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Ordinarily I wouldn't post personal Reddit drama here, but the thread is slow and I'm mad.
Here is a post that I saw on /r/baseball:
Anthony Bass promoting anti-LGBTQ propaganda on his Instagram
You probably noticed that the thread is locked with a moderator message: "The trolls are flooding in, and the conversation has run its course at this point. Friendly reminder to love your neighbor, and that it's not intolerant to oppose bigotry. Everyone have a nice holiday Monday!"
This message was posted only a few minutes after I was permanantly banned from /r/baseball for comments in that very thread! In fact, I believe they are referring to me as one of the "trolls flooding in". Lets take a look under the hood to see what counts as perma-ban and threadlock-worthy comments.
First, the actual article in question. Anthony Bass is a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. He posted an Instagram story saying Christians should boycott Target and Bud Light. That's it. That's the "anti-LGBTQ propaganda". I posted a top-level comment in the thread sarcastically making this point.
Is this a high-effort comment? No, but if you are familiar with the sports subs at all then you know that this type of low-effort sarcasm is all over the place. That's the posting culture there. I also got involved in another comment thread.
This was the extent of my participation in the thread. I did not expect my comments to be particularly well-received by the Reddit population, but I felt that I pointed out enough legitimate issues that I would be safe from accusations of trolling. I was wrong.
Here is the modmail message I received informing me of my permanent ban, along with the brief conversation we had before they muted me with their absolute power.1 For reference, here are the /r/baseball rules. Would an honest reading of these rules give you any reason at all to think that anything I posted would not be allowed, much less permaban worthy? You would have to be steeped in internet leftist culture to understand that, "Trolling, threatening, harassing, or inciting violence towards individuals or groups will not be tolerated. Racist, sexist, or otherwise intolerant language in both comments and submissions will be removed." means that pointed questions against the progressive consensus will get you tossed out.
I understand why so many subreddits are complete circlejerks now. It's not about echo-chambers and voting dynamics. They literally just banned everyone who disagreed.
1. Here is the source they cited for their "62%" figure. I'll let you decide for yourself whether this poll is applicable
For one, that comment of yours was blatantly false. There's no such thing as "just" telling people to not drink Bud Light, the context of doing so is common knowledge. I would expect more awareness of that on the forum where leftist causes are routinely delved into for any sort of covert allegiance with communism/leninism/pedophilia and whatnot.
Were I a mod there I'd ban you not even because you're a "heretic", but for feigning ignorance.
There's often a point to feigning ignorance: if the censor refuses to state what is banned because doing so would be embarrassing or expose hypocrisy, he's already feigning ignorance. You can then honestly say "by your openly expressed standards, there's nothing wrong with this", because he shouldn't be hiding his standards in the first place.
I think this is such a case. Yes, QF knows what supporting the boycott actually means, but likewise, the moderators know why they're not letting people support the boycott, and they're refusing to say it.
As a complete aside, that feigning ignorance of the true standards is the part of the whole affirmative action debate I find most infuriating. If organizations were required to just say something like, "We, Harvard/Yale/whatever consider you, an Asian, as having lesser worth to our organization on the basis of your intrinsic Asian-ness and as such we'll dock you points compared to individuals of other races that we have judged to provide greater value to our organization when you try to join us," it would, perhaps be not nice, but at least it would be honest. The judgments of the people making these decisions would be laid bare for the rest of society to judge and make decisions based on. There could be honest discussions on whether or not such judgments by such organizations are moral and policy discussions on how much they should be allowed. Yet they insist on continuing to (attempt to) hide the ball. All part of the game, I suppose.
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I don't think that means there isn't "just" telling people not to drink Bud Light or shop at Target or whatever. It just means that when you "just" tell people to do that, you also necessarily include the context of the common knowledge. That doesn't make a message to Christians to boycott Bud Light not "just" telling people not to drink Bud Light; that's still literally "just" what it is.
This seems like quibbling over the definition of "Just". Physically what you're doing is "Just saying words" but this isn't a defense because cognitively, your brain is assigning meaning to those words and wielding them with intent. There is no such thing as Just doing without meaning. Sure. Literally all you're doing observably is Just saying words, sure.
When someone says
I think it's clear enough which of these they mean that we don't have to quibble about their usage of language.
I mean, yes. That's what the whole subthread is about, starting with the claim that the statement was "blatantly false" in the comment to which I was responding. I don't think it's blatantly false. You could say that it's arguably misleading, especially in the context of a Christian boycott of Bud Light and Target being clear "enemy action" from the perspective of partisan Reddit mods, but if there's room to quibble over the words - and there is such room - then it's not the case that it's blatantly false.
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It seems a bit melodramatic to describe telling people not to drink Bud Light using the scary word "propaganda", though.
Pretty much what Scott calls "the worst argument in the world". When I hear the phrase "anti-LGBTQ propaganda", I think of people who want to make sodomy illegal, or gay men being thrown off rooftops, or the promotion of conversion therapy etc. I do not think "public figure urges people not to drink a particular brand of beer".
It doesn't seem melodramatic to me. I mean, everyone knows what the current culture war is, it's clear which actions are enemy action. Propaganda is just the memes the enemy is spreading to further their cause and people are pointing at them.
Regardless of whether you think people should be censoring each other over the direction of their activism to begin with, I think it's perfectly sensible to say "This is clear enemy action" and use the word "Propaganda" for that once you are committed to this sort of combat.
I know this is probably the wrong place to get into a quibble over definitions, but I really don't think "one guy using his personal social media account to back a boycott and encouraging his fans to do likewise" can reasonably be described as "propaganda". I'm aware that the moderators of this subreddit consider it (reasonably) as clear enemy action, but that doesn't answer my question: not everything which is clear enemy action is propaganda. If Anthony Bass had been arrested for beating up a trans person because they were trans, that would also be "clear enemy action" in the "current culture war", but it wouldn't be propaganda. From context it doesn't even seem like Bass was using any memes to further his cause, it sounds like he was just saying "I endorse this cause and you should too". For reference, a pro-LGBTQ meme would be something like "#lovewins" or "born this way" or "trans women are women", while an anti-LGBTQ meme is the "groomer" accusation: it doesn't sound like Bass was saying "if you drink Bud Light you're a groomer", which absolutely would be a meme.
I think /u/QuantumFreakonomics's contention that it was a bit hysterical to frame "a private citizen endorsing a boycott which is contrary to woke orthodoxy" as "propaganda" was fair. The fact that I know what the mods were doing from a game-theoretic perspective doesn't change my assessment that it's hysterical and melodramatic to frame it as such.
The shared message in question isn't just saying not to drink bud light or shop at Target. It never says the g-word, but the phrase "shoving it in children's faces" has pretty unambiguous implications.
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