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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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What, if any pressure, has the current Whitehouse applied to Reddit, in regards to censorship?

Since it has recently been revealed that the Whitehouse pressures Facebook (and the FBI pressures FB as well), Twitter, Youtube into censoring American citizens, I wonder if similar pressure has been applied to Reddit.

Mod here:

Top level comments in this thread as supposed to have a higher level of effort and length. For this specific comment you could elaborate on the examples of censorship and link to news stories about the censorship. Look at some of the other top level comments in this thread for examples.

Unrelated, I had no idea you jumped backed into the fray of modding. Ice seeing one of the OG crew from SSC days back at it.

Best of luck to you!

Ya, I offered to help during the website transition. I didn't want to see this community dry up, and the modding has always seemed like an important component of themotte.

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The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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