the same people who will unironically tell you that "whiteness" and white men are pretty much responsible for all social ills that "women and people of color" face.
Then people wonder why white nationalism is growing in popularity among young men.
Indeed. If I hear a given person is racist it could mean anything from disagreeing with Obama on anything to being a full on Klan member. The downside to throwing out labels too easily is that they lose their meaning. At this point it's the same with Nazi. If I hear a person is a Nazi I'm more inclined to think that their very strict (ie grammar Nazi) but it could be that they just didn't vote for Hillary. Only an exceedingly very small number of so called Nazis actually would qualify under pre 2k definitions. Of those that do exist most are probably in prison gangs because the prisons are a classic case of inmates running the asylum and are organized by race.
Re:The woke are a joke (Score:5, Funny)
to think that their very strict (ie grammar Nazi)
Oooh, well-played!
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Must... not... correct...
Re:The woke are a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
If I hear a given person is racist it could mean anything from disagreeing with Obama on anything to being a full on Klan member. The downside to throwing out labels too easily is that they lose their meaning.
The word prejudice has fallen from our vocabulary recently. That's unfortunate, because it's something we all have, and we've lost a way to describe it. We need to acknowledge it exists within all of us, and work together to be better.
While prejudice is a problem, overstating it by calling it racism will only cause people to recoil and deny it exists. Calling someone a racist means you are telling someone you think they are a bad person. Pointing out someone's prejudice just points out their mistake, and shouldn't have any bearing on that person's character (because we all have prejudice).
Re:The woke are a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
The word prejudice has fallen from our vocabulary recently. That's unfortunate, because it's something we all have, and we've lost a way to describe it. We need to acknowledge it exists within all of us, and work together to be better. While prejudice is a problem, overstating it by calling it racism will only cause people to recoil and deny it exists. Calling someone a racist means you are telling someone you think they are a bad person. Pointing out someone's prejudice just points out their mistake, and shouldn't have any bearing on that person's character (because we all have prejudice).
You make an excellent point. Moreover racism was redefined, in certain circles, to only apply to white males as they are perceived as being in charge of 'the system'. Everyone else gets a pass. Unfortunately this imbalance makes white males extra disinclined to get involved at any level or take it seriously as it can only be used as a club against. So either prejudice gets ignored (if they lean right) or they self flagellate regularly and bemoan their wretched privileged status hoping to not be hit with the racism club (if they lean left). Mark my words - there will be no progress on relations in general until we get past group labels and focus on individuals and prejudice instead of group labels and 'racism'.
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Moreover racism was redefined, in certain circles, to only apply to white males as they are perceived as being in charge of 'the system'.
I thought this was Yet Another Myth About Liberals until I heard someone define racism as "prejudice + power." IE, if someone doesn't have systemic power (they're historically discriminated against), they cannot be racist.
The pervasiveness of that system of thought is greatly exaggerated, but it exists.
It isn't greatly exaggerated. I'm tired beyond words of situations like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
One racism/hate crime standard for white people and a much more lenient standard for everyone else. The double standard grows more stale by the day and people are starting to push back. When they dare question it then they're labelled white nationalists / white supremacists / Nazis. But as those labels get overused they too lose their power. The situation will probably have to get worse befor
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rant about hate like a baptist preacher with a porn addiction calling upon the Lord to take out the Mindgeek headquarters with hell fire
"Hellfire". Hell is a proper noun -- a place, like Chicago -- and should be capitalized when not used as mere profanity. And Hellfire has long been a single word.
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Given Nazis promoted Nordic and Aryan races, considering other people with white skin (e.g. that small group you may have heard of called Jews) lesser races, I think your use of 'uneducated' is deliciously ironic.
"why can't they do this everywhere?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually in a way it DOES go away (Score:2)
Editor. Please. Its THEY'RE not their (Score:3, Funny)
This is basic english. Get it write or go home!
You mean embracing hate you like (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you don't see any Nazi things, doesn't mean you don't get a Twitter full of hate.
I don't see Nazi things in my Twitter feed either, because for some odd reason I choose not to follow Nazis? But I do follow a number of very left wing people that sadly all to often devolve into hate., no less uncomfortable and bigoted. Sometimes from the right too of course, but at the moment it seems that more otherwise reasonably left wing people have fallen down that rabbit hole.
For you own health, do not embrace anyone's hate, even if it is hate you agree with. That is the message I am offering the world, from a center-point of Love. You don't need to move you, or your profile region, to Germany to find this.
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In Brazil, right now, there is a systematic campaign on Twitter to promote and defend the offensive (even against the law) acts of "president" Bolsonaro (an even more stupid and violent version of Trump). Every subject on my timeline is tainted with "hate bots" or religious idiots with the same objective. At first glance it seems that the country has gone crazy and is plunged into an inexplicable wave of hatred if you look only at Twitter, but looking more closely at it is you see that is a s
Where the heck are all these Nazis? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I'm looking for some but really I've been trolling the internet before we had the web and I've got into scuffles with enough anonymous (or not) cowards and except for people being outraged and pointing to something I didn't run into any. Neither online nor offline (and I've been to almost all continents, as in living and working there for a good while).
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So, people want t be clear on there preference, and you hate that people and you thinking THEY are brainwashed?
lol
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It's pretty much the same with gender selection:
- Male
- Female
- (everything else is pretty much just guaranteed to be a pain in the ass)
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Sorry, I believe it's logical. Sometimes while writing you don't want to have to specify or imply a gender. It serves no role in the writing task at hand and risks unintentional bias.
But English lacks sufficient alternatives. Time to fix English so that we can say what we want to say, including omitting what we don't want to say without roundabout wording. Without exerting some pressure to make adjustments to the language, it won't happen.
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"Did you see what this AC posted? They have absolutely no clue what they are talking about.," this statement is not only true, it is also more correct
This AC ? They ? Which is it, is there 1 or multiple ACs ?
I don't get what you're saying here.
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nationalism != hate (Score:3, Insightful)
"Since then, I've seen pretty much no nationalist content,"
Nice way to equate nationalism and hatred, but they're not the same thing. I'm a literal "nationalist", but I don't "hate" anybody. Wanting my own country to succeed is a good thing. And, frankly, America's success has been an overall positive for the rest of the world.
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If you had some brain cells to go with the blind nationalism, you would understand word also have different meaning depending on context.
" Wanting my own country to succeed is a good thing."
That's not nationalism, maybe buy a dictionary?
"America's success has been an overall positive for the rest of the world"
until about 40 years ago, sure.
Now? we aren't even on the top ten of any measure of quality.
No longer top 10 in educations, healthcare, science, infrastructures, happiness, and so on.
The last 40 years?
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Putting you head in the sand (Score:2)
doesn't make anything go away.
Most people don't know how to handle ... (Score:2)
... the internet.
I like just about any other expert here use my real name and contact data for two things, and only those two things:
1) Doing business transactions that require my adjacent partner to have that data (Amazon account, GitHub account, etc.)
2) presenting myself professionally on the internet (Professional website, business mailadress,etc.)
Everything else, and I mean everything else is handled by throw-away accounts that I can drop and migrate within 15 minutes to entirely new ones without missin
All political leanings hate twitter (Score:2)
And yet they won't just go away.
Ladies and gentlemen... (Score:2)
...if your twitter is full of hatred? Maybe you should get better __friends__.
Because I have never, not once, gotten a single angry or hateful DM. Only some crappy edgelords replying poor logic to a comment on some super-popular tweetstorm by some political candidate.
So whatever the hell you're using? You're using it wrong. It's no different than Facebook. "Facebook stresses me out!" Then stop checking it every 15 seconds and stop using it to compare people's highlight-reels to your B-rolls. I check Faceboo
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Although, if I ever did see the N-bomb about a chipset, it'd certainly peak my interest. "What's so special about this chipset that someone would be SO angry as to drop the n-bomb?"
Like Elaine when she finds out the guy she's dating was stabbed by his ex-girlfriend. "I wonder what he could have done to arouse such PASSION in a woman!"
ahahah. damn I'm old.
Problem is (Score:2)
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Because 1) she's a woman and 2) she's terribly oppressed (possibly because she's a woman). Also perhaps because 3) she seems to have some issue where she can't restrain herself from shouting "nazi".
Re:Article required random person's opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather know that a person is a Nazi and that such people exist, rather than just silencing them.
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Patrice O'Neil has a stand-up routine on this. In the old days it was much less confusing, because you could tell racists apart. Now everyone hides it so you can't call people out with certainty.
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Indeed. The problem is not the visibility of these people, the problem is their existence. Unfortunately, fighting them seems to make them stronger. The only thing you can do is stop listening, but that has its own dangers.
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Agreed here. We already have a social media culture that is all about staying in one's small safe bubble of like minded people. Ie, don't add liberal friends if you're conservative, don't add conservative friends if you're liberal, and so forth. Hearing other ideas is a good thing.
Where this breaks down is when "other ideas" turn into hate filled rants, flame wars, death threats, doxxing, and so forth. Parts of human society are not yet mature enough to be able to handle civil discourse and are still stu
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(Disclaimer: This comment may be funny - if you have a sense of humor, sense of irony, or sense of any kind. :^)
And, for Carl, wouldn't "it" be a more correct gender non-specific pronoun than "they"? Just asking.
Re:Twitter can eliminate Nazis... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us Slashdot users don't want to see the comment section flooded with hate speech.
You can easily avoid seeing it by changing your mod-point viewing threshold.
Why can't Slashdot do more to filter the garbage?
Slashdot's filtering system is better than most. Down-modding is superior to banning. Users have control, not a central authority.
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Slashdot's filtering system is better than most. Down-modding is superior to banning. Users have control, not a central authority.
It is but one time I had some mod points and I modded down a troll. I didn't get any more mod points for a very long time. Given Slashdot's official encouragement that you're really supposed to mod up rather than mod down other posters, it sure didn't make me inclined to repeat that experiment.
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Yeah, same. I get a lot of mod points but spending around 10 just to remove the usual header of trolls and botspam doesn't move the discussion into a better place, it's just basic janitorial work.
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Slashdot does seem to remove some comments though. The parent of one of my comments was removed, along with it. Now I can see the comment on my user page [slashdot.org] but not on my comments page [slashdot.org], and clicking the link to the comment itself [slashdot.org] results in an error about not being able to fine the comment. I'm not sure why that part of the thread was removed - it was fairly tame compared to a lot of the crap in comments here. Perhaps it was just a glitch in the database causing it to disappear.
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What is a Nazi?
Definitely hard to know these days with the haphazard way the label get's tossed out at the drop of the hat in a political debate. I get SO tired of the inappropriate, inaccurate, application of the title that has so cheapened the meaning as to make it meaningless now.
The problem here is that the Nazis where a really bad group in the end, doing unspeakable evil on a world wide basis. Calling somebody a Nazi should actually mean something awful to anybody who actually knows history and should be used spa
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Nazis made abortion illegal too, so maybe Nazis were evangelicals? No, makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense about the Nazis was that they were extremists and did not fit on the classical left vs right spectrum. They didn't believe in either social or economic equalities.
The only reason people try to fit Nazis onto the left/right axes is because some people can't think beyond that simplistic idea, and because people like to categorize things into simple boxes.