This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount’s offer is deemed superior
In a development that was predicted by many, Paramount Skydance owned by the Ellison family has derailed the Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros and will acquire the company.
The Ellison family are close, long-time personal friends and business partners with Netanyahu. For example, in 2020 Haaretz reported that Ellison intervened to secure a lawyer to represent Netanyahu in his corruption case. In 2021 Larry Ellison offered Netanyahu a paid role on Oracle’s board. Larry Ellison has widely been described as the largest private donor to the IDF.
With Paramount Skydance now poised to acquire Warner Bros, here is an incomplete list of the properties that now have or will shortly come under ownership of the Ellison Family.
August 2025- Hostile takeover of Paramount:
We saw the immediate fallout from the Ellison family acquisition of CBS News with the installation of Bari Weiss to lead the editorial direction of the company.
Only last month in January 2036 the TikTok algorithm came under the ownership and control of Ellison-owned Oracle, so for practical purposes TikTok should be added to this list:
Now with the impending takeover by Paramount of Warner Bros, these properties will come under the control of the Ellison family:
This is the consolidation of American Media under the Ellison family in just sixth months.
Netanyahu has described International Media as the "eighth front" of Israel's wars, it is wildly intolerable to me that the Trump Administration would permit the consolidation of this breadth of news media into a family with foreign loyalties and foreign ties. The reforms at CBS News and elevation of Bari Weiss also prove a political motive and intent to fight this Eighth Front defined by Netanyahu, which is a front Israel is fighting against the minds of the American People.
At what point do "conspiracies" stop becoming conspiracies and start just becoming recognized as plain reality? All the "conspiracy theorists" predicted from the beginning the TikTok algorithm would be handed to an apparatus loyal to Israel, and that Paramount Skydance would not allow Netflix to win Warner Bros, because they are fighting a geopolitical war and not optimizing dollars and cents.
All of this while the United States mobilizes to fight another war for Israel... but deporting Somalis from Minnesota is just impossible we are told.
Seems like a failson wannabe Hollywood mogul centibillionaire heir wasting a huge amount of his father’s money (and some dumb money from outside investors of a similar caliber) on an industry that’s about to be completely upended by AI.
Smart move for Netflix to walk away, say what you will, these assets won’t be worth $100bn in 5 years.
As to your last point, the person doing more than anyone else to deport Somalis from Minnesota (including almost all gentile GOP politicians) is Jewish.
It actually doesn't seem like that at all, it literally seems like Israeli agents acquiring property to make sure American Media is pro-Israel and pro-Jewish. You can't say "oh they just want to waste their money on clout" to explain Bari Weiss being installed at CBS New, or the political sequence of events that led TikTok algorithm into falling in the lap of Ellison (hundreds of Jewish lobbies lobby for the TikTok ban because TikTok is antisemitic, then the ban happens and Ellison gets the algorithm, that's not "bored billionaires")- which Netanyahu directly identified as the most important development in Israel's eighth-front war. That's not "bored billionaires trying to buy everything" it's something else.
The word 'seems' is doing all the work here.
Does it seem like that? I believe it seems like that to you. But when you spill the milk, it seems to you like it was the dastardly Jews making the handle slippery.
Thus in this case, some Jewish organisations hate TikTok. Okay. But Christian organisations also hate TikTok. Muslim organisations hate TikTok. Secular groups hate TikTok. I hate TikTok. If you cherry-pick everything involving a Jew and then strategically ignore the rest (or assume the rest to have been conned into it by those ever-so-sneaky Jews), it is possible to curate the illusion that Jews are the sole movers of public policy. The ADL hates TikTok too? Get in line.
The common ingredient here isn't Jews so much as it is you. The seeming is in your head, not in the world.
And among those, doesn't "Tiktok is bad because it's antisemitic" stand out like a sore thumb? When they bought Tiktok, did they change it to stop it from being brainrot, or were they completely happy to keep the brainrot as long as it wasn't "antisemitic"?
As far as I'm aware Jewish criticism of TikTok has frequently featured anti-semitism as a theme, but I don't view it as particularly sinister for Jews to be worried about anti-semitism. I think every group is allowed to be worried about people hating them. In this regard as far as I can tell there is no particular difference between Jews and other groups that are often hated on social media. It's true that the Christian and Islamic responses focus more on TikTok and social media being psychologically harmful in a general sense, and personally I think those responses are better. I think the Christians and the Muslims have one up on the Jews in this particular case. (I think the specific Pakistani fatwa against TikTok has a misaimed criticism, and overall I think the Christian responses are the best and most nuanced - but then, I am a Christian, so I may well be biased.)
I should also clarify that I'm not saying that Jewish groups are necessarily right in terms of policy direction - for instance, recently in Australia, Jewish organisations have been strongly in support of new hate speech laws after Bondi, whereas other religious and secular groups have, in my opinion correctly, raised concerns that these laws are rushed and will not help.
But I suppose my position is that insofar as there is lots of anti-semitism on TikTok, I think it is understandable and non-conspiratorial that Jews dislike this and want something to be done about it. I think there is a meaningful difference between that and positing backroom deals or conspiracies among Jewish elites to acquire TikTok.
Even if it is so, it does show that your earlier "there's nothing special about Jews hating TikTok, Christians, Muslims, and Atheists hate it too" is wrong. The latter hate it for universal good reason, the former only for self-interested reasons.
I don't know if I agree that it's understandable either. Between them having a habit of framing any form of criticism as bigotry, and the sort of attacks that they're complaining about being seen as pretty mundane when they're done to other groups, I really don't see why they shouldn't just learn to deal with it like everyone else did.
Even if it was understandable, that doesn't make it non-conspiratorial. They didn't just so happen to offer to buy TikTok, and the Chinese didn't just so happen to accept the offer, this was all a result of pressure from the American government. Once the US forced the sale, they also weren't the ones that just so happened to offer the highest bid in an open auction. This is almost certainly a result of shady elites picking and choosing favorites.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link